Time management

Overview
• In this lesson you will learn how important it is to manage your time
and energy properly for you to be efficient in your work.

• You will be taught how to identify your personal management style to

make the best of your skills as a manager.
Introduction
• like money, time is both valuable and limited.
• Time must be protected, used wisely, and budgeted.
• People who practice good time management techniques often find
that they:
• Are more productive;
• Have more energy for things they need to accomplish;
• Feel less stressed;
• Are able to do the things they want;
• Get more things done; and
• Relate more positively to others.
Good time management and defining goals
What is time management?
• Time management involves allocating a realistic amount of time to an
individual task.

Reasons of allocating a timeline to tasks

• to be able to track your progress and determine if you are effectively using
the time you have available to you
• if there are tasks that you could be completing in less time than you have
been doing
• Time is a finite resource.
• The concept of time is more than just seconds, minutes and hours. A
work day and a work week have a set number of hours.
• Your routine tasks can be allocated a number of hours, days, weeks or
months in which they need to be completed.
• Project goals can be set in terms of:
• short-term;
• medium-term; or
• ongterm time allocations- long-term time allocations - months or sometimes
even years may be needed to complete a task or project.
• In the extension context, routine tasks can include seasonal tasks.
• For crop farmers it will be the time they prepare the fields, when
they plant the crops, how long the crops take to grow and then the
time taken for harvesting.
• In a livestock farming context, routine tasks will include animal
vaccinations, managing breeding seasons, when to wean the young
animals, and how long it takes for animals to grow heavy enough for
market.
• Your job as extensionist will be to help farmers manage their routine
farming tasks so that they can get the best production in the most
efficient way.
Some of the main time wasters in the workplace
1. Lack of planning and organization
- Planning and organizing your time will help you know what you
need to do and allow you to systematically complete all your
tasks.
2. Procrastination
-. the biggest time thief and leads to crisis management and stress
that could have been prevented.
- can steal your time as extensionist, when you put off doing
regular farm visits to get feedback from the farmers you work with. If
you delay taking action in a situation where the farmer might otherwise
benefit from a new technology or a change in how they do things, you
will also be wasting valuable time.
Some of the main time wasters in the workplace

3. lack of delegation
- Delegation can help you to reduce your workload and allow
more tasks to be completed in a shorter time, without compromising
the quality of the work.

4. Interruptions
- Constant interruptions by phones or meetings cannot always be
avoided, but knowing when to take calls and have meetings will help
you be more productive
• Good time management starts with being aware of how much time
you have available to allocate to a particular task or project.
• Is the task or project urgent?
• Does it require time-consuming activities such as research or distant travel to
gather information?

• Set realistic deadlines for individual tasks to be completed

• be aware of how quickly you are able to complete a task, depending what the
demands are.
• For example:
- there is usually a minimum time you need to allow for a crop to grow
to maturity or for an animal to be ready to breed.
These are set times that you cannot make less, and you will need to work
around this.
If possible:
- delegate individual tasks to others so that there are more hours available to
complete a project than there would have been had you worked on completing the
tasks alone.

-Delegating tasks can be useful if you find you have many farmers to visit but you will
not have enough time to get to everyone.

- Send your colleagues to specific areas to cover more ground than if you tried to do
everything on your own.

- make time for feedback sessions with these colleagues so that everyone has all the
information they need for decision making.
• On a personal level,
• balance your work and leisure time will leave you feeling more relaxed and
productive in your work.
• plan your time carefully to be able to allow yourself some time to focus on
things that help you better cope with stressful situations that sometimes arise
when you are manager.
• Being efficient and thorough in completing the tasks you are assigned, or have
assigned, means that you will minimize the number of work hours spent on
that task.
• Delegating tasks so that many people work on a project at the same time can
have the same effect.
• Every person will devote a relatively small amount of time to one task as part
of completing the bigger project, which shortens the time it takes to complete
than if each task had been done in sequence
Defining goals
• Defining goals in life or in career will help you decide how best to
allocate your time to the various activities that will help you achieve
these goals.
• To define your goal;
• you will need to describe your dreams.
• What is it that you have always wanted to do in life or in your career?
• Spend some time identifying regrets you have in life or in your career.
• What opportunities did you miss out on?
• What would you have liked to achieve by this point in your life or career?
What would you have liked to do differently?
To define your goals clearly;

