Time Management Systems

Develop A Time Management Culture

As a business owner, you’ve got to set time management system rules that are set in stone, not flexible and interpreted. If your work days begins at 8 a.m., that means that all your employees will be expected to be at their desks at that time, not wandering in from the parking lot, or hanging out at the coffee machine. Rules concerning expectations must be written up and posted at employee bulletin boards, or included in employee training manuals. Some discipline will be necessary. Nothing will catch the eye of an employee faster than a deduction in his or her weekly paycheck for not adhering to the rules you set.

Employees, after all, don’t have a business owners mentality. If they did, you’d be working for them. Instead, most have an employee mentality, which means that they have a vague notion that they must show up in order to be paid, and some won’t believe that you expect them to work all day without excessive coffee breaks, playing games on the company computer or surfing the net at your time and expense.

Check Your Time Wasting Techniques

Every business develops time wasting methods that creep into daily productivity.

Meetings

Meetings that run over their allotted time cut into others tasks that need to be done by your staffers. Most often the causes of long meetings is a lack of organization or poor planning on the part of your managers. Meetings must start on time and not be delayed by those that straggle in late with no excuses other than “Time got away from me.” Not all meetings are productive and certainly not all meetings are necessary. Many can be cancelled in lieu of a well-written memo or company email outlining all the points involved.

Email

Brevity is the key to effective email. Long-winded multi-page missives make employees groan and are often ignored. Establish rules to enforce brevity. If it can’t be said on one page, why send it at all?

Telephone

So too with telephone calls. They can be long-winded and tedious when listening to someone ramble on before they briefly encounter a point that they want to make. Ditto with voice mail. Nothing gets deleted faster than a voice mail that doesn’t come to the point. Other time wasting phone techniques include calls not returned promptly or at all, and frequent personal phone calls.

Unnecessary Waiting

Waiting for the use of a fax machine, copy machine, or for someone to get off the phone to speak to them are all huge time wasters. Establish a policy that if a machine is in use, come back, or set a schedule where various departments can use a machine at a scheduled time. If someone is on the phone, indicate that you’ll come back and do so.

Equipment failures

Nothing frustrates a business owner more than equipment that breaks down, leaving valuable employees adrift while waiting to get their tech equipment fixed.

Supply Shortages

Added to this category are supplies that run dry because someone forgot to order replacements. Establish a procedure of a checklist for everyone to use when supplies run low, and task one employee to be responsible for supply ordering.

Use Your Time Management System

A time management system can be established to do the following

• Establish telephone usage and limit personal calls
• Require incoming call to be picked up no later than the second ring
• Respect company visitors’ time and don’t allow them to wait in the lobby
• Establish that shorter is better when it comes to meetings.
• Incorporate technology like GoToMeeting.com that can shorten or eliminate travel time and its costs
• Design and implement system controls employees can use to notify appropriate team leaders about equipment maintenance or problems
• Encourage employee accountability and going the extra mile: if a phone rings, answer it. If the trash needs dumping, dump it.
• Reinforce that break times are limited and lunch hours are not extendable for both employees and management