Time Management Training for Employees [GUIDE]
Not all work teams are built the same. Different people have different skills, but everyone works together to pursue the same goals: productivity and success.
Time management skills can be acquired by everyone when following a solid set of habits. Here’s what you need to know about time management training for employees.
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As a team leader and a team member, it’s crucial to avoid missed deadlines and deals, high overtime costs, and disappointed bosses and clients.
Here’s how you can pass on these productivity tips and help your employees and team members manage their time better.
Time management training for employees: 7 Successful Tips
1. Encourage the use of time-tracking tools
Time tracking is essential to know how much time an employee spends on a specific task. This better notion of time will allow the worker to analyze their performance, manage their shortcomings, and work on improving themselves.
With time-tracking applications like Timeular, the team can spot time-consuming and unnecessary activities and take steps to avoid them or work around them.
They can also avoid taking longer than needed breaks, spending too much time on meetings, or dwelling and wasting time on blocked tasks.
With a time tracking tool, they can also define their time boxes or blocks, guaranteeing a healthy and productive schedule.
Looking for the best time tracking tool for your team? Try Timeular for free
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2. Encourage the use of to-do lists
On every TV show and movie, a person who insists on making lists is often made fun of by people who don’t understand the advantages of making to-do lists.
Why should you encourage your team members to create to-do lists every day? Because it’s an effective time management hack because they’ll be more prepared and organized for the day ahead:
- They won’t leave out any tasks
- They’ll complete them efficiently and have a clearer view of their timeline of things to do.
Starting by making a weekly list is more than fine. A to-do list is a habit like many others and demands time to be part of the routine.
3. Help the employees identify their goals and prioritize
One of the best ways to increase employee productivity and one of the most effective tips for leaders providing time management training to employees is setting goals and priorities.
Establishing realistic goals and priorities is important when managing and organizing time. Managers and supervisors must work with their employees to set daily, weekly, and monthly goals.
The next step is helping the employees evaluate those tasks and organize them based on importance and urgency. It’s also relevant to try and organize the tasks for the time they may take, just to allocate them to certain blocks of time.
This process requires effective communication between the employee and the manager. It’s important to ensure that the tasks/goals are aligned with the company.
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4. Provide tips to manage stress
Many situations, especially unforeseen ones interrupting the workflow, will cause stress, even to the more dedicated employee who follows a to-do list and uses all productivity tools known to mankind.
Such situations of stress will ultimately affect an employee’s ability to do good time management. For this reason, it’s important to include stress management in time management training.
A positive attitude towards interruptions and unforeseen obstacles will help them change their schedule instead of stressing out during such situations.
Get to know the different causes of stress at work.
5. Teach your employees how to delegate
One of the most effective time management training tips for employees is delegating tasks.
Delegating is also a way of prioritizing tasks. It can save valuable time and let employees work on other important tasks.
This is especially applicable to employees in leadership positions with several different projects to manage and other operational tasks related to business administration.
You’re also further educating your team on management skills by teaching and allowing them to delegate.
The Stephen Covey 4 quadrants are one of the best ways to prioritize and delegate tasks. Learn everything about it in our blog.
6. Teach them the most important time management skill
As we’ll explain in the next point, there are periods when we feel the most productive. During these periods, the most important jobs should be done first.
This means teaching employees to find a balance between their priorities and the most productive periods.
In short, they have to master their time. And for that, you can give them the best tips to save time and introduce them to time management techniques.
7. Help the employees balance productivity vs. rest time
Your team may organize their work hours perfectly by dividing tasks into time boxes and effectively managing their time. However, don’t expect them to be at their most productive if they return to work each day stressed or lacking energy.
Encourage your employees to take regular rest breaks throughout the day. To help them, consider establishing wellness habits in the company’s routine.
Balancing productivity with rest time also entails the need to understand when the most productive periods of the day happen. By identifying these, they can schedule important tasks during their effective times, this way managing their performance in a better way.
The most important tasks should be done during the most productive period of the day.
Do you want to know how to divide your tasks into time boxes? Find everything you need to know about timeboxing.
Benefits of teaching time management to employees
Since time management training requires effort and time, it’s important to analyze the benefits of this solution and motivate the workers accordingly.
This training should be taken with genuine interest, not just because the boss said so.
The main benefits of effective time management training include:
- Wasting less and less time – Time management training gives employees more control over their workload. It also ensures they complete their work on time and fight procrastination.
- Improving career opportunities – Managing time successfully gives people a sense of a job well done. This dedication can create a positive impression among employers and help with the workers’ professional development. Time management is a soft skill that future leaders need to have so that workers can look at it as a chance for promotion or a bonus.
- Improving work performance – In a continuation of the former benefit, there is nothing better than a job well done and being rewarded for that. Workers who better manage their time perform tasks more effectively and feel more engaged and motivated to keep on doing better and better.
- Having a better work/life balance – Good time management allows employees to keep their work at the office, even if that’s the home office. Successful time management leads to having more free time to exercise, spend time with family, go for walks, do chores, etc.
Even with this list of benefits, it’s not fair to let possible challenges go unnoticed because they do exist. Time management training is going to require time, effort, and money.
Time management courses need some extra time on the part of the workers, maybe during weekends or after work. Conducting the training during work hours is not impossible, but can be difficult.
To overcome this possible issue, you can work by scheduling time management training classes during the periods when employees are feeling unproductive. Hiring someone to help with the courses demands some investment that the company will have to manage.
Disadvantages that are easily solved, for the benefits far outweigh them.
FAQs
How to track time?
Time tracking is better tracked by the appropriate tools, such as Timeular. Doing this gives you a better sense of your productivity levels and how long you take to complete specific tasks. If you prefer, take note of them manually and insert them in the time tracking template or time tracking tool later.
Choosing the best method for you is related to the reason why you’re tracking time in the first place. Tracking time for productivity reasons, to measure the amount of time one takes performing tasks demands real-time tracking, so keep your tool running while you work.
Are time management courses for managers available and worth it?
If you’re a first-time manager but want to be a good team leader, training in time management is worth the shot.
Gathering more information and knowledge on time management benefits you and your team. Make sure to pass on the knowledge to them.
If you’re not in a manager position, a course can be a great opportunity to gather more skills and go for that promotion or bonus, for example.
Conclusion
As with many other productivity improvements that can be implemented in work teams, superior entities such as managers and team leaders need to provide time management training to their employees.
By doing this, they’re providing tools to their employees to optimize their performance. This will contribute to their satisfaction and motivation.
There is no doubt that effective time management training can boost productivity and contribute to happier work life.
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