Managing a department of people is challenging; with a range of different personalities, approaches to work, and varying skill levels, it can be no easy feat trying to organise everyone within your department while finding the time for your own work. It can be even more stressful when working in such a busy department as human resources, as there is a constant demand for service and just as much work comes in as you complete. Before too long, even if your time is effectively managed, tasks can start to pile up on top of each other, and you may find yourself working through your lunch break or during unscheduled work hours in order to keep afloat.
If this situation sounds all too familiar, you may benefit from evaluating how you complete and plan daily tasks so that you can make the most out of your workday. Doing so doesn’t have to be difficult, so we’ve compiled a list of several time-effective solutions for HR managers to help you optimise your workload and complete scheduled tasks quicker.
Automate Routine Tasks Wherever Possible
Often HR managers fail to save themselves time by not recognising the potential that a HR platform has for optimising their workflow. HR professionals’ workloads are often comprised of mundane, routine tasks, which can be made more straightforward by automating them to have more free time to concentrate on more strategic tasks. Alongside helping with the more repetitive, routine side of human resources, you can find platforms that support a variety of business aspects such as absence management, performance management, staff management, and much more. You’ll even find that HR software supports holiday management, another task that occupies a lot of HR professionals’ time. Take a look at leading providers such as myhrtoolkit to find out more about how this software works, and how you could look to implement it into your business. Browse their website for full-service offerings and find out how their online HR system can provide you with time saving solutions.
Delegate Jobs To Others
Being the manager of a department doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to do everything. Sometimes, it can be more time-effective for HR professionals to delegate the smaller jobs to others within the department. Start by assigning the larger jobs to yourself or other individuals in leadership or management positions, and administer smaller, more routine jobs to juniors or even newer members of staff who might be looking to prove themselves. Although it can be tempting as a manager to accept every job that comes your way, part of looking after yourself and your team is balancing your workload and knowing when you’ve got your hands full or not. So ensure that you utilise your team and their skill sets by allocating jobs to others whenever possible, giving you more time to concentrate on more strategic tasks instead of wasting it on smaller jobs.
Maintain A Clean Workplace And Reduce Distractions
A direct correlation has been found between productivity and a clean working environment that is free of distractions, as untidy workplaces can lead to items getting misplaced or lost, which is ineffective for time management. So ensuring that you keep your desk/workstation tidy is a perfect, time-effective solution for HR professionals. Strive to do this by putting all files, documents, and rubbish away or in the bin after you’ve finished with them. Also, try to resist the temptation to let loose paperwork build up in a big pile on your desk, as finding anything will present a much more difficult challenge and cause you to lose precious minutes of time. Try to get into the habit of minimising, purging, and organising to avoid your working environment getting cluttered; you’ll soon find that it’s easier for you to concentrate on the task at hand as well as helping you to be more time-effective. In this vein, it can be really helpful to go paperless as much as possible, instead using digital documents and software for more secure access to documentation that is up to date.
Rethink Meetings
If you’re based in a physical office, it might be wise to rethink how your department approaches meetings and whether there is a more time-efficient method for them that you could introduce. Suppose that you hold all your department-wide meetings face-to-face. In that case, you could consider having some virtually via platforms such as Zoom. This means that if people are working remotely, you can schedule the meeting for any day at any time, and it will minimise the amount of time spent waiting for people to arrive. You might decide only to hold physical meetings when something urgent arises, or perhaps once every month, and continue using virtual meetings for your weekly gatherings. All in all, rethinking how you spend your time during meetings is a valuable suggestion as you may not realise how much time you lose, so that you can devise ways around busy periods and become more time-effective.
