TIME PRIORITIES FOR TOP MANAGERS

Transcription

1 TIME PRIORITIES FOR TOP MANAGERS A Time Use Paper by Mark Ellwood, President, Pace Productivity Inc. International Association of Time Use Researchers (ATUR) Conference, Halifax, November 2005 This paper focuses on the fourth theme of the IATUR conference, The Changing Structure of Work Time. It examines the role of the manager and how much time he or she spends on key management priorities. Emphasis is on such major activities as planning, customer relations and managing people. It also identifies the impediments to managerial effectiveness, such as administrative tasks. A key finding is that during a work week that is longer than average, managers face a major challenge in focussing on their highest priority activities. Additionally, managers expectations are examined. By plotting actual time versus ideal, this paper demonstrates where gaps occur, usually on higher priority planning and people management activities. The paper examines trends from the past 15 years and shows the impact that technology and organizational change has had on the manager. Despite the addition of technology, the job of a manager hasn t actually changed much. In some cases technology inhibits as much as it empowers. Other work studies have relied on observations or diary study. The data for this paper is based on over 200,000 hours of real time data gathered by Pace Productivity Inc. since 1990 with the innovative TimeCorder time tracking system.

2 TIME PRIORITIES FOR TOP MANAGERS By Mark Ellwood, President, Pace Productivity Inc. Presented to the International Association of Time Use Researchers Annual Conference, Halifax, Canada, November 2005 INTRODUCTION Managers spend much of their time doing everything but managing. With all of the daily crises, pressures, and trivial tasks that are thrown at them, it is tough for the typical manager to stay focused on the things that are important. The classical definition of the organizational manager is one who plans, organizes, coordinates and controls. However, the reality is that there are numerous, mundane activities that take up a manager s time some of which actually impede his or her productivity. Many of these nonpriority tasks are unavoidable; they come with the job, but are never written in the job description. Managers try to focus on their priorities, but often get bogged down in the requirements of the job. So how do managers spend their time? What are their priorities and where are the gaps versus what they do and where they should spend their time? Henry Mintzberg explored the subject in 1968 with his seminal study of five senior managers (CEO s) each for a week at a time. He captured data through a technique called structured observation. In his analysis, he divided their activities into those that are concerned primarily with interpersonal relationships, those that deal primarily with the transfer of information, and those that essentially involved decision-making. Within these three main activities, he defines ten roles; the manager as figurehead, leader, liaison (informational), monitor, disseminator, spokesman (informational) and entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator (decisional). John Kotter conducted an observational study from , visiting 15 general managers across the U.S. He visited each one three times over 6-12 months, interviewing them for at least 5 hours and observing their daily activities for 35 hours. He summarized their activities into agenda setting (pursuing goals, priorities and strategies for financial, product and organizational issues) and network building (developing cooperative relationships with bosses, peers, subordinates, their subordinates subordinates, and outsiders). Michael C. Mankins surveyed top management team members in 2003 to understand how teams invest their collective time. He found that they spend too much time discussing issues that have little or no direct impact on company value. He focused solely on the time that top management teams spent together in a year, rather than looking broadly at their day to day activities. 1

