Plan personal work schedule

Workplace tasks

Statement of duties

Meeting organisational requirements

Organisational goals and objectives

Organisational policies and procedures

Supporting your work team or unit

Meeting workplace standards

Developing a work plan

Time management

Contingency plans

Summary

Workplace tasks

What are the specific tasks required by your current position? To assist you to make a list you may be able to refer to a Statement of Duties as well as to your own knowledge of the job.

Statement of duties

When you apply for a position, the advertisement usually gives you an awareness of the skills and qualifications the organisation requires of you. It will not, however, give you more than a general idea of the actual duties you will be required to perform and how much time it is expected you should spend on individual tasks. A ‘statement of duties’ or ‘job/position description’ is a document that will give you specific information in this regard.

/ Activity 1:Statement of duties

Locate the Statement of Duties for your current position. If this is not available you will need to develop your own list of the main duties you need to complete in your job. You will need the assistance of your supervisor, a human resources officer or an administration manager, depending on the size of the organisation you work for.

Your list could include tasks such as:

  • Record-keeping
  • Customer service
  • Production of goods
  • Use of equipment
  • Maintenance of equipment

List at least ten duties that you complete in your position.

If you are not in the workplace talk to your teacher about completing this task.

Duties

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Meeting organisational requirements

When you plan your work priorities and goals you need to consider the requirements of the organisation that you work for. You will need to understand the goals and objectives of that organisation, their policies and procedures and relevant legislation that determines how certain things must be done in the workplace.

Organisational goals and objectives

All organisations have goals and objectives. These involve what they plan to achieve, including what they aim to improve. Goals can be short term or long term. They can be written or simply spoken about. For example:

  • A small retail outlet may have the long-term goal of increasing sales so that they can improve profits. Their short-term goal may be to increase the range of goods that they offer.
  • A large government organisation may have the long-term goals of improving the quality of their service and of working to make their service accessible to more people in the Australian community. Their short-term goal may be to translate all their publicity material into a range of community languages.
  • A hospital may have the long-term goal of providing quality health care to all their patients. Their short-term goal may be to reduce waiting times for surgery by improving their roster systems.
  • A manufacturer may have the long-term goal of raising profits. The short-term goal may be to purchase new equipment which will increase production.

Does the organisation you work for have written goals and objectives. When written they may be called ‘Mission statements’ or ‘Strategic directions’. In large organisations they are often found on the website.

/ Activity 2:Organisational goals

In the space below write what you see as the long-term goals of the organisation you work for. You may need to discuss this first with your supervisor or colleagues.

______

______

______

/ Activity 3:Contributing to organisational goals

Think about how the work you do contributes to the organisational goals. Discuss this with your supervisor and colleagues. Then complete the following exercise.

Main goals of the organisation I work for / What I do to contribute to these goals

Organisational policies and procedures

It is very common in business organisations today to find manuals, or some kind of documentation, that sets out the policies and procedures to be followed by employees in their regular duties. These manuals may also specify the organisation’s goals, objectives, mission and values.

Policies set out the organisation’s philosophy on various issues, for example smoking in the workplace, sexual harassment or travel entitlements for staff. Procedures on the other hand, specify the steps an organisation wishes to be followed when carrying out particular tasks or in certain circumstances, for example when using the telephone, applying for leave, responding to emergencies or reporting accidents.

Here are some examples of how policy and procedure manuals can assist organisations:

  • All employees are aware of and working towards common goals.
  • Time and effort is saved as procedures usually contain steps to complete regular tasks in the most efficient manner.
  • Employees know where to look to find appropriate information keeping disruptions to other staff to a minimum.

/ Activity 4:Policy and procedures manual

Locate the policy and procedures manual for the organisation you work for. Is there an electronic copy on a Web site? Check with your supervisor that you have the most up to date version.

Supporting your work team or unit

To be an effective member of a work team or unit you need to understand how the work you do supports the efforts of the other members.

/ Activity 5:Teamwork

What do you see as the main role of your work team or unit in your workplace?

______

______

Choose one other member of your work team or unit. Describe what this person does and explain how the work you do relates to the work of that person?

______

______

______

______

______

______

Meeting workplace standards

In planning your own schedule you also need to take into account the standards required in your workplace. Standards relate particularly to quality and quantity. You may know the tasks you need to complete but do you understand the standards that you are expected to meet? For example you may know that you need to complete a certain task but not know exactly how the organisation requires it to be completed and how long you are expected to take.

You may have written documents in your workplace that explain the standards. Your supervisor will also be able to help you.

/ Activity 6:Workplace standards

Choose a task that you complete on a regular basis. Then complete the following exercise.

