Managing Work Priorities: Personal And Professional Development

Moderating Role of Socioeconomic Development

My role as a manager

Discuss about the Moderating Role of Socioeconomic Development.

Managing work priorities is essential for the employees that can be achieved by maintain proper balance both personally and professionally. As commented by Groysberg and Abrahams (2014), personal and professional balance helps the individuals in achieving targets along with developing their skills throughout the career. Therefore, both the employee and the organizational performance are enhanced due to proper management of work priorities.

This report highlights the future actions that can be used by individuals for both personal and professional development. The report highlights setting of goals and aligning them to the business goals along with managing time and prioritizing work activities. Additionally, the report emphasizes of identifying development opportunities thereby, maintaining professional competence.

As a manager of the organization, my role is to willingly examine and prepare the skills and goals. This will help in staying in the right track by considering the professional development. As a manager, I need to ask myself whether I have the skills or attitude for the role allocated for me.

My role as a manager includes:

• Appropriate planning and time management
• Ensuring systematic work and being organized
• Providing the employees with appropriate resources and performance management
• Monitoring the code of conduct and employee performance
• Maintaining confidentiality of the company’s information
• Reporting the senior management of the company

The business goals of the organization include:

• Increase profitability
• Increasing employee retention
• Increased organizational efficiency
• Organizational growth

The organizational policies include:

• Ensuring confidentiality
• Access and equity
• Codes of conduct
• Risk management
• Human resources
• Health and safety

The organizational procedures include:

• Employee incident response, reporting and investigation
• Service access
• Alcohol consumption in workplace
• Client documentation and records
• Code of conduct
• Discipline and termination
• Equal employment opportunity
• Staff meetings including meetings for staff supervision

The list of organizational policies, procedures and plans are developed based on which the role and responsibilities of the manager is developed. This provides an opportunity for the managers to achieve the organizational goals by increasing the employee and organizational performance.

The team goals include:

• To achieve maximum customer service
• To help the HR and the IT department in continuing recruitment procedure effectively
• To organize meetings with the internal and external stakeholders in order to gain deeper insight of the present business requirement
• To complete the tasks undertaken within deadline and being organized

The personal goals include:

• To increase the morale of the team
• To complete the tasks and goals I have set for myself thereby, increasing the profit of all departments by 60%
• Establish effective communication within the team

As commented by Davila, Epstein and Shelton (2012), setting goals help the business organizations to increase the overall profitability of the organizations. The goals set by the organization have to be specific, measurable, attainable, and realistic and time specific. According to McGivern et al. (2015), having set goal provides an opportunity for the business organizations to move forward and gain competitive advantage. Goals help in ensuring internal measurement by enhancing the morale of the employees. It is effective for the business organizations to set goals, as it helps in organizational progress. This is because goal settings provide a sense of purpose and direction towards which the organization and the employees move. The SMART framework is one of the best frameworks that need to be considered while developing goals and objectives. As mentioned by Galea, Houkes and De Rijk (2014), developing personal and professional goal setting ensures both personal and professional progress. Having goals provided a direction to the organization and the individual thereby, allowing them to develop strategies to work towards it by developing appropriate strategies.

Establish five personal and team goals

Business organizations develop key performance indicators in order to determine the performance of the employees and the organizations thereby, enhancing the overall performance. As commented by Parmenter (2015), based on the type of the business, the KPI developed is distinct thereby, helping in effective performance indicator. The different types of key performance indicators include sales metrics & KPI, marketing metrics & KPI, financial metrics & KPI and supply chain metrics & KPI. According to Neiger et al. (2012), KPI help in assisting the business organizations in defining and measuring the progress simultaneously in order to achieve the organizational goals and objectives. Additionally, KPI also helps the business organizations remaining on track and attaining the beneficial outcome. For example, a certain instances KPI’s are used in projects in order to measure the delivery of the service.

As mentioned by Wu (2012), effective and successful performance is dined when the goals are achieved efficiently. Therefore, it is essential for me to maintain personal performances in varying working conditions and contingencies. According to me, five major steps help in maintaining performance under any working conditions and contingencies.