3 Much of management literature discusses how managers interact, what skills they must possess, and how they provide leadership. However, there is a paucity of research dealing with the day to day activities of what managers must do to fulfill the functions of their job description. Other research does not take into account what managers actually do to complete the tasks that are consistent with their job descriptions. Are production managers actually overseeing production? Do research managers direct research? And are sales managers directing sales people? This paper, which is a summary of corporate time studies, captures what other approaches have not - that much of the time the manager is not doing what he or she is supposed to be doing. Instead she becomes bogged down in doing lesser tasks that might be assigned to other departments. Or she spends time on administrative tasks that do not advance the job. Or, that he spends time on some activities that simply cannot be categorized into any meaningful managerial activity. Travel time is an example of this. For managers, travel time to other offices, customers, plants, association events, or vendors needs to be recognized as an occasional element of the typical work week that has to occur. But it is not managing. Managers have limited resources; budget, staff, technology, and scope of authority. Time is also a limited resource for them. By understanding how they spend their time, organizations and individual managers can design programs to ensure that productivity is maximized. Productivity in a knowledge worker environment can be defined as the efficient allocation of limited resources. Decades ago in The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker encourages managers to Know Thy Time. He proposed that: Effective executives, in my observation, do not start with their tasks. They start with their time. And they do not start out with planning. They start by finding out where their time actually goes. Then they attempt to manage their time and to cut back unproductive demands on their time. Finally they consolidate their discretionary time into the largest possible continuing units. This process is the foundation of executive effectiveness. His advice is just as relevant today. The challenge is to easily measure the time they spend. Hence this report, a collection of studies conducted for corporate clients. Participants tracked their own time using Pace Productivity s proprietary TimeCorder* device for two weeks. The device works like a series of stopwatches and is very simple for participants to use. They just press one single alphabet key on the device each time they begin a new activity. The keys are coded to activities and each one works as a timer. Participants enjoy the process because it gives them instant feedback, resulting in a participation rate of about 95%. Each study tracked different activities. Thus this paper reviews diverse studies and summarizes general trends. See Appendix 1 for methodology details. Overall, we find that managers work long hours, but are not able to devote as much time as they would like to their major priorities. They get bogged down with administrative functions that eat up at least one-quarter of their time. * TimeCorder is a registered trademark of Pace Productivity Inc. 2

4 1. MANAGERS WORK LONG HOURS, AND MORE THAN THEY WOULD LIKE Overall, managers work 49.4 hours each week. This includes all of the work they do during regular work days at their office. It also includes work done during evenings or on weekends, whether at home or at the office. It also includes lunch, breaks and personal time during normal working hours while at their work location, since this is time not spent with family or in leisure pursuits. Commuting time is not included, unless work is being done while travelling. This might include a cell phone call made while driving to work, or paperwork being done while on a train, bus or subway. The typical manager s week is about 2 hours more per week than non-managers, who average 47.2 hours per week of work time, measured in the same manner. As shown below, the more senior the position, the longer the work hours. Presidents find themselves working 20 hours more per week than the average non-management employee. There is no relief from the burden of work the more senior one rises in the organization. Perhaps as Johanthan Gurshuny points out, Work, not leisure, is now the signifier of dominant social status. Evidence from three UK time diary studies (1961, 1983/4 and 2001) shows that over this period the Veblen-type negative relationship between social status (as indicated by human capital) and work time is reversed high human capital is now associated with longer hours of work. Graph 1. HOURS WORKED PER WEEK BY MANAGERS HOURS President Sales Manager Senior Manager Middle Manager All Nonmanagers Managers Actual Hours Ideal Hours For perspective Linda Duxbury and Chris Higgins reported that average employees (i.e. managers and non-managers) in 2001 devoted 45 hours per week to paid employment, up from 42 hours in Their results are consistent with work hours reported by Jonathon Swan and Gary L. Cooper in 2005, showing 44 work hours per week in the UK in a study of working 3

5 families. Clearly, managers work longer hours than average employees. When Swan and Cooper asked why, over half of all the parents we surveyed felt that long hours were necessary simply to get their job done. The graph above compares actual hours to ideal hours. At the beginning of a typical time study, participants are asked for their ideal hours on each of the items that they are about to track. (See Appendix 3 for methodology and Appendix 5 for results.) This provides an additional benchmark for comparison, reflecting employees attitudes about how they would ideally spend their time. On average, managers cite 46.6 hours per week as an ideal. Thus their 49 hours of work are almost 3 hours more than they would ideally like. The same is true for all levels of managers, though the gap widens for presidents who face a wider gap of 8 hours between actual and ideal time. This difference between actual and ideal hours is slightly less than results from the Tabulator questionnaire, featured on Pace Productivity s web site, GetMoreDone.com. The questionnaire asks respondents to allocate time across 11 activities for a full 168 hour week (i.e. 24 hours X 7 days.) Data is available from 18,000 respondents. Among those who are employed (across a wide variety of jobs), total work hours are 46 per week on the Tabulator questionnaire. Ideal, or desired hours are just 39 per week. In addition to understanding how time is spent, TimeCorder studies measure how busy the job is based on how many interruptions there are. The more frequently participants change activities, the busier the job. Frequency of activities is expressed in a duration figure. This is derived from hours tracked divided by the number of events tracked on a TimeCorder device. It is expressed in minutes per event. It shows how often managers typically change from one activity to another. Lower figures indicate shorter events, hence more interruptions. Based on the length of durations, presidents are able to work for longer, more concentrated chunks of time, typically 42 minutes. Other managers, faced with more frequent telephone calls and employee interruptions, have lower average durations per activity, ranging from 15 to 18 minutes, as shown below in Graph 2. Graph 2. DURATION OF TYPICAL ACTIVITY BY MANAGERS President Sales Manager Senior Manager Middle Manager All Managers Nonmanagers Minutes per Activity

