How can HR professionals help employees manage their time?

Why HR? You have a manger for a reason, to manage. HR can guide and support a Line Manager to ensuring a mutually beneficial outcome but its the Line Manager that needs to enable actions to support their people

I don't feel it's HR’s job to be Big Brother over employees. While I do see the value in having HR find processes or tools that streamline workflows within departments. To help employees have better processes in place thus saving time. It's all about a company's paradigm. Are they there to help their employees be better? Or to “manage” their employee? I want to work for the company that supports me.

The one big piece that HR professionals can address for their employees in order to help them manage their time is to promote a culture of work-life balance and flexibility at work. By encouraging flexible work schedules, HR helps provide a very healthy culture that allows its employees to accommodate their personal preferences, when needed. This way employees stay more committed and loyal to the organization. By promoting work-life balance, companies help employees to get some downtime for themselves, prevent burnout and have productive time at work.

HR can give his plan but the Head of Departments are the best source to Get the job or Project execution in Timely manner. Organization should hire HR of Different Fields. Then Head Of Departments can be released seems Funny. HR Job is to Hire n Fire as per reports from HODs. Mostly what I experienced that they are mostly good in making salary sheets for management to get it sign and Transfer Funds to Finance for Salary Disbursement. 12 months Evaluation of Head of Departments is most important factor with GPA should be sent to Higher management as well to Encourage best of the Team Players.

HR & Talent teams will almost certainly be able to support leaders to develop their capabilities across the business - those leaders can then support their teams and individuals. Time management (I know many people who can't stand this term) is often something that comes up in 1:1s. An example of what not to say to a team member who has plucked up the courage to tell their boss they're struggling with time is - "try doing my job". It's an invitation for the team member to start searching for a new job.

Timeboxing is an effective method to help people manage time and priorities. Marc Zao-Sanders is a great person to follow to learn about this (he has a book coming out in January on the topic)

Consider the method that you believe will work best for your team or organization (time boxing, task management tools, etc). Do a training followed by a one to three month trial. Have regular checkins/training touch points throughout to make sure things are on track. At the end of the trial, using the data you collected along the way and final feedback, you can determine which "ways of working" work best for you and enable your teams productivity.

Once you establish where the employee is spending time in an unproductive or repetitive task, only then can you properly support how they can become a more efficient employee. For example: - how can you reduce time spent in meetings? - what technology could you incorporate to help them do their job more efficiently? - how can you help them better communicate ways in which they can bring new ideas to help accomplish work objectives

In today's world, where choosing the correct words is emphasized, we often overlook the importance of genuine conversations. It's crucial to begin by offering honest feedback and ensuring a psychologically safe environment for open discussion. This allows everyone to identify issues and desired outcomes that can enhance our organization's success.

Time Management Workshops: HR can organise workshops or training sessions on time management techniques and strategies. These sessions can provide employees with practical tips and tools to prioritise tasks, set goals, and manage their workloads effectively. HR can empower employees to effectively plan and track their tasks and deadlines. HR are a support function and should provide support to employees in effectively managing their time.

The key principle is to genuinely care. When you truly aim to assist, you will succeed. If you prioritize the team, they will recognize and resolve issues. Earn trust and credibility gradually through consistent actions.

It’s important to let employees know that they have a voice, and that offering a different opinion, or an alternate view, is something that is protected and welcomed, so long as it contributes to the overall effectiveness of the work product.

When HR professionals focus on building a culture of empathy, inclusivity, and open communication, they pave the way for teams to thrive. In a supportive environment, employees feel valued and empowered to voice their concerns, ideas, and aspirations. This sense of belonging and psychological safety leads to increased engagement, better mental health, and a stronger commitment to the organization.

Regular one-on-one meetings and substantive discussions are far more effective than the latest flashy tools. focus on the contenct and make sure you have the right discussions

When I began my doctoral program, I was required to take a course on time management. Initially, I felt the course was not necessary as I felt that I was great at managing my time and completing tasks. After the course I realized that it was very useful. Time management is more than completing tasks and being self-proficient. It also is also using your time more wisely and efficiently to get the work completed. You must also accept that you cannot get everything done sometimes. It requires planning, patience, and the realization to accept that you may have to reschedule appoints. I would suggest that HR can provide a workshop that could provide the information and assist employees in resilience, planning, and organizations skills.

Beware of the excess of tools and systems, that can generate the counterproductive effect of overload! We all receive too many pings and alerts during the workday, and we know how distracting it is.