The following steps can be followed in order to maintain performance under varying conditions and contingencies:

Step 1: Identifying the available time for completing the task

Step 2: Listing the essential tasks that needs to be conducted in order to complete the task successfully

Step 3: Scheduling the high priority urgent tasks in order to ensure progress for the goal

Step 4: Blocking appropriate contingency time in order to develop the ability to handle unpredictable situations

Step 5: In the remaining time, scheduling the activities that address my priorities and personal goals

A wide range of activities needs to be planned and conducted in an organized manner in order to achieve the goals or objectives successfully. As commented by Koerner (2014), an action plan or strategy needs to be developed in order to proceed towards the goal. The range of activities to advance work goals include making a list, having clear objectives, reviewing daily, daily to-do list, long terms and short term goals, specific action plans, effective communication and time management. Additionally, having a realistic and measurable approach also helps in advancing the work goals (Kath et al. 2013). Within the range of activities that needs to be undertaken to complete the tasks successfully, the ones with top priority includes having clear set of objectives, maintaining a daily check list, developing short term goals, time management and maintaining an effective communication. As mentioned by Bakker, Tims and Derks (2012), having a clear set of objectives helps the individuals in strategizing appropriately to achieve the goal. Therefore, one of the significant responsibilities of the manager is to have a clear objective and communicate it effectively to the team members.

Developing KPI’s for measuring performance related to work goals

Effective communication helps in clear flow of information within the team thereby, making it easy to track the progress and communication among the team members. Additionally, effective communication also helps in building a strong relationship within the team members that eventually makes it easier to achieve the goals (Shockley-Zalabak 2014). Time management is a crucial aspect as this helps in appropriate planning by allocating time for the short-term goals. Achieving the short-term goals successfully motivates the team members thereby, ensuring dedication and enthusiasm to accomplish the goal successfully.

The two work goals that needs to be achieved are:

• To achieve maximum customer service
• To complete the tasks undertaken within deadline and being organized

Work activity	Description	Goal/s	KPIs	Time frame	Person responsible
·       Time management ·       Effective communication ·       Creating short-term goals ·       Maintaining a daily check list	·       Improving customer service. ·       Developing strategies ·       Evaluating the current market trend and customer demands	To increase the customer service by 20%	·       Overall satisfaction of the customers (Customer satisfaction Score) ·       Net Promoter Score (NPS) ·       First response time ·       Customer retention rate ·       SERVQUAL	Within 6 months	·       The management ·       The manager ·       The employees
·       Time management ·       Effective communication ·       Being organized ·       Reviewing daily work ·       Maintaining a daily to-do check list	·       Arranging meetings daily ·       Effective communication within the team members ·       Organizing training ·       Maintaining a daily to-do list	To complete the tasks undertaken within deadline and being organized	·       Alignment between internal and external goals ·       SMART objectives r goals ·       SMARTER objectives and goals	Within 2 months since the initiation of the project	·       The team members ·       The manager

There is no agreed definition of work-life balance but it does appear that the ‘right’ balance for one person may differ from the next. Balance is achieved in different ways for different people. Some people do it to balance their caring responsibilities for children with work, while others want more time to themselves, engaging in leisure activities. Effectiveness and efficiency are likely to improve if an individual maintain an appropriate work-life balance and control stress levels. Reducing stress, allows a person to manage better your energy and efficiency. Increased concentration and a less stressed workforce ensures increased productivity. Work-life balance, in its broadest sense, is defined as a satisfactory level of involvement or ‘fit’ between the multiple roles in a person’s life (Darcy et al. 2012).

Work-life balance for any one person is having the ‘right’ combination of participation in paid work (defined by hours and working conditions) and other aspects of their lives. This combination will change as people move through life and have changing responsibilities and commitments in their work and personal lives. Work-life balance policies can assist employees achieving the balance between their work and personal commitments that is right for them. The policies need to be supported by the workplace culture, which reflects the beliefs, values and norms of the whole of the organisation from the CEO to staff members. Other important factors in the success of work-life balance policies include proper communication of commitment to the policies to existing and future employees, raising awareness of the policies, education of managers about the importance of policies, and training of managers on ‘how to’ implement these policies (Sortheix and Lonnqvist 2014).