6 2. ONLY THREE-FIFTHS OF MANAGERS TIME ADDS VALUE TO THE ORGANIZATION The pie chart below shows a weighted average of 565 individual activities combined into 12 major categories. These results run across 38 different managerial jobs. For an individual manager s job, time typically falls into just 6-8 categories. Note: Throughout this report, activities are types of work that managers tracked. Categories consist of a number of activities grouped together. Activities cited may appear to be quite large relative to the categories. This is because not all participants tracked that activity. Their results are weighted, depending on the participation level. Activity results are shown in Appendix 5. On average managers tracked 22 activities; the maximum anyone tracked was 26 (corresponding with letters of the alphabet on the TimeCorder device.) Some of these activities are fairly obscure and have only been used by single clients. However, of the total, 194 activities are more popular and have been tracked by at least 10 people. Time study participants tracked these activities; they were not given the category names while they gathered data. Graph 3. How Managers Spend Their Time Miscellaneous 5% Personal Time 8% Travel 2% Training 2% People Management 18% Strategy / Analysis 1% Planning 8% Administration 25% Internal Operations 7% Selling 8% Customer Administration 9% Customer Service 7% 5

7 Focusing on the first 7 categories clockwise (people management, strategy / analysis, planning, selling, customer administration, customer service, and operations) only 59% of a manager s time is spent on activities that add value. Organizations need to recognize that operating at 100% efficiency or 100% capacity is simply not feasible. Time for major priorities is limited. Numerous requirements will inevitably eat up time that managers would like to allocate to their priorities. We define these job priorities distinctly from job requirements. Priorities are activities that affect results at least a month in the future. In the pie chart above, they are the first three or four pie sections clockwise from the top; people management, strategy / analysis, planning, and for some managers, selling. Job requirements are those unwritten or administrative tasks that are a necessary part of being an employee in the organization or that must get done eventually. These include administration, training, travel, personal time and miscellaneous activities. For managers, they can account for up to 41% of the time! In between the high priorities and the necessary requirements are responsibilities. These involve job functions that are written in a job description that must get done today. Generally speaking, they include elements in the next three pie sections after priorities; customer service, customer administration, and internal operations, though elements from other sections might come into play. Following are brief descriptions of the main categories: Planning Activities oriented towards developing new products / services / clients, etc. Strategy / analysis Reviewing business results to aid in planning Selling Direct contact with prospects or customers to obtain additional business Customer Administration Internal activities that support sales and service Service Responding to customer requests or provision of products and services Administration Required internal activities not connected with main priorities Internal Operations Internal work that keeps the organization running Training Personal and professional development done on work time Travel Travel to customers, other offices, but not commuting Personal time Lunch, breaks, calls to spouse, short medical appointments, etc. Miscellaneous Activities not covered elsewhere 6