You will need to articulate them:

• Write them down.
• Be specific about what it is you wish to achieve and how you
want to achieve it.
• Add a timeline to the goals.
• Allocate a realistic amount of time to each task to track your
progress as you work towards achieving your goal.
Analyzing energy allocation
• how best to spend your energy and the energy of your staff?
• how to ensure good energy flow by task analysis, and effective time
usage?
• What is the concept of energy?
• Energy, can be renewed if given the opportunity for it.
• Energy resources in this context refer to the emotions, body, mind and spirit
of a person.
• Adjusting the habits and behaviors of the workforce can promote their well-
being as they engage in activities that will renew their energy reserves.

• staff members need enough time to recharge and relax so that they can continue to
engage in their work with enthusiasm and focus.
Ensuring good energy flow in the
workplace
• a manager needs to ensure that the tasks to delegate are given to the
people who are best suited to complete the task because they have
the skills and the time to work on it.
For example:
• identify someone in your organization who is skilled in dealing with
livestock farming.
• Identify an area where farmers need some, ask an employee to go
visit those farmers.
• There may also be areas where language can be a barrier. If you have
an employee in your organization who is fluent in certain languages,
you may want to delegate such visits to them.
• analyze how time is used in the workplace for you to identify if your
staff are working a reasonable number of hours to complete the given
tasks.
• This will help you identify if they are wasting time or if they have not been
given enough time to avoid stressful working conditions.
• If you are managing other extensionists, make time for regular feedback
meetings and keep track of their farm visit schedules to see if they are using
their time wisely or if changes are needed
• If you see your staff members are consistently working long hours and
productivity is declining, analyze if they are making time to engage in
activities that will benefit their energy levels.

• Reconsider how you delegate tasks to make sure the workload is fairly
distributed according to the capability and skills of each staff member
Identifying personal style

Introduction
• A good manager reviews his/her work at the end of the day to know
how much they have accomplished for a program or project.
• By doing this constant evaluation, they get to know their strengths and also
the motivators and elements that lead to wasted time.
• This will help them improve their negotiation and delegation skills.
• It will also help them select tools that work better in their management to
create an action plan to evaluate the whole time management process of the
organization
The importance of self review in management

• To identify areas where you might need to improve your time

allocation for certain tasks.
• To identify where your personal strengths are.
• If you are doing something that you are not very good at doing, it will take
you much longer to complete.
• Identify your personal motivators.
• How are you best motivated to start and complete a task?
• Analyze what your preferences are in the tasks you do.
• Remember that procrastination is the biggest time waster
The importance of self review in management
• By evaluating the time management process of a project, you will be able to
identify where you were wasting time unnecessarily.
• Did you perhaps not plan meetings well enough to give you enough time for
other tasks that needed your attention?
• Though self-evaluation will also be able you to:
• see if there are tasks that you should delegate to increase productivity.
• set up an effective action plan to help you manage your time more
effectively.
• see which tasks are best delegated to people who will get the job done
quickly and do it well
Human resource management
Overview
• This lesson deals on:
• introduction to the human resources function and related elements and
activities.
• the roles and functions of members of the human resources department.
• Emphasis is placed on the modern day importance of human resource
management (HRM) and the new corporate view of the function.
• practical situations where there is a need for employee counseling, discipline
and termination.
• the role of HRM in providing services to you or to those who work under you.
Human Resource Management (HRM) Functions

• Human resources- is the workforce employed in an organization.

