Situation
Varun is working for a formal organisation called Antlia Stars. Varun works as an analyst for a
stock brokerage firm with a team of five people who all report directly to the AVP .The company
has 80 employees, and everybody works in a shared workspace. Varun lives in a small family of
three, which is him, his wife, and their newborn daughter.
Varun has not been able to complete his tasks in the given time periods. He stays late in the
office to complete the tasks given to him, but he has another responsibility as a father and a
husband at home. He fails to manage the time effectively.
Problem Statement
Varun’s boss is worried due to Varun's falling efficiency and is worried that Varun will quit his
job. This is not limited to Varun; many employees in the organisation are not able to manage
their time effectively. With different spheres of growing responsibilities at work and home, often
employees are not able to manage their time effectively. Time management problems among
employees reduce the efficiency of the organisation, increase occupational stress, and lead to
employees quitting their jobs or getting fired. In this, we come up with a solution for poor time
management among employees.
Poor Time Management
Time management can be defined as clusters of behavioural skills that are important in the
organisation of study and course load (Lay & Schouwenburg, 1993). It is the ability to plan and
control how someone spends the hours in a day to effectively accomplish their goals. Time
management is beneficial for the employees as well as for the organisation. It increases the job
performance of the employee. According to Campbell (1990), job performance represents the
behaviours employees engage in while at work that contribute to organisational goals. Job
performance is one of the most common forms of productive behaviour, according to our
textbook (Organizational Psychology, Steve M. Jex and Thomas W. Britt, 2014). employee gets
more time for his other responsibilities and activities. Time management offers individuals the
means to structure and control their activities (Claessens, van Eerde, Rutte, & Roe, 2004).
Poor time management in employees occurs when an employee is not able to manage the tasks
given to them in the given time period. Employees fail to prioritise their time effectively. This
may cause occupational stress, wounds in relationships, and personal financial and social
problems. At the organisational level, it is important to manage your time effectively since it
leads to counterproductive behaviour. Counterproductive behaviour will be defined as behaviour
that explicitly runs counter to the goals of an organisation (Organizational Psychology, Steve M.
Jex and Thomas W. Britt, 2014). It decreases the overall productivity of the organisation, which
at macroscale leads to a reduction in profits for an organisation. The organisation may not
tolerate this behaviour and it may lead to the employee's termination.
Solutions
Motivation to Employees
According to Kanfer (1990), motivation is a hypothetical construct; we cannot see or feel it.
(Steve M. Jex and Thomas W. Britt, Organizational Psychology, 2014). Motivation plays an
important role in the psychology of an individual. Motivation for completing tasks on time can
be very effective through social groups of individuals and through bosses. An increase in
incentives to complete tasks can also be a form of motivation. Time management, job
satisfaction, and motivation have an empirical relationship. They all go hand in hand, according
to a study among teacher educators in university departments, institutes, and faculties of
education in the Sindh province of Pakistan (2017).
Promotion of Positive Habits
Kelly (2002) proposes that examining time use efficiency involves three primary assumptions: an
awareness of time, an awareness of the elements that fill time, and positive working habits.
Positive habits are essential since they have a positive effect on you psychologically, which will
keep you calm and less distracted, hence more oriented towards your task. Positive habits include
personal hygiene, positive socialising with others, developing skills, and taking good rest. This
all leads to the brain working faster, and hence individual efficiency increases. This can also be
seen in the Global Journal of Business Research, 2015, pp. 39–48, where the relationship
between attitude, ethics, initiative, interpersonal skills, personal development, teams, leadership,
time management, focus, rules, and workplace habits affecting productivity is shown.
Avoiding Workplace Distractions and Procrastination
Distractions can have a negative effect on the effectiveness of an individual. Distress can cause
physical or mental exhaustion, both of which waste time. Kelly (2002) proposes that examining
time use efficiency involves three primary assumptions: an awareness of time, an awareness of
the elements that fill time, and positive working habits. One must be aware of the time to
efficiently work and should know what thing or person can cause distraction to oneself; hence,
one should avoid the thing or person. Online distraction has been on the rise recently, and some
solutions include snoozing your device during work hours or using website blockers. These are a
few effective solutions, stated in the conference of UbiComp '17: Proceedings of the 2017
ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings
of the 2017
Workplace procrastination is a phenomenon where people unnecessarily postpone dealing with
work-related tasks. This phenomenon is prevalent and can lead to serious issues both for the
people who procrastinate as well as for their employers. Procrastination can create a vicious
cycle, causing tasks to pile up. This can lead to occupational stress and pressure from employers.
Workplace training for understanding the importance of time management and avoiding
procrastination can be effective, as verified in the journal Procrastination at Work and Time
Management Training, The Journal of Psychology (2003), where the control group of n = 14
showed a significant increase in avoidance behaviour and worry and an increase in their ability
to manage time.
References
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● Wendelien Van Eerde, (2003). Procrastination at Work and Time Management,
Training, The Journal of Psychology.
•
● Adams, R. V., & Blair, E. (2019). Impact of Time Management Behaviors on
Undergraduate Engineering Students’ Performance.
•
● Sahito Zafarullah. Väisänen Pertti. (2017). Effect of Time Management on the Job
Satisfaction and Motivation of Teacher Educators: A Narrative Analysis.
International Journal of Higher Education, (2) .
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● 2017. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive
and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International
Symposium on Wearable Computers. Association for Computing Machinery, New
York, NY, USA.
•
● Adams, R. V., & Blair, E. (2019). Impact of Time Management Behaviors on
Undergraduate Engineering Students’ Performance
•
● Webber, Jon K. and Ser, Elliot M. and Goussak, Gregory W (2015), Work Habits
as Positive and Negative Influence on Workplace Productivity . Global Journal of
Business Research.
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