Example

Task / Invoice sent to customer
Completed below standard / Spelling mistakes, pay by date omitted, no record kept
Completed to standard / All details correct, record kept and filed, details entered on computer data base
Time allowed / 10 minutes

Now complete the table using information from your own workplace.

Task
Completed below standard
Completed to standard
Time allowed

Developing a work plan

How do you plan your work schedule? Do you write a list of the tasks you need to complete each day? How do you decide the order that you will complete tasks in?

High priority tasks

Tasks with high priority would include:

  • Tasks that must be completed before other tasks can be completed
  • Tasks that must be completed before other people can continue their work
  • Tasks that have been requested as a matter of urgency

Medium priority tasks

Medium priority tasks need to be completed by the end of the day.

Low priority tasks

Low priority tasks can be completed when other work is done.

Other factors that may determine the order that tasks are completed are:

  • Instructions from the supervisor
  • Emergencies requiring rescheduling of tasks
  • Rotation of tasks for OH&S reasons
  • Rotation of tasks to avoid boredom/fatigue
  • Completion of tasks when resources/equipment are available
  • Completion of tasks when assistance is available
  • Completion of tasks according to the time that they take eg. completion of short tasks before tasks that take longer

/ Activity 7:Personal work schedule

Write down six tasks that you completed on a recent work day in the order you completed them and say why you completed them in that order.

Task / Reason for completing the task in this order
1
2
3
4
5
6

Time management

Do you usually complete tasks on time? To complete your work schedule you will need good time management skills.

How long will the task take?

It is important to know how long tasks take for a number of reasons. It will help you to decide what order to complete tasks in. It will also help you to avoid taking on too many tasks. If asked to take on tasks that you know you will not be able to complete you will be able to explain what your commitments are and how long you expect your work to take. To decide how long a task takes you need to know:

  • The steps involved in the task
  • Support equipment/resources needed to complete the task

Procrastination

Many people put off doing the tasks they dislike. This only complicates their time management problem as they end up doing the tasks they like least at the end when they are often under a lot of pressure. Try to complete tasks that you dislike early in the schedule!

Time wasters

You will also need to limit distractions that waste too much of your time.

/ Activity 8:Time management

Complete the following table by ticking the appropriate box.

At work I…. / Often / Sometimes / Rarely
1.Spend time looking for things that I have misplaced
2.Make personal phonecalls
3.Spend time checking records that I have entered in the wrong place or not entered correctly
4.Chat to my colleagues on personal matters
5. ‘Surf’ the Internet

Feedback

Most people spend some time at work on personal matters and most of us have spent time looking for things which we have misplaced. However, if you answered ‘often’ for questions 1 and 3 you will need to look at ways to make your work practice more efficient. You may need to keep your work area better organised with information correctly stored and filed. If you answered ‘often’ for questions 2, 4 and 5 you are spending too much of your work time on personal matters and it is likely to be effecting both the quality of your work and your ability to complete your work on time.

Time management strategies

People use many different strategies to help them complete their work on time. They may write lists, use a diary, make notes on a calendar or use electronic diaries and organisers. For longer tasks you may need to break the task into a number of sub-tasks and write deadlines for these sub-tasks into a diary.

What systems do you use? Do they work efficiently? If not, you could talk to your colleagues and supervisor for more ideas on how to organise your time.

Contingency plans

Sometimes events necessitate a change in plans. You may need to put aside your scheduled tasks to cope with an emergency situation. Equipment may fail or there may be a power blackout. Consider the following questions:

  • Does your workplace have an emergency plan and if so can you locate it?
  • Do you know your role in the event of an emergency?
  • Who do you need to inform if work cannot be completed on time?
  • Who can you ask for assistance if you need help urgently?
  • In the event that it is impossible to complete all your tasks which tasks do you think are the highest priority, and why?

/ Check your progress

Tick the correct box.

I am competent in this area / I need more skills in this area
I understand how my work supports the goals of the organisation I work for
I know the duties required by my position
I understand how my work supports the work of other team members or my unit
I understand the standards required by my workplace
I know how to plan tasks to meet deadlines
I manage my time to achieve workplace goals

If you feel that you need to develop further skills for any of these areas you may need to read back through the notes and repeat the activities. You could also talk to your teacher.

Summary

In this topic we have focused on planning our work schedule and how we can perform workplace tasks more efficiently and effectively. This has required assessing our duties in the light of organisational goals and standards and considering how we can manage our time and learn to prioritise as we complete our tasks.

LO 2003_260_001: Plan personal work schedule1

 OTEN, 2003/260/12/03