Business Administration: Personal Work Priorities - Report Example

Business Administration: Personal Work Priorities and Professional Development PART A – REVIEW TERMINOLOGY a. Role model From a professional view point, a role model is a person whose behavior, attitude, brilliance, skills, and other capabilities are valuable, and can be imitated by others, specifically by younger people. An individual’s chosen role model can significantly influence his future career development and success. b. Work goal According to Gordon (2010, p. 69) “the work-goal is the ‘finish line,’ the incentive — toward which members are drawn as a group”. The work goal may also be the aim that influences individuals to prioritize their tasks and to perform those tasks in a particular way. Generally, the work goal involves a specific time period within which the particular desire is expected to be met. c. S.M.A.R.T.T. SMARTT is the acronym of Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timetable, and Trackable. SMARTT is about requirements. d. Position description Verses K.P.I. According to Munde (2013, p. 16), a position description is a formal document that describes the key functions of a particular job using clear and concise language. Position description reflects actual duties, responsibilities, and job specifications. In contrast, a key performance indicator or commonly abbreviated as KPI is just a type of performance measurement. KPIs are used to evaluate an organization’s success or its particular activities. e. Prioritizing tasks Task prioritization is a process necessary to add to the efficiency of time management. Prioritizing tasks would greatly assist an individual to get his tasks completed timely and effectively in the order of urgency. Prioritization of tasks can also give individuals a directional view of the set of tasks that they need to perform over a particular period of time. f. Lag indicator Versus Lead indicator Brown (2000) says that lag indicator is a type of indicator that follows an event. The significance of the lag indicator lies in the fact that it is able to confirm that a particular pattern is occurring. At the same time, a lead indicator is used to signal future events (p.136). Lead indicators have an inevitable role to play in the world of finance in providing regulators with a range of valuable information regarding the possible future changes in the economy. g. Work life balance In the words of Jennings (2007, pp. 5-6), work life balance can be simply referred to a concept that reflects a prioritization between work and lifestyle. Here the term ‘work’ is related with career and ambition whereas the term ‘lifestyle’ represents health, family, leisure, pleasure, and meditation. The work life balance is to be necessarily maintained so as to promote an individual’s mental health. h. Competency standards “Competency standards define the requirements for effective workplace performance in a discrete area of work, work function, activity or process.” (as cited in IBSA). Competency standards are often used to set expected performance outcomes and to define assessment benchmarks. A common feature of the competency standards is that they are expressed in terms of outcomes. i. Networking Acuff and Wood (2004) state that networking is a socioeconomic business process whereby a business person establishes mutually beneficial relationship with other business people and potential customers for the purpose of identifying, creating, or acting upon business opportunities (p.98). 2. Referring to Ballou (2005), an employee cannot obtain a well understanding of the key job functions or his actual duties and responsibilities that a particular job requires unless there is an established position description (p.74). However, a position description written using clear and concise language may assist employees to set work goals in line with the firm’s expectations and to achieve them. 3. It is necessary to link the goals and objectives of an individual’s workplace with his own goals and objectives in order to improve overall organizational performance and to achieve long term organizational goals. If an individual’s goals and the goals of his workplace are not aligned, he cannot effectively operate in the workplace because he may focus more on his personal goals. In addition, the individual may hurt organizational interests for the accomplishment of his personal goals and objectives. 4. a. A number of urgent matters that have arisen in the course of a day could be prioritized in the order of their level of sensitivity to supply chain operations. b. A busy manager may delegate tasks to his colleagues if he thinks that he cannot perform all the tasks assigned effectively. c. A manager may accept work that does not belong to him only if he has sufficient time to work on additional tasks undertaken. However, he/she should never accept those works if they are likely to become an obstacle to performing his/her daily tasks effectively. d. The considerations include: - Do not start work on a busy day - Start work when you are mentally relaxed - Be prepared for tackling distractions - Do not focus on to multiple tasks - Organize the work well prior to its commencement 5. According to Lagan and Moran (2005), it is really important to align personal values with the values established at a workplace, because only this can direct the organization’s operations to emphasize its mission and vision statements (p.16). When personal values and worksite values are not in line with each other, employees would be interested to enhance shareholder values. 6. Effective completion of a SWOT analysis will benefit individuals to improve their time management skills in personal lives. A SWOT analysis would assist individuals to identify their areas of weaknesses in relation to time management. In addition, recognition of possible threats that would add to their time management problems can aid individuals to improve their planning and scheduling skills by focusing on their strengths identified. The following SWOT analysis is related to my personal experience of completing a course assignment on time. From this analysis, I realized that wasting a considerable amount of time on social media websites like Facebook often cause late submissions and related issues. In most times, I am reluctant to say no to my friends, and hence I have too much leisure time. In addition, this SWOT analysis assisted me to recognize possible distractions and interruptions and to make time provisions for such issues. 