8 3. MANAGING STAFF DOES NOT GET THE ATTENTION THAT MANAGERS SAY IT SHOULD Managers expect their job to be managing people, but only a small percentage of their time is spent doing this. Prior to beginning their time studies, managers were asked for their ideal expectations. They were also asked to respond to four open-ended questions related to their jobs and productivity. The first of these open-ended questions is What are the most important things you need to do in your job? The objective of this question is to gauge whether actual time tracked on various activities matches up with stated intentions. Managers might believe their focus ought to be in one area. But because of their lack of appropriate skills, or the day to day pressures of ongoing crises, or their own bad habits, they are unable to allocate the right efforts towards their priorities. Their responses to the open-ended questions are coded to match a list of 97 pre-set responses. (See Appendix 1 for complete responses.) By far, the most frequent response to the question about priorities is manage staff, provide direction, coach, cited by half of all managers. (Note: percentages add up to more than 100% because many respondents give more than one answer.) Responses cited by at least 5% of respondents are shown below. Details are in Appendix 4: Table 1. QUESTION 1 In your job, what are the most important things you need to do? Manage staff / provide direction / coach 50% Prospecting / generate sales / orders / marketing 20% Provide customer service / support / satisfy needs 17% Manage operations 9% Time planning / planning / focus 7% Build relationships, meet, contact customers 7% Paperwork / administrative tasks 6% Train staff 5% Communicate well, , internal communication 5% Clearly, respondents see themselves not as managers of processes or projects, but of people. While this sounds intuitive and obvious, the reality of how time is spent is different than managers expectations. As shown in the main pie chart (Graph 3) and the table below, less than one-fifth of managers time is spent in the area of people management. This category represents 8.8 hours per week of the typical manager s time or 18% of the work week. He or she conducts 24 different activities of about 23 minutes each. 7

9 Table 2. PEOPLE MANAGEMENT CATEGORY Hours per week Occasions Duration in minutes Ideal Hours Difference vs. Ideal Middle Manager Senior Manager Sales Manager President All Managers Sales managers spend more time than other managers on people management. This is because their results are directly attributable to the sales reps who work for them. They know that developing their people is important to their own success. Hence they spend more time here, while they spend less time on general planning activities, covered in another section of this report. In general, managers don t expect to spend any more of their time on this crucial area of people management. Based on their input provided prior to their time studies, they would ideally like to spend 9.2 hours per week on people management. Their actual time is just 0.4 hours short of this ideal target. Within the sub-groups, presidents would like to spend slightly more time managing people, while senior managers would like to spend 2 hours less. But the category encompasses a variety of activities. Within the category, a key activity that relates to managers primary goal of managing staff is an activity called coach, mentor and train staff. Overall this takes 2.8 hours per week among those who tracked it, as shown in Table 3 below. This is very much short of the 4.1 hours they would ideally like to spend on this activity. Coaching just isn t getting the attention that managers want. Assuming the typical manager has between four and eight employees reporting to him or her, each employee may only get one session per week of less than half an hour to cover everything. Table 3. ACTIVITY: COACH, MENTOR AND TRAIN STAFF Hours per week Occasions Duration in minutes Ideal Hours Difference vs. Ideal Middle Manager Senior Manager Sales Manager President All Managers

10 4. ADMINISTRATION IS A MASSIVE TIME HOG FOR MANAGERS In the first of the four pre-study questions, paperwork and administrative tasks are well down the list of managerial priorities cited. Typically, these activities are mentioned as a main priority by only 6% of managers. Clearly, handling paperwork is not what they perceive their job to be. Yet administration is the largest category of activities that a manager is engaged in. Administrative tasks are not acknowledged in other analyses of managerial time, but are an unavoidable reality of work. We define administrative tasks as those that don t necessarily advance work toward achieving its major objectives, nor directly support these activities. Instead, they are necessary requirements of the job. They might support the operations of the organization, such as filling out time sheets, reports, and paperwork. They might support the dissemination of information, through internal, non-planning meetings. Or they might support other workers, providing assistance by answering questions or filling in for others. Or they might be activities that could be delegated entirely to an assistant, to another department or to technology, with no changes to the manager s performance. In the pre-study questionnaire administered prior to conducting a time study, the second question is What things, outside of your control get in the way of your productivity? Since we began asking the question in 1990, the issue of paperwork and administrative tasks continues to lead the responses to this question across all job categories. For managers and non-managers alike, the percentage is the same. 20% of respondents cite administration as an impediment. See Table 4 below for responses to the second open-ended question cited by more than 4% of managers. Table 4. QUESTION 2 What things outside of your control get in the way of your productivity? Paperwork / administrative tasks 20% Customer requests -service / problems / complaints 18% Computer / system / equipment problems 14% Changing priorities / ad hoc / unplanned projects 13% Interruptions 12% Staffing / HR issues / changes / people absent 12% Phone calls / phone interruptions / inquiries 11% Meetings - too many / too long / unnecessary 9% Other depts. inefficient / make mistakes 7% Volume of 6% Fire fighting / emergencies 5% Volume of work / not enough time 4% Customers without appointments / walk-ins 4% Central office visits, interruptions, requests 4% The irony is that since 1990, computers and new software programs continue to proliferate; yet there is no reduction in administrative tasks. This is because for the manager, the computer is not an automation tool; it is an information-processing tool. With the increasing number of tools, or 9