In my experience employees are often not aware of the systems and technologies available at their fingertips! As HR it is our role to support people alongside the IT team to create methods and systems which help them be more efficient. For example, a Google Document can be a collaborative document. Teams can be used to upload and create a cloud based folder for teams. For me personally the best way to manage my time is often through tools and technologies!

With the advent of artificial intelligence engines, such as ChatGPT, companies need to recognize the importance of automation. What Microsoft Excel did five years ago, may not be the most effective means of completing a task today. Furthermore, it’s important to encourage new ideas and let employees know that those ideas have a place

Ensure your team's success in time management by regularly tracking and assessing progress against expected outcomes. Embrace feedback and adjust strategies accordingly to optimize productivity and impact.

Remember to celebrate as well while reaching a milestone. Creating space for recognition and appreciation can works as positive reinforcement and encouragement. In addition, it can help making things “lighter” since monitoring can be perceived (and received) in a negative way by some people. Also it may be insightful to consider cultural behavior while analyzing your results. People can perceive time management in a different way according to their backgrounds, it may be considering take that into account.

In our dynamic workplaces, it's crucial to keep a keen eye on HR strategies, processes, and outcomes. Regular monitoring allows us to track the progress of our initiatives, ensuring they stay on course. It's about staying attuned to employee feedback, market trends, and the ever-changing regulatory environment. We gather data to make informed decisions, pinpoint areas that need improvement, and identify opportunities for growth.

Time management has an art and skill to it. It’s not just about having ‘organisation’ skills. Mastering your mindset is key. It’s about knowing yourself in terms of what time of day the hard tasks need to be done vs your core operating hours; it’s also about knowing when you need focus time to get the big tickets items sorted vs the daily operational things that pop up. These can steer you away from your overall role objective. Knowing what the intention of the role you do is important, what the priorities are vs goals, what the key things are that need to be achieved (OKR vs KPI) with a bit of proactive entrepreneurial flair thrown in. Let’s not forget personal development and a plan that goes with it, that must include self care.

The most successful and happy employees are the ones that are encouraged to use paid time off. Employees need time away in order to come back with fresh ideas, perspectives, and a new appreciation for their work environment.

Encouraging self-care is an investment in your team's well-being and productivity. When we prioritize self-care, we empower employees to manage stress, maintain work-life balance, and nurture their physical and mental health. This, in turn, leads to reduced burnout, increased morale, and higher job satisfaction.

Honestly I don't believe it's HR's job to help employees manage their time. HR's role is to ensure that people managers feel equipped to manage their teams, which of course includes tactical things like managing their time. One of the largest issues we face as a profession is being seen as a proxy for 'management', which at best gets in the way of delivering strategic value to the organization. At worst it turns us into highly paid administrators doing outsourced people management tasks that the business don't want to do themselves.

HR don't play a role in helping employees to manage their time... They can however, be great role models and demonstrate through executing against the values of the business, how it can be done. HR are responsible for the playbook on how to be a great employee and demonstrating to people 'what it takes' to be a great employee... but then it's simply down to effective leadership.

Employees are not children (at least not ours), and HR teams are not parents (at least not to the people they work with). What happened to personal responsibility? This comes down to work ethic, intelligence, and conscientiousness. Work ethic is a derivative of how conscientious a person is, and intelligence is largely inherited. How deeply do you get involved with helping a colleague manage their time? Where do you draw the line? Give them the training and the tools, with a mentor to bounce ideas off, but for goodness sake don't do away with the concept of personal responsibility! Manage your own time, and come to me with the voids you identify in your workload, skills, and experience that if improved will help you work more efficiently.

If HR focuses its energies on how employees spend their time, they will never actually have the capacity to build a people strategy that aligns with their business strategy. What HR is responsible for is determining what add value work looks like within a company’s people strategy and continuously reminding the business what those things are and what they aren’t. Not to mention, it’s a manager’s responsibility to make sure their employees are focused on the right deliverables- not HR. If that doesn’t happen, HR becomes a “dumping ground” and all they do is triage and blocking and tackling. Life is about trade-offs- and prioritizing the right work will move the big rocks within your company/organization.

Time management and effectiveness have everything to do with prioritization. Employees need to ruthlessly prioritize everything they do, be empowered to say no, and have difficult conversations to allow them to manage their workload. HR's role is in designing effective organizations and enabling employees to take on difficult conversations more naturally.