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Time Management 101 for HR Professionals

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As improbable as it may sound, you can wrest control of your time, and your workday, back from the chaos that reigns at even the best-managed workplace.

Here are 4 tips that, when implemented consistently, will mean a world of difference to your productivity and sanity. I will be the first to admit that they are not rocket science – far from it – but I urge you to actually try them before dismissing them as overly simplistic.

1. Put some limits on your open-door policy. Of course you need to be accessible to your employees and higher-ups. But this doesn’t mean they should be allowed to interrupt you anytime, all day long.

Establish regular, set office hours during which people are encouraged to drop in (physically or virtually) with questions, or just to say hi. And also establish (and publicize) “do not interrupt” times when the door is closed, someone else is in charge of answering the phone, and you are getting things done.

During these times, make it clear that you are unavailable unless there’s a true emergency (such as the epic coffee pot flameout of 2022, or whatever the equivalent is at your workplace).

2. Batch tasks. We lose a lot of time and mental focus when we shift gears between different activities – think about when you take a break from a project to check email; it always takes a bit of time to get reacquainted with what you were doing when you turn back to the project. These little blips can add up to significant time losses, and batching is very effective at minimizing them.

So check (and respond to) email just a few times a day – as few as you can get away with. Return phone calls at a few set times during the day. Batch all of your new-hire paperwork to the extent the law allows. And so on.

3. Don’t multitask. I know, I know. By now, you’re probably very adept at speaking to an employee, composing an email, and listening to a voicemail from your CEO, all at the same time. But here’s the dirty little secret about multitasking: You don’t actually get any more done. You just do more things badly.

Focus on doing just one thing at a time. You’ll accomplish more, and your results will be better. You’ll even save time, ironically enough, as you’ll do more things right the first time around (and won’t be wasting hours tearing your office apart looking for that folder you stashed somewhere as you were listening to voicemails).

4. Cut that to-do list down. Way down. You have a million things to do. Prioritize the list by importance, and throw the bottom half away. Seriously. Or, at the very least, move the bottom half to the top of tomorrow’s list.

There are few things more demoralizing than looking at a to-do list the size of Texas, with no earthly way to get everything on it done in a single workday. So stop trying.

Today, tackle only what you can realistically do today, and leave the rest for tomorrow. This way, you will be left with a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day rather than a feeling of hopelessness.

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Don’t Be Like Starbucks

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I was recently traveling for work and woke up far earlier than usual – I think it was the novelty of my subconscious not constantly monitoring for the sounds of my children in distress due to nightmares, nosebleeds, or other nocturnal crises.

So I packed up my work, headed to the nearest Starbucks, and settled down with my latte in an unobtrusive corner to hang out until daylight arrived.

I was right near the counter, and I saw a lot of regulars coming in over the course of the next few hours. Apparently some change had been made to the store layout the previous night, after closing (which was completely lost on me, of course, as I’d never been to that particular Starbucks before).

One by one, the regulars came in and gave their orders to the barista. Many of them also mentioned something to the effect of, “So you guys made some changes here, I see!” or “Hey, Gene – new layout looks good.”

And every single time, the barista visibly winced and said, “It was news to me – I didn’t know we were doing this until I came in this morning and it was a done deal. I’m the store manager…you think they would have told me.”

It was clearly a sore spot – and why shouldn’t it be? This man was, as far as I could tell, a longtime employee (and store manager) who had both pride and a sense of ownership in his work – exactly what you want from your employees. He comes in one morning to find everything in his store rearranged, with no notice, and it feels like a slap in the face.

I don’t think the slight was deliberate – it was probably more a case of someone thinking, “Well, this won’t directly affect anything Gene does, so we don’t need to worry about looping him in” (if in fact Gene was considered at all). But it stung nonetheless.

Whenever you make changes at your organization, be they large or small, be sure to consider the feelings of your employees. Overcommunication is far better than no communication – especially if you want your team members to feel highly invested in what they do. And, trust me, you do.

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Great Customer Service: Easier Than You Might Think

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My summer job during high school and college was working in the ticket office for a sightseeing boat, the m/s Mount Washington, that cruises around New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee.*

We got, as you might expect, some interesting questions from the happy vacationers we saw every day:

  • “When does the boat get to the top of the mountain?” (um, you know it’s a boat, right?)
  • “When do we pass by the Kennedy Compound? (Hyannis Port is on the ocean, not a lake, and in another state – Massachusetts – to boot.)
  • “Where’s the scenery?” (Someone must have told him there would be scenery; I think he may have been expecting the painted backdrops you see in plays. “Sir,” I replied grandly, spreading my arms wide to encompass the lake, the boardwalk, and the arcade across the street, “it’s all around us.”)

My favorite customer service experience involved a handwritten letter to the ticket office. The letter was from a lifelong Mount Washington devotee who had honeymooned at the lake some 30 years earlier. During that trip, he and his new bride had purchased matching “Mount Washington” mugs at the dockside gift shop.

Tragically, Mildred had recently dropped her mug on the kitchen floor, where it had shattered into a million little pieces. Harold had enclosed a Polaroid of the surviving mug (dark blue, ceramic, unassuming). Might we be able to send him a replacement for its fallen mate? He’d be willing to pay any price.

Somehow, the plight of the missing mug got delegated to me. I wasn’t sure of the best way to get payment from Harold. He’d provided only a mailing address and no phone number (this was back in the pre-email, pre-internet, pre-PayPal world) – and of course the mug in question had long since fallen out of production.

I decided the easiest course of action was to buy two new matching mugs for Harold (using my employee discount at the gift shop) and simply send them to him on my dime “compliments of the Mount Washington staff.” Harold and Mildred quickly responded via return mail and could not have been more pleased; you would have thought I’d sent them the crown jewels.

The experience taught me that sometimes the “official” thing to do (my boss wanted me to chase down Harold’s credit card number and get a firm estimate of both mug costs and shipping costs before sending Harold a written invoice) isn’t the right thing to do when it comes to making your customers happy.

Empower your people, within reasonable limits, to do just that. Your employees will feel engaged and trusted. Your customers will be delighted. And your company will become known as one that cares and overdelivers. Win-win-win.

Going the extra mile often requires minimal cost and effort but means a great deal to someone else. Besides, it just plain feels good. All these years later, Harold has surely forgotten the circumstances surrounding his “new” matched set of Mount Washington mugs. But I haven’t. And I still smile when I think of him and Mildred sitting down to coffee each morning.

*Yes, Lake Winnipesaukee is a real lake. And no, the 1991 Bill Murray movie “What About Bob?” was not filmed anywhere near it.

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