11 programs available, from word processing to spreadsheet analysis and presentation software, the options have also increased. Now, more scenarios can be checked out, more reports can be printed for review, more data needs to be inputted. It is no surprise then that the issue of paperwork and administrative tasks is seen as a huge impediment to productivity. As shown in Table 5 below, the administrative burden is massive and takes up 11.6 hours of the manager s work week. This is 25% of his or her time. The activities in this category are also very interruptive; 43 of them occur each week lasting 16 minutes each. Administration is also an area where managers would like to spend considerably less time than they do. Actual hours spent versus ideal expectations are the most dramatically different for this category compared to others. Managers spend 11.6 hours in administration time, but would ideally only like to spend 7.3 hours doing these activities. No one likes doing paperwork. Administration time increases as one moves higher in the organization (see table below). Some of the time in this category is simply staying in touch through networking, writing and responding to s or communicating with head office. Nonetheless, even when communication activities are excluded (some of which are routine and some of which are people management), administration for presidents is still 11.7 hours per week or 18% of the time. Table 5. ADMINISTRATION CATEGORY Hours per week Occasions Duration in minutes Ideal Hours Difference vs. Ideal Middle Manager Senior Manager Sales Manager President All Managers Some of the shortest activities, in terms of typical duration, occur within the administration category, as shown below in Table 6. Many could be delegated. Table 6. ACTIVITY Duration in minutes Paperwork and general administration 4 Handling mail and filing 6 Payroll procedures 7 Internal communications 9 Filing 10 Interact with support units 10 Read and respond to s, memos 10 Internal queries 12 Supplier / vendor calls 12 Technology issues 12 Plant liaison 13 10

12 5. PLANNING TIME HAS NO EFFECT ON HOURS WORKED The planning category involves activities that are forward thinking. These activities deal with the long term; introducing new products or developing strategy. The orientation towards the future is not high on the list of priorities for most managers. Caught up in the day-to-day flurry of interruptions, inquiries, reports and meetings, it becomes difficult for them to consider much more than a day ahead. This is reflected in the question In your job, what are the most important things you need to do? While 7% mention day-to-day / time planning, only 2% cite long term planning. This is reflected in the number of participants tracking these two activities; 43% have tracked daily planning while only 9% of managers have tracked long term planning. In fact, planning is a challenge for many managers. In the third of the pre-study open-ended questions, participants are asked, What things within your control get in the way of your productivity? The highest ranked issue that respondents give is time management. This response, as well of some of the others, shows that many of them just aren t very good at managing their time and planning. Major responses to the third open-ended question are shown below: Table 8. QUESTION 3 What things within your control get in the way of your productivity? No response / nothing 16% Time management / poor planning 12% Paperwork / administrative tasks 11% No focus / too many things at once / prioritizing 9% Interruptions by phone or in person 7% Doing others' work / being too helpful 5% Not saying no 4% Procrastination 4% Meetings - long or too many 4% Not enough delegation 4% Volume of 4% Daily planning includes determining what needs to be done today, scheduling appointments, reviewing materials for meetings and outlining project priorities. For those involved with selling, preparing for customer meetings is also included. Long range or strategic planning looks at a horizon that ranges from a few months to a few years ahead. It examines business trends, determines general direction for the organization, staffing needs, new product development, marketing initiatives and expansion projects. The activity related to daily time planning typically takes 2.2 hours per week. This means each day, managers who track this activity spend 26 minutes on planning each day. This is no greater 11