To ensure the maintenance of organisational standards, take steps to monitor and assess individual performance. Utilise individual job description, duty statement or statement of conduct and performance appraisal as a tool to measure your professional competency. These documents can assist an individual in determining your level of personal knowledge and skills. They will help the individual prioritise the activities to ensure that the work is done efficiently and effectively (Kunter et al. 2013). It is important that the individuals also take steps to monitor their performance. Competency standards can be used to measure the level of your performance. A competency standard is a document used as a frame of reference by your employer to determine how they expect the job and the performance of the job to be done and to determine how competent an individual is at their job. Competency standards aim to ensure that the individual can perform at a specified minimal level.

• Nationally endorsed units of competency consistent with work requirements, these are recognised nationwide and service as a basis for assessment and the issue of formal qualifications ?
• Enterprise-specific units of competency consistent with work requirements
• Organisational standards that are in-house and specific to your employer
• In-house standards are developed to ensure you meet the minimal level for your employer. If you identify weaknesses in competency standards, corrective action should be taken to address the issue.

Activities for achieving the goals related to work

Performance can be measured in several different ways including:

• Observing people’s reactions to you – For interpersonal relations and to reinforce individual as position as a role model, take the time to observe whether personnel react to the person in a positive manner. Particular attention should be paid to others’ body language (Rudd et al. 2014).
• Do people ask for your opinion? – If no one asks for the opinion of an individual, a red flag should be raised. The individual have either intimidated them and don’t feel they can approach you or they do not respect your opinion. Do not make assumptions. Gather feedback to find out the actual situation (Moen et al. 2013).
• Exposure to other members of management – Communication is a two way process. Understand what other members of management think about your skills and knowledge. Observe their skills and knowledge to assist you in identifying ways in which you can improve your own personal skills and knowledge (Moreland, Levine and Wingert 2013).
• Identify what skills, knowledge and behaviours are ‘required’ for you to do your job well: At this stage, it is also worth thinking about the skills, knowledge and behaviours that you may need to develop in the future in your current job. The individual may know, for example, that the role will be changing or that the individual will be working on different projects or that the individual is interested in a career change. What new or different skills, knowledge and behaviours will the individual need? Go back to the life or career goals to include in your development plan (Cottrell 2015).
• Look at the skills, knowledge and behaviours you actually have now: It is important to ask some rigorous questions at this stage and answer honestly. Are there areas of work, for example, where developing more confidence would make a real difference to individual success in the job? Are there knowledge, skills and behaviours that individual only need on occasion that would benefit from some development (Todd and Binns 2013).
• Compare ‘actual’ with ‘required’ to identify the gaps: Try to be as specific as possible about what the individuals need to do differently. This will really help the individuals when deciding how to address the development needs in the best way possible. It will also help the individual review and measure their success.
• Decide how to meet identified needs: The next step is how best to address the development needs you have identified.
• Practicalities ?
• How do I prefer to learn?
• Finding the best solution
• Where to go for more help

Time frame	Description of opportunity/ training	Skills/ competency to develop
Within 6 months	Ø  Communicating with team members daily Ø  Working on both verbal and non-verbal communication Ø  Patiently listening to the team members Ø  Keeping aside personal agenda	Effective communication
Within 3 months	Ø  Maintaining a daily to-do list Ø  Following up with the team members Ø  Allocating specific time for each task Ø  Writing the progress daily	Time management

Conclusion

In this report, it can be concluded that it is essential to manage personal work priorities in order to ensure professional development. Managing personal and professional work effectively helps in successful completion of work thereby, ensuring accomplishment of goals. As a manager, it is essential to influence the employees along with fulfilling the professional responsibilities successfully at work. This helps in enhancing the overall performance of the organization and the team members. In order to achieve the organizational goals successful, it is essential to emphasize on effective communication, time management, having clear set of objectives, prioritizing the tasks along with maintaining a daily commotion checklist. This helps in keeping track of the progress of the project and predict the future of the project.

References

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