7. Currently I am using messenger apps like WhatsApp and WeChat to keep in constant touch with my subordinates and ensure that my work commitments are met effectively. Using these messenger apps, I can easily keep my followers informed of the new management decisions and announcements. In addition, I can notify them when there is a higher priority work that needs urgent completion. 8. a. Both good things and bad things are stressors in people’s lives because they can significantly influence individuals’ mental state. When bad things happen, people get mentally discouraged, and this would add to their stress level. Similarly when good things happen, people will have an excited mental state which is another stressor. b. When an individual loses huge amount of money due to stock market fluctuations, he gets frustrated and disheartened. He may struggle to focus on his worksite tasks and family matters due to increased stress level. If that individual gets a job promotion, he would be excited to enjoy new powers and other benefits. However, his stress level increases in this situation too, because he is supposed to assume additional job responsibilities. c. If there are multiple occurrences of good and bad things in a short period of time, the individual’s stress level increases uncontrollably, and such a strong feeling of emotions or aroused mental state adversely affects his mental health. d. Individuals do not need to make allowances in their time management for both the good and not so good occurrences. It is advisable for individuals to consider them as a part of their life and respond to them calmly and without losing the presence of mind. 9. a. It is possible for employees to collect feedback from managers, co-workers, and regular customers to be well informed about their worksite performance. b. Employees may get feedbacks directly from managers and colleagues whereas they may rely on technological applications like e-mail to collect customer feedbacks. c. This feedback collection is important for employees to obtain good understanding of their work performance, to identify areas of improvement, and to address weaknesses immediately. 10. I currently participate in networks by interacting with other business people, suppliers, employees, and customers through social media websites in order for enhancing my personal knowledge, skills, and work relationships. PART B -CASE STUDY Donna’s Time Management Problems From the case study, it is clear that Donna is struggled by a number of time management issues such as scheduling, planning, and organizing. Basically, she lacks planning skill, and it is the root cause of majority of the problems she is facing. Before starting to work with the assignment, she was not informed of the complexity of the task, and she did not even set a timeframe for completing the work. Since Donna failed to plan her tasks effectively, she went to play softball and visited her aunt and uncle when she was in short of time to meet her assignment deadline. She did not plan Monday’s task, and it was the reason why she forgot to set the alarm clock and reached workplace 15 minutes late. Similarly, Donna has difficulty scheduling tasks. Due to this problem, she skips every task before it gets actually completed and moves to a new task. To illustrate, Donna put off working on her assignment to the next day when her boyfriend Jason rang at her. When the assignment was yet to be finished, she woke up very late on Saturday and still she agreed to meet her friends to practice softball. Another major time management problem lies with organizing. As Donna did not organize her assignment preparation task effectively, she realized that her pen and notes were missing only when she sat to work on the project. Similarly, she referred to the text book last hours and identified that it was difficult to understand. Although Donna phoned her tutor, she could not connect to him. All these obstacles could have been eliminated if she had organized her tasks earlier. Response Strategies 1. Keep a to-do list It is recommendable for Donna to prepare and keep a to-do list in order to obtain clear understanding of the tasks that need to be performed over a particular period of time. This strategy would greatly assist her to overcome the time management issues associated with poor planning. 2. Prioritization of tasks Donna should also thoughtfully prioritize her tasks so as to ensure that the most sensitive tasks are always completed within the specified time. Donna would not have gone to the pub on Saturday to celebrate the victory and to visit her uncle and aunt on Sunday if she had prioritized her tasks. 3. Awareness of distractions Similarly, she has to be aware of and prepared for managing unforeseen but possible distractions and interruptions such as visitors, phone calls, power failures, or network errors. For instance, Donna had to attend her boy friend’s phone call when she was busy working on her assignment. When she is prepared for meeting such unexpected events, those issues would not affect her final outcomes. This strategy could really benefit Donna to work on her tasks in a more efficient way. 4. Do not put off tasks From the case scenario, it seems that Donna postpones assignment several times in order to engage in other activities, and finally she struggles to finish the work on time. Hence, it is advisable for Donna to focus on a single task at a time in order to get rid of such distractions. 5. Do not take too much tasks Even when Donna had a major task (assignment) to complete, she agreed to meet her friends to play softball. She should try to say no to avoidable things so as to keep away from too many projects and commitments. Impacts of the Behavior Considering Donna’s time management issues, her behavior is likely to produce drastic impacts in the workplace environment. Considering her weakness in planning tasks, she is likely to take more time to complete a task when compared to her colleagues. As a result, she cannot remain competitive to her co-workers, and sometimes she may fail to meet deadlines. If Donna continually fails to accomplish her tasks, her worksite performance and productivity would be rated poor, and eventually the situation would affect even her employment. Since Donna has difficulty scheduling tasks, she may struggle to perform a task in an efficient and productive way. Due to this issue, she may be forced to spend additional time in the workplace or to take extra efforts to match her colleagues’ job performance. This weak worksite performance may also prevent Donna from taking advantages of the firm’s incentive plans and other compensational benefits. An employee who repeatedly fails to meet her deadlines would be a burden for the organization, and hence the management may not be interested to give her job promotion. Hence, Donna is less likely to obtain leadership roles, and her career development opportunities would be extremely limited. To conclude, Donna’s work career will be dreadfully affected unless she takes some immediate measures to resolve her time management issues. PART C- PROJECT 1. Time Management and Personal Work Priorities a. For a line manager who works in a construction company, the following tasks need to be performed in a typical 8-hour shift in the workplace. (1) Ensuring that performance difficulties experienced by workers are managed appropriately (2) Closely working with employees to ensure that they meet deadlines effectively and their work is up to the expected standards (3) Identifying area of weaknesses of each employee and suggesting potential responsive measures to address the issues (4) Monitoring employees’ worksite performance continuously to reward best performers and to improve the productivity of poor performers (5) Ensuring that employees handle various equipments carefully and unnecessary wastage is eliminated (6) Ensuring that every employee meets his/her scheduled work time properly (7) Making sure that scheduled portion of work is getting completed every day (8) Making arrangements to ensure that there is uninterrupted and adequate supply of raw materials to the worksite (9) Keeping the workplace clean and safe Do yourself or delegate (4), (6) & (7) Do yourself (1), (2) & (8) Postpone , delegate or delete (9) Do if you have time or delegate (3) & (5) Tasks (1), (2) & (8) have high importance and urgency as they are directly related to customer satisfaction and business reputation and therefore these tasks should be performed by the manager himself. Although the tasks (4), (6) & (7) are also of high importance, they are not so urgent and hence these tasks may be performed either by the manager himself or delegated. The tasks (3) & (5) need to be completed urgently but not very important because they do not affect overall organizational performance directly. Hence, these tasks may be performed by the line manager only if he has sufficient time. Finally, the task (9) is of less importance and urgency relatively and therefore it may be postponed, delegated, or even deleted sometimes. b. The line manager spends most of the time with his workers to manage their performance difficulties and to ensure that their work meets the expected corporate standards. Then the manager focuses on employee performance and compensation so as to keep the workforce motivated, or he may delegate some other qualified person to perform these duties. The line manager sometimes compromises with workplace cleanliness and safety in order to enhance employee productivity. c. Gantt chart Tasks 1st hour 2nd hour 3rd hour 4th hour 5th hour 6th hour 7th hour 8th hour (1)* (2)* (3)* (4)* (5)* (6)* (7)* (8)* (9)* *To get the tasks in detail, refer to the previous sections of this question 2. Professional development a. Skills audit As a line manager at a construction company, I require the following skills/knowledge to perform my tasks efficiently. Skill/knowledge area required for my job role 1 2 3 Communication skills  Collaboration skills  Project management skills  Knowledge about various stages of construction  Knowledge about technological advancements  b. Goal setting Timeframe My personal goals are: My professional goals are: Next 12 months 1. Increasing the level of incentives I receive by motivating my subordinates to improve their worksite performance thereby minimizing the amount of time spent on a single project 2. Achieving the post of an executive level manager 1. Improving my knowledge about the use of modern technologies to enhance the efficiency of construction projects 2. Restricting the current project to budgeted costs and completing it on time effectively Next 5 years 1. Achieving a position in the top management team by noticeably improving my job performance 1. Improving the reputation of my firm in the corporate world 2. Developing a potential workforce who are able to compete with market leaders efficiently c. Name of activity Details of provider, location etc Target completion date Cost Encouraging employee involvement in decision making (team building) to enhance collaboration skills Seeking the assistance of the top management to perform this task at the organizational environment itself. 31st December 2016 US$5,000 Attending training classes by external faculties to improve my knowledge in recent technological advancements Professional consulting agencies and technology providing firms. 30th June 2016 US$2,000 References Acuff, J & Wood, W. (2004). The Relationship Edge in Business: Connecting with Customers and Colleagues When It Counts. US: John Wiley & Sons. Brown, M. G. (2000). Winning Score: How to Design and Implement Organizational Scorecards. US: Productivity Press. Ballou, H. (2005). Moving Spirits, Building Lives: Church Musician As Transformational Leader. US: SynerVision International. Gordon, M. J. (2010). Making meetings more productive. US: Sterling Publishing Company, Incorporated IBSA. What are competency standards? Retrieved from https://www.ibsa.org.au/what-are-competency-standards Jennings, K. N. (2007). In the Balance: Work/life Balance of Senior Development Professionals Within Higher Education. ProQuest. Lagan, A & Moran, B. (2005). Three Dimensional Ethics: Implementing Workplace Values. US: eContent Management. Munde, G. (2013). Everyday HR: A Human Resources Handbook for Academic Library Staff. American Library Association. Read More