13 than non-managers who also spend 2.2 hours per week on time planning. The difference is that managers would ideally like to spend just slightly more time than non-managers on this activity; 2.3 hours versus 2.1 hours for non-managers. On the fourth of the open-ended questions, 21% of managers indicated improving time management would enhance their productivity. Improved time management allows managers to deal with the daily onslaught of interruptions, delegate more effectively to their team, and plan more thoroughly for meetings and coordinate projects more effectively. However, an investment in time management cannot reduce the time spent in other areas. We tested a number of hypotheses, correlating time spent by individuals on time planning versus time spent in a number of other areas. Essentially, all of the hypotheses show no correlation. (See Graph 4, below) That is, increased investments in time planning did not result in decreased investments in other areas. The range of time planning was from zero (among those who had included it as an activity for tracking) up to 5 hours per week. Time spent on daily planning does not tend to be correlated to: total hours worked time spent in meetings length of meetings coaching time paperwork frequency of interruptions GRAPH 4 Time Planning Time Versus Hours Worked Hours Worked Per Day by Managers Time Spent on Daily Planning 12

14 For the category as a whole, senior managers and presidents, being higher in the organization, spend more time on planning compared with middle managers and sales managers. But they also do more planning than they would ideally like, as shown below. Table 7. PLANNING CATEGORY Hours per week Occasions Duration in minutes Ideal Hours Difference vs. Ideal Middle Manager Senior Manager Sales Manager President All Managers Not only do some managers spend more time on the category than they would like; some of them spend more time specifically on an activity called long term planning than they would like. Managers who tracked this activity spend 3.7 hours per week on it, but ideally would only like to spend 2.4 hours. At the higher level, more time is spent on long range planning; 5 hours for presidents. But remarkably they would only like to be at 2.5 hours! While time planning may not affect hours spent in other areas, there is some evidence from other Pace Productivity Inc studies that increased planning time results in increased sales results. 6. ORIENTATION TOWARDS CUSTOMERS IS ALMOST EQUALLY DIVIDED BETWEEN SELLING, SERVICE AND CUSTOMER ADMINISTRATION Overall, 24% of the typical manager s time is related to customer activities. These comprise 12 hours per week, split across three categories (Tables 9, 10, 11 below) Even among non-sales managers, the figure is a healthy 14%. At the high end, those who are in a sales management role spend 28% of their time in customer-related activities. Selling consists of those activities that are in direct contact with prospects and customers to increase business. It includes sales meetings with prospects, phone calls, prospecting calls and follow up activity. These activities might be directed towards increasing business among current customers, in addition to finding new prospects and selling products to them. Finally, customer administration consists of the internal activities required to support customer activity. Some of these relate to sales; order processing, credit approvals, collections, preparing quotes. Others relate to internal work required to provide service; following up on requests, changing customer status, preparing for annual reviews, or completing paperwork related to new accounts. 13

15 Customer service is conducting activities that are of direct benefit to a customer, once they have become a customer. This includes installing products, training customers, answering inquiries about their orders, managing their accounts, resolving problems, handling complaints or arranging deliveries. Many sales managers are not just directing their sales staff, but often have their own accounts as well. Among those who track customer or prospect sales meetings, typical hours are 2.5 per week. This consists of 4.1 meetings per week of about 37 minutes each. This is just 2 minutes longer per meeting than the amount spent by typical sales reps. The following table is repeated from Key Finding # 3. It shows the orientation of managers towards selling, the second most popular response to this question. To some degree, this reflects the inclusion of sales managers in the sample. Excluding them, responses related to providing customer service moves up to the second highest position. Selling doesn t disappear entirely though. Even among middle managers who are not responsible for a sales team, the selling category still adds up to 2.3 hours per week. Table 1. (repeated) QUESTION 1 In your job, what are the most important things you need to do? Manage staff / provide direction / coach 50% Prospecting / generate sales / orders / marketing 20% Provide customer service / support / satisfy needs 17% Manage operations 9% Time planning / planning / focus 7% Build relationships, meet, contact customers 7% Paperwork / administrative tasks 6% Train staff 5% Communicate well, , internal comm. 5% The third response to the pre-study question, providing customer service, recognizes that even as a manager, customer issues need to be dealt with. This might include responsibility for key accounts, etc. The tables below show results for the three customer-related categories. Customer administration is actually the largest in terms of actual time, though selling is a key category where managers at all levels want to spend more time. Table 9. SELLING CATEGORY Hours per week Occasions Duration in minutes Ideal Hours Difference vs. Ideal Middle Manager Senior Manager Sales Manager President All Managers

