Try these best practices!
Too often new managers are not provided the skills they need to effectively learn how to manage their time and the time of their staff. This is common especially when a new manager is moving from an individual contributor role to a supervisory role with no past experience managing others. This can be overwhelming to new managers! They are suddenly thrust into a role that has more responsibility and now are also responsible for the success of a team.
Here are some best practice tips to help any new manager better manage their time and the time of their staff in order to accomplish goals and objectives of the workgroup/department:
- At the beginning of each week prioritize what needs to be accomplished and share this information with staff. Prioritize by considering:
- What must be done immediately because it is customer-impacting or is urgent for another reason
- What is important to achieve a weekly or monthly goal
- What is important in terms of achieving a longer-term objective
- Make a “to do” list every day! At the top will be the high priority, value added tasks that must be done in order to achieve goals. Keep the “to do” list to no more than 5 – 8 items to be completed in any given day. This number will shift depending on the day. A day of meetings may mean you can only accomplish 2 – 3 tasks on that particular day.
- Spend some time each day checking in with staff to ensure they are working on the right assignments at the right time to accomplish goals/objectives
And a couple more ideas to better manage your time and the time of your staff:
Evaluate processes used to get work done. As employees learn better ways of accomplishing their work, share that information among the group so that everyone can benefit from the knowledge. On at least a yearly basis, work with employees to understand how processes might change to better accomplish the work of the group.
Learn about your employees – their strengths and development areas, their interests and professional goals. Delegate those tasks that are better accomplished by your staff so you can focus on higher priority, strategic work. You can effectively delegate work only after you understand your staff and their strengths. Delegate the right work to the right people which enables you to accomplish goals of the workgroup/department and provide opportunities for staff.