• Responsibility of HRM
• Managing all aspects related to the staff of an organization.
• To make sure the right type of person is employed by an organization and
that, moving forward, employees are performing at a level that is in line with
the organization's objectives.
Human resource management functions
• job analysis
• Recruiting and hiring the correct staff for specific positions
• managing wages, salaries, benefits and incentives
• evaluating employee performance and resolving disputes.
• responsible for training employees so they can add value to the organization.
• deals with employees across all levels in an organization.

In the extension context, HRM will:

• recruit people who hold the required degrees or diplomas in agriculture.
• evaluate if candidates are suited to working well with people, and if they will be
available to travel long distances as consultants in rural areas.
• Some recruits may be more suited to in-house advisory services, where they help the managers
of the organization in decision making related to the project’s implementation
In the extension context, HRM will:

• monitor staff turnover within an organization.

• This is linked to job satisfaction and enrichment.
• If employees are leaving because they are unsatisfied in the workplace, it is
the duty of HRM to investigate how they can improve job satisfaction moving
forward to increase staff retention.

Staff turnover: This is a term that describes how often an employee in a specific
job is replaced by someone new.

Job satisfaction: To feel happy in the work that you do in an organization. Staff
retention: To keep the same employees working in an organization for a long
time.
• Part of HRM is firing and supervising all employees.

• Performance appraisals are a method of assessing if an employee is

performing satisfactorily within their job according to the organization's
objectives.

• It can determine whether they should be promoted, rewarded with a bonus,

transferred to another department or office, or fired
Organizational theories and human resources
• HRM will adopt a people-oriented management style for the simple
reason that their purpose in an organization is to manage people and
monitor how the working environment affects productivity and job
satisfaction.
• The work environment encompasses everything from:
• interpersonal relationships in the workplace
• workload and the rewards an employee can expect for effort put into their
work.

• HRM must be able to assist employees in maintaining their emotional and

physical well-being while employed in an organization.
HRM assistance includes:

• skills training in specific areas (conflict management or skills

development)
• access to various health professionals if there is a need for it.

For extensionists:
• Conflict management training ( in dealing with many different personalities
and social structures within specific communities).
• They will need to be able to help the farmers make changes in a non-
threatening way and be able to work with a community in their upliftment.
Current issues and trends in HRM
• HRM needs to be equipped to sufficiently prepare employees to
handle globalization.
• employees will need to be trained adequately to adapt to working under
international conditions.

• Increasing diversity in the workplace means there will be people of

different ages, genders, ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, religious
beliefs etc. all working together.

• HRM needs to adapt their approaches to encourage a harmonious

working environment for all groups within the modern workforce.
Globalization: When organizations operate on an
international scale and start to develop
international influence.

Harmonious: To work together without conflict

Legal implications of human resource management
Introduction

• It is important that HRM is equipped to settle disputes or similar matters according

to the rules and regulations outlined by law.
• Employment law and employee rights HRM must perform its duties in keeping with
employment law and employee rights at all times.
• Employees are required to be informed of their rights in the workplace, and this task
falls within the duties that HRM has.
• It is important that employees are compensated fairly for the work they do in the
position they hold for them to have job satisfaction.
• Employee compensation also becomes important in the event where the employee
is retrenched or their contract is terminated.
• Depending on the situation, HRM must follow the correct procedures according to
law when terminating employment to prevent legal action against the organization.
• In the event where employees are injured while doing their work,
HRM is responsible for doing all the administrative work for the
employee so that they can be compensated for any medical costs
incurred or wages lost due to the injury

• The terms and conditions of different situations are governed by

employment law and can differ for different job sectors.
• It is therefore important that employees are made aware of their rights
relevant to their field.
• Retrenched: A term used to describe termination of employment when
an organization is forced to reduce its staff due to difficult economic
conditions.

Labor relations
• an important function of HRM
• It deals with managing the terms and conditions of employment within an
organization with the vision of creating relationships that are free of conflict
between management and their subordinates.
• It is also important in creating productive working environments and ensuring
fair treatment of staff.
• It is the responsibility of HRM to ensure that employees have access to equal
employment opportunity positions.