)
When SME leaders struggle to keep on top of managing their time, it’s usually not because they don’t have enough hours in the day, lack skills or need to go on a training course. In our experience working with managers in Manchester, Altrincham and Cheshire, the issue is keeping too much to yourself. We consistently meet managers trying to squeeze too much work into too little time. This leads to longer working hours, reduced productivity, and recurring wellbeing problems. Instead of looking for short-term, temporary fixes, business leaders need to shift their mindset and tackle the root cause of the problem.
In this article, we explain how the current business landscape is making managing a team harder. We look at the differences between traditional time management and team management, and how becoming more flexible in your management style helps reduce workload, stress and improves wellbeing, with tips on how to do this.
Management is more complex than ever
Leading a team is not easy right now. The challenges managers face are bigger and more complex than ever. People managers are being asked to lead through never-ending waves organisational change, AI adoption, and evolving employment law, all whilst prioritising their team’s health and wellbeing and delivering their own objectives. The responsibility for this level of care, empathy and human connection weighs heavy.
Managers need guidance on how to juggle their responsibilities. One third of small business owners say they don’t have enough time to do admin during working hours, with some spending up to 120 hours per employee per year on manual, people-related admin. This includes HR-related tasks such as recruitment, payroll, legal and compliance, and workforce planning and administration such as sickness absence reporting. Typically, in SMEs HR admin tends to be reactive rather than planned and systemised, which is highly inefficient.
What’s most concerning is that 1 in 3 employees claim they could do a better job than their line manager when it comes to things like communication, decision-making and prioritisation. Research shows these are areas that play a huge role in employee experience and enjoyment at work. With key management skills lacking, it’s no wonder staff issues aren’t going away.
What is traditional time management?
The traditional view of time management is about organising your time to improve efficiency and get the most out of every day. Effective time management should improve your own and your team’s productivity, and help you achieve your goals.
Tools and techniques that spring to mind include efficient diary management, time blocking, and prioritising tasks that make a difference (the wonderful to-do list!). Can you think of a colleague you consider to be good at time management? That person is no doubt punctual, organised, never misses a deadline, and still finds time to take regular breaks. Are we right?
When you manage a team and you feel stressed, overworked or overwhelmed by your workload, it’s all too easy to be self-critical about how you manage your time and think you aren’t performing well enough.
In actual fact, what’s at play here isn’t poor time management, it’s poor team management.
The benefits of good team management
Effective people management generates all the same benefits of good time management, with a few extras. These include:
Increased productivity
Reduced stress and overwhelm
Enhanced performance
A sense of achievement and progress
Increased collaboration and trust
Improved morale and happiness at work
Increased employee engagement.
Managers also benefit through:
A more balanced workload and working day
Freeing up time to prioritise strategic planning
Feeling more closely connected to their team
More time to spend with customers.
How to become a more agile manager
If you want to gain control, reduce stress and discover more efficient ways of working, you should look to develop your agility. Agile managers are all about empowering their team and encouraging collaboration through delegation. They use their time wisely by breaking down projects into bite-sized chunks and matching them to colleagues with appropriate skills, making tasks achievable. Developing a more flexible, agile management style helps build trust and morale in your team.
These are our recommendations:
Delegate to your team: you have a team, use them! You don’t need to keep every meeting or piece of work to yourself. Identify tasks you can delegate to free up your time. It will help everyone’s development. You will find an insightful e-learning course on delegation skills in our online catalogue - take a look.
Develop your communication skills: learning how to communicate with clarity and confidence can be a game-changer for team cohesion. It also ensures you achieve the right outcome when delegating. When everyone is clear on what you’re trying to achieve, the effect can be transformational.
Learn to give effective feedback: managers often put off giving feedback through fear of saying the wrong thing. How will your team improve if they don’t realise there’s a knowledge or skills gap? Learning to give considered, consistent feedback could be the key to improving team performance and productivity, meaning you can delegate with confidence. More about the importance of feedback.
Delegate administrative tasks: ask for support from an experienced PA. If you’re overwhelmed by your inbox or get flummoxed by cloud storage, and it’s taking up too much of your time, get help. They are the expert and will probably get the job done in half the time. Communicate clearly what you’d like them to do and put your trust in them to support you.
Use tech to streamline people processes: take advantage of cloud software, AI and HR tools to optimise admin intensive tasks like sickness and absence reporting, holiday booking/authorisation, payroll, recruitment, and performance reviews. There are tools available to simplify crucial, time-consuming tasks, which will only increase as your business grows. See how we can support your business with HR admin.
Use data to inform decision-making: streamlining processes and adopting HR systems and tools generates valuable data you can use when making critical business decisions. Let data lead the way to business growth.
Mentoring and coaching: harness the potential of your team by supporting their growth and development. Both mentoring and coaching are great ways to get to know your team better, build relationships, understanding and trust. Learn about the differences between mentoring and coaching.
Identify training and development needs
Your people are your most valuable asset. SME owners need to set people managers up for the best possible chance of success. Investing in developing their leadership capabilities will build their confidence to manage a team and help managers and their teams to reach their full potential. Longer-term it can help boost productivity, contribute to business growth, and increase employee loyalty and engagement.
Is it time you thought differently about the challenges of managing a team? Bridging skills gaps could be the answer. Our team can work alongside you to identify those gaps and design training solutions to help managers feel supported and inspired to make change happen. From Insights Discovery profiling to e-learning and more structured development programmes, take a look at our learning and development offer.
)