16 Within the selling category, the activity called sales meetings with customers averages 37 minutes per meeting. Telephone calls, by their nature are much shorter, lasting just 11 minutes each. This is true whether the call is one initiated by the manager or whether it is an incoming call. Occasional calls are made to existing customers to renew orders or to ensure the customer doesn t switch to another supplier. These retention calls are just slightly longer than prospecting calls 13 minutes each. In the financial services industry, customers often walk in to buy products without an appointment. Usually these are handled by non-managers and last 23 minutes. When managers handle this type of prospect, the meetings are slightly shorter, 18 minutes each. Table 10. SERVICE CATEGORY Hours per week Occasions Duration in minutes Ideal Hours Difference vs. Ideal Middle Manager Senior Manager Sales Manager President All Managers Customer queries make up a large portion of service time. Among those who measured this activity, typical time spent per week is 2.6 hours. 12 queries each are fairly short, taking 13 minutes each. Customer issues rank as the second highest impediment to productivity (See Table 4). This stands out as an ironic comment on work priorities. Many of the respondents in our sample are responsible for service. This is reflected in providing service, ranked as the third highest item on their list of key priorities. Yet, customer requests are seen as an impediment. ( If it weren t for all those intrusive customer problems, I could get more of my work done ) Table 11. CUSTOMER ADMINISTRATION CATEGORY Hours per week Occasions Duration in minutes Ideal Hours Difference vs. Ideal Middle Manager Senior Manager Sales Manager President All Managers As shown in the table above, presidents do very little customer administration work, delegating these activities to those more junior in the organization. Lower level managers in turn have an opportunity to delegate these activities to their employees, but often don t. 15

17 7. TIME SPENT ON INTERNAL OPERATIONS DIMINISHES WITH SENIORITY Organizations exist to meet customers needs. In order to meet these needs, the organization needs to add value to resources. A resource might be a raw material that is processed into finished goods. A resource might be a group of employees who are organized and trained to provide services. A resource might be data that is processed, collated, or broadcasted. Or it may be materials that are distributed in a unique manner, via retail stores, delivery trucks or virtual warehouses. Or a resource might encompass professional expertise that is used to contribute to client welfare. Internal operations consist of activities that the manager oversees to add value to resources. These operations require planning by the manager. They also require day-to-day involvement in ways that front line employees cannot do because of their lack of experience, authority, problem solving ability, knowledge of other departments, etc. This is where the managers steps in to oversee internal operations. This might include opening the office, managing cash, dealing with systems issues, handling property maintenance, dealing with regulatory issues, overseeing equipment maintenance, overseeing data entry, and overseeing general operations activities. These activities add up to 3.5 hours per week. At 12 minutes each, these are generally the shortest events. There is a wide mix of activities in this category, with no single activity dominating. Among the sample of 385 managers, the two activities tracked by the largest number of people are operational activities (43 managers) at 3.7 hours per week and review reports (44 managers) at 1.3 hour per week. Operations time diminishes significantly with seniority, from a high of 5.4 hours for middle managers to a low of 1.0 hours for presidents. They are removed from low level, day-to-day operations, as they should be. Table 12. OPERATIONS Hours per week Occasions Duration in minutes Ideal Hours Difference vs. Ideal Middle Manager Senior Manager Sales Manager President All Managers

