Time management training: Best practices for managing time for teams

Optimal productivity is crucial in bringing your business to expand and becoming successful. This can only be achieved when your employees know how to manage their time properly.

Aside from beating deadlines, an employee with effective time management skills can estimate timelines for each task, stick with their timelines, and maintain their work quality at the same time.

If you are looking to improve how your team handles their time, you can organize time management training with the help of your experts on board.

Read more about the best practices in handling time management training and how you can sustain developing your team’s skills beyond it in this article.

Does your team need time management training?

Time management training helps your team manage their time more efficiently and effectively. More than simply getting the job done, it teaches them the concept of doing the best things in the best way possible.

Time management training is essential in managing workload and maximizing your team’s productivity. This can be conducted by a time management coach or a training supervisor with the proper expertise in the concept.

With the abundance of online collaboration tools in the market, more experts are now contesting its effectiveness. 

Some of its ideas, such as goal-setting and prioritizing tasks, are still relevant today; however, most people argue that time management can hold back employees in the knowledge era.

Benefits and challenges of time management training

Time management training can gradually improve different aspects of your team’s work and welfare. Further, it is beneficial for you in terms of the following.

• Stress management. A part of time management training involves daily workload management. This can help your team handle stress at work better, especially when dealing with a high volume of tasks.
• Reduced procrastination. At the same time, time management training helps your team decrease procrastination by giving them control over their workload.
• Better opportunities. Time management training opens the door to better opportunities for your team. The moment they learn how to become efficient at work, they can soon take on new responsibilities and develop their careers.

However, time management training presents several challenges in itself.

For one, it consumes time and effort for both the management and employees. Holding this during weekdays affects your team’s productivity for the day, while training on the weekends can incur additional costs on your part.

At the same time, you have to be tactical when choosing who will participate. It’s better to assign senior staff and managers to time management training so they can simply share their learnings with junior employees.

Different time management training strategies for your employees

Once you decide to organize time management training for your employees, you can incorporate the following strategies they can apply right away.

Goal identification

Goal-setting is a primary aspect of effective time management training. You should teach your team how to select SMART goals to help them set realistic and doable objectives instead of overwhelming ones.

To-do list

Even when you don’t have to teach your team how to create a to-do list, constantly remind them to create one as a way to structure their tasks better.

Prioritizing tasks

There are several ways your employees can prioritize their tasks in a day. You can teach them several strategies for managing their workload, including the Eisenhower matrix, where they will identify which should better be prioritized and delegated.

Time tracking

Introducing a time tracking method or software should be one of your objectives in time management training.

Tips on improving employees’ time management skills

It’s best to help your employees develop their time management skills beyond training. Especially in a remote work environment, poor time management skills can lead to low productivity, reduced quality of work, and overworked staff.

Here are some tips on improving your team’s time management skills. 

Structure your workforce – and workspace

To help your team manage their time more effectively, structure your workforce properly first. Prepare your processes and workflows in a way that’s easy for your team to review and understand.

At the same time, encourage your team to organize their workspace. Having a clutter-free workspace further motivates them to adopt a more organized setup.

Discourage multitasking

As much as they think multitasking can make their work quicker, studies show that it does otherwise.

Discourage your team from multitasking their work by prioritizing tasks according to their urgency, relevance, and other aspects.

Delegate tasks to the most suitable people

Make sure that each task is delegated to the people most capable of doing them. In this case, it’s essential to get to know your team’s strengths in dealing with larger projects. 

Delegating to the right staff can optimize your process further and maximize team productivity, especially when you know they are capable of doing specific functions.

Understand your team’s productivity hours

Your staff might function at different hours of the day than you. Their work schedules can be optimized by using a time clock for employees to improve their productivity and quality turnout throughout the week.

Try to understand your team’s peak productivity hours so they can prioritize tasks better during the times they are at their best performance.

Here’s how you can help your employees manage their time

As their leader, you also have the responsibility to help your employees manage their time and solve any issue they will encounter. The following are some of the ways you can help them manage their time.

Be the example

Always set an example for your team in all aspects, including time management. Practice what you teach your team, from setting goals and priorities to delegating tasks better handled by others.

Lay out proper communication

Communicate with your team as needed during a project. Set communication standards on what concerns should be deemed urgent, so your team won’t be bombarded with overflowing emails and messages.

Get feedback from your team

Sometimes, the processes and systems you set primarily affect overall employee performance. This is why you should get feedback from your team on how your systems go, what can be improved, and how they can adjust to these changes.

Recognize and address the “planning fallacy”

The “planning fallacy” occurs when someone fails to delegate enough time to complete a task, causing delays and schedule adjustments.

Planning fallacies should be addressed by doing the following.

• reaching out your expectations to your team,
• setting realistic expectations, and 
• setting accountability for their tasks.

Organize meetings wisely

Think twice before bombarding your team with meetings. Set your agenda wisely, outline your meeting flow, and notify your team in advance to help them set their schedules and adjust changes as necessary.

Time management training is crucial for your team’s growth

Time management training is still important even when on a remote setup. Along with technology, new challenges continue to arise, affecting how your team structures each day in return.

Indeed, some training modules should be updated and adapted to your organization and structure. Organizing your modules is an optimal way to customize training to fit your needs.

All in all, the only way to ensure the effectiveness of your training is when your staff slowly develops their skills. Continuously guide your team into honing their skills beyond their training to help them become more productive throughout their workday.