Published on: April 2, 2025 at 8:56 pm
Academy of Management Scholar Herman Aguinis of the George Washington University School of Business, one of the most influential management researchers, said that performance management—when organizations’ managers and leaders do it properly—is critical for organizations because it drives decisions about who gets a bonus, who gets promoted, who gets demoted, and who gets transferred or cut. He offered the following tips for business leaders to help build “time management-friendly” organizational cultures:
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1. Follow through on lessons learned during employee training programs:
“Understand that training programs aimed at building time management skills, such as to-do lists, quiet time, and so forth, are only the first step. Employees need a role and work environment conducive to using these skills. If employees face structures and norms that make them waste time, the skills they learned will be useless and lost if they are not put to use,” Aguinis said.
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2. Set a good example for rank-and-file employees and put them in a position to succeed:
“Leadership is critical in creating time structures and norms conducive to good time management. First, leaders need to manage their own time well. For example, running meetings efficiently and not letting people waste time at meetings. Also, leaders need to implement performance management and reward systems that discourage wasting time based on how well people manage their time and the results they obtain. Measure the time management performance of middle management. How many performance and rewards systems measure time management? Not many.”
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3. Embrace flexibility and hybrid work schedules
“Use technology to minimize commuting time, allow flexible hours and telecommuting.”
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4. Avoid and eliminate recurring meetings that aren’t likely to move the needle:
“Don’t create committees and task forces that study issues endlessly without taking action.”
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5. Recruit candidates with strong time-management skills:
Use situational interviews to screen out candidates whose attitudes about time do not match those of the organization. For example, job applicants can be asked to choose an alternative among several available choices. Or, job applicants can beasked, ‘tell me about the last time when,’ and they are presented with a situation when they need to make decisions about how to manage their time.”
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6. Analyze the implications of the cliché “time is money”:
“Benjamin Franklin wrote that ‘time is money.’ But time is more than money. It is the most fundamental resource that allows people and organizations to get other resources, such as financial, social, physical, and human resources. Without sufficient time, we cannot get any of these other resources that allow a firm to get ahead of the competition,” Aguinis said. “But time itself is often under the radar because ‘what is not measured does not exist.’ It is critical to raise awareness of time as a resource, measure it, and reward units and individuals who manage time well. Also, business leaders should identify and remove systems and norms that prevent people from managing their time well, such as bad bosses who force people in their departments to engage in time-wasting activities.”
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7. Reimagine formal systems that can affect employees’ time-management effectiveness, including:
• Time structures: “Systems used to manage time, such as performance appraisal and reward systems that reward individuals for working long hours. For example, using punch- or time clocks or including a question on a performance appraisal form about how many hours a week employeesare at their desk.” Other time structures include project timelines, cleaning schedules, and holidays.• Time norms: “Informal rules about how to do things right and wrong about time at work. They are based on values and are often implicit, but everyone knows them. For example, arriving at meetings late is not a big deal in many organizations or cultures.”