18 8. COMPUTERS ARE AS MUCH A HINDRANCE TO MANAGERS AS THEY ARE A BENEFIT The third highest ranked response to the question What things outside of your control get in the way of your productivity? is related to technology (See Table 4). The response is computer / system / equipment problems cited by 14% of managers. As noted already, the issue of paperwork has not lessened at all over the last 15 years. In the last two decades, one of the benefits that software and hardware manufacturers promoted was the elimination of paperwork. The promise was that everything could be automated. However, in some cases, computer systems cause more paperwork because they require more reports to be read, more data to be inputted, more business plan scenarios to be investigated, or more presentations to be prettied up. Not only that, but managers often become frustrated because the system is down, the software doesn t work, the upgrade isn t compatible with the previous version, the password has changed, a virus has caused data to be lost or the interface is not intuitive. Based on participant interviews, some of the miscellaneous time that they track relates to down time, computer problems, dealing with a help desk, and other computer issues. Although the time spent is relatively small, the aggravation and inconvenience associated with computer issues is large. One impact of technology that is noticeably low relates to . The volume of is cited as a productivity issue on the second question in Table 4 by only 6% of managers. This low level may reflect polarized attitudes toward . For most managers, has become a necessary and effective communication tool. At once, it replaces the memo, the meeting, the fax and the phone. It also removes the barriers of distance and time; one can send a message anytime from anywhere. Yet is also considered an overwhelming burden. Countless unnecessary, redundant, trivial, or spam s overwhelm the typical manager who may spend a half day or more after returning from a trip, simply clearing through hundreds of s. Yet on balance, the pros outweigh the cons. Thus the issue of volume ranks low on the list of productivity inhibitors. (Note: We occasionally tracked time, with one study indicating 3.6 hours per week. However, our interest is in what is achieved rather than the medium used. So time is tracked within various activities. s to employees, for instance, might be included under the supervision activity.) 9. MANAGERS ARE NOT GETTING THE TRAINING THEY WANT When asked, What could be done to enhance your productivity? both the highest response and the fourth highest response relate to improved personal skills. (Table 13, below) Managers want to improve their time management and increase their overall training. Managers who track personal development typically spend 1.3 hours per week on it, about 2-3% of their time. This typically consists of 2.4 sessions of 33 minutes each. Managers would ideally like to spend 1.5 hours per week on professional development activities. 17

19 Table 13. QUESTION 4 What could be done to enhance your productivity? Improve time management / planning / organization 21% Increase staff to delegate /increase admin support 16% Reduce paperwork / administration 12% Increase training 11% Structure / clarify schedule, tasks, staff better 9% No response / nothing 8% Increase / improve computers / systems 7% Increase delegation 6% Select priority activities / focus 5% Better / bigger / private work environment 4% 10. MANAGERS ARE SATISFIED WITH THE PERSONAL TIME THEY SPEND WHILE ON THE JOB On average, managers eat lunch, take breaks, call spouses and conduct other personal business for 4.1 hours per week, the equivalent of about 49 minutes per day. Per week, actual results almost exactly match the ideal expectation for this activity of 4.2 hours. In the fourth open-ended question, mention of extra breaks, fitness facilities, nap breaks are almost never mentioned as a means to increase productivity. Managers find their break times sufficient. If there is wasted time at work, it does not appear to be among managers. As shown in the previous sections, the manager may not be entirely focussed on her highest priority activities, but she is certainly busy and engaged with active work. 11. VERY LITTLE TIME IS SPENT ON ANALYSIS One of the fundamentals of effective management is business analysis. Yet very little time is spent on this category, just 0.6 hours per week or 1 % of time as a category. This is exactly equal to expectations. Activities within this category include marketing analysis and strategy (0.9 hours among those measuring it) and business plan analysis (1.3 hours among those measuring it). Some data analysis may have been tracked within the planning category, related to long term planning, or setting objectives. To set an objective, one needs to know the current status. 18

20 12. SMALL BUT SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF TIME ARE SPENT ON TRAVEL AND MISCELLANEOUS ACