What To Do With Employees Who Don’t Properly Manage Their Time

 

Are you a business owner?  If you are, there is a good chance that you have employees in your staff who do not now how to manage their time.  What do you do with these employees?  If you are unsure as to how you should proceed, please continue reading on.

First, it is important to do something.  The last thing that you will want to do is let an employee who has bad time management fly under the radar.  Many business owners do not think about this at the time, but there are a serious consequences for not calling out poor performing workers.

One of the many consequences to allowing one of your employees to keep on wasting their time and yours, is that others are likely to follow suit.  Even some of your best performing employees are likely to waste time socially or by surfing the internet when they see that others are able to do the same and get away with it. 

Your business profits will also likely be put at risk.  When an employee spends too much time surfing the internet or wasting time in general, it will likely take much longer for you to get projects completed.  This can have an impact on your business profits.  For example, you may later end up paying your employee overtime to complete a task that they should have finished during normal work hours.

If your business deals directly with the general public, an employee who does not know how to mange their time can also have a negative impact on your company’s public perception.  Deadlines should not be missed, but proper time management is vital when working with clients.  Did you agree to have forms drawn up on time for a client of yours?  If you did, they should be ready when expected.  If not, your client may look elsewhere.  Also, places that have employees just hanging around the office and socializing tends to look unprofessional in nature.

So, you now know the consequences of letting an employee with poor time management slide, but what should you do?

It is important to bring a lack of time management to the attention of your employee or employees.  Let them know that wasting time on the clock is not acceptable, especially when there are other tasks or projects that they could be working on.  Clearly state that socializing is for break times only.

Next, be sure not to let the same behavior continue.  Workers who have been warned about wasting their time and the time of the company should not have any excuse for doing so.  Give one more final warning before taking evasive action.  This action may include terminating your employee’s position with the company. 

Despite the fact that termination is an option, you may have what you believe to be an otherwise good employee.  If that is the case, you may want to opt for time management training.  This can be done yourself or with the services of a third party.  In fact, if you have a large number of employees who seem to not know how to manage their time, you may want to opt for company wide training.

Should you decide to host your own time management training seminar, as opposed to using outside help, be sure to share tips with your employees, outline the importance of making good use of their time at the workplace, as well as the consequences of not doing so.  This leaves no room for exceptions and you should see a significant improvement in productivity in your workplace.

As a recap, if you are a business owner or even just an office manager, it is important to make sure that all of your employees are working to the best of their ability.  Your company and your own personal reputation may end up taking the fall for those who do not perform to the best of their ability.