5 Truths About Healthy Time Management for HR Leaders
One of the biggest problems that can be found in any business today: is so-called time management skills.
This is true whether your team is on-site, hybrid, or remote.
Readers of this blog want their teams to be passionate and dedicated, yes—but we also want teams that know how to prioritize and manage their time while working, too.
Here are 5 realities about healthy time management—for HR professionals specifically—that we’ve
learned as a 100% remote company:
1. BATCH TASKS OR ACTIVITIES TO BE
MORE EFFICIENT
One of the ways leaders can save time is to batch certain activities or work together. People often refer to this as “batching” or simply “time batching”,) but there may be another name for this strategy to set aside a block of time for a certain project.
When you put work into batches, it becomes easier to see progress and feel a sense of
accomplishment. This structured approach reduces the chaos of juggling multiple types of tasks simultaneously, lowering stress levels and promoting a more manageable and balanced workload.
Compare this with multitasking, a common approach to managing multiple responsibilities, which can reduce productivity by as much as 27.5%, according to Zoomshift. Furthermore, it can cost an individual approximately 6 hours of lost productivity each week (2). This underscores the
importance of HR leaders promoting focused work environments and tactics like batching activities
to stay focused.
One example: perhaps you’re an HR professional ready to send out updated labor laws to staff to
review. You could dedicate time to reviewing the latest policies, ensuring compliance, and any fillable posters that need to be filled in. Next, you’d send those posters out to staff to sign. All of this
would be more efficient since you’d be minimizing the cognitive load associated with task-switching.
Another example: You could block out specific times to process payroll, review benefits enrollment, and handle employee inquiries related to compensation or benefits.
All in all, maybe for you (or those you are leading), you can use this strategy for a certain client or maybe it’s dedicating a certain block of time to a project. Whether the case may be, doing as much
as you can for just one project (or just one activity) is a great way to reduce distraction and to
streamline how you work.
2. MANAGE YOUR ENERGY AS AN HR PRO
Instead of thinking about how you manage time in your day, consider how you manage your energy
each day as an HR leader. After all, your energy isn’t unlimited. You only have so much energy in one day, so this can add structure to your day so you do tasks that require more mental energy
sooner in your day—or, if you are an afternoon or night-time person, perhaps that’s later in your
day.
Once you understand their natural rhythms, you can schedule high-priority or complex tasks during
their peak energy periods and reserve less demanding tasks for times when their energy dips.
People who have been working for years do this naturally many times, but keep this in mind when
working with younger generations or people new to your company. They might not have learned this
yet, so you can offer up advice to them to help them structure their day so they match up tasks with their energy levels and so they don’t burn out, either.
Another way you can manage energy is through managing stress levels. Chronic stress is a major energy drain. As an HR leader, you can “model the way” by incorporating mindfulness practices, such as meditation, deep breathing exercises, or yoga, into your routine. These can be very beneficial to you and to others in the organization.
3. REDUCE MEETINGS
Every organization is going to have a different kind of cadence and norm, but challenge the status
quo of how often you meet. Oftentimes, organizations can become reliant on recurring meetings that have no purpose, yet they pull people out of work for several hours.
Use this guide to help you minimize unproductive meetings:
Make sure every HR-related meeting has a desired outcome (where you can). If you aren’t sure what you are meeting about, it might not be a relevant meeting. Remember that if you are interrupting and pulling people away from work, you want to be sure there is a clear reason for doing so.
Make sure each meeting has a lead or “owner.” Ever been on a conference call with dozens of people and you aren’t sure who is leading the meeting? If there is no one at least somewhat leading the meeting, it could be a sign there is an issue.
Ensure that everyone has a role in the meeting. Meetings are productive when people bring contributions, updates, or relevant findings or information to those meetings. It sounds obvious, but make sure anyone included on a meeting invite is contributing in some way to that meeting.
That means there needs to be a clear expectation that anyone invited to a meeting should be prepared for that meeting. If they have nothing to share, then maybe they don’t need to be included in the meeting. Remember that depending on how long the person has been with your company or what organization they may come from, that might not be a clear expectation, so be sure that’s known if your team adopts that mentality.
Don’t (always) default to a meeting. Sometimes when there is confusion or a decision needs to be made, it’s effective to have a meeting to have healthy dialogue and debate over the right course of action. But make sure you don’t always default to a meeting every time there is a decision or a problem. It’s going to depend on your culture, but be sure meetings don’t become some form of busywork.
4. BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF ABOUT
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO “NOW”
Debbie Millman, a prolific writer, designer, educator, artist, and host of the podcast “Design Matters”, said it best when she talked about how many of us don’t prioritize what matters most. She argues that many times, we use excuses to explain why we can’t do something that we say we
want to do. She says:
”Of the many, many excuses people use to rationalize why they can’t do something they say that they want to do, the excuse “I am too busy” is the least likely to be true. I don’t believe in “too busy.” I think that “busy” is a decision. We do the things we want to do, period. If we say we are too busy, it is shorthand for “not important enough.” It means you would rather be doing something else that you consider more important...” - Debbie Millman
Her point is this: when we say we’re too busy for something, in many circumstances, it may just be an excuse. We all have to decide to be honest with ourselves about what we want to do, and what we intend to do, and it’s up to us to make time for the things we care about. It’s not always as simple as that, but a reflection on prioritization and true sources of why we are procrastinating can go a long way.
Reflecting on this idea, you can ask:
Are there HR areas you can streamline or simplify?
Are there strategic initiatives that are being sidelined because you are caught up in day-to-day operations?
Are there programs that can cut down on redundant tasks you do?
Is there anything you ought to be delegating or automating?
5. TURN IT OFF
We can focus so much on all the tactics or strategies that help us with time management, but one of the best ways to be able to be as productive as possible is to be sure we unplug and that we stop working each day. One of the benefits to this is that, as an HR leader, you’re also modeling this for your staff.
Did you know that a study of Americans found they we check our phones as much as 80 times a day? (1) And for remote workers, this can be even more of a problem.
A few ways you may want to adopt this mentality include:
Stop working on anything related to work (even thinking about work) at least 1.5 hours before you plan on going to sleep.
Take a lunch break every day— that means no multi-tasking or working while you eat.
Set boundaries as to how much you work (which is especially important for hybrid or
virtual workers, who may find this challenging).Take short breaks—possibly to walk—during the day, without technology.
In Conclusion...
In conclusion, being an HR leader isn't just about managing time effectively—it's about leading by example and demonstrating what it looks like to prioritize strategically and with intention. When you’re equipped to focus on what truly matters, you not only increase your effectiveness but also inspire others in your organization to do the same.
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Source
1. https://open.buffer.com/disconnect-devices/
2. https://www.zoomshift.com/blog/time-management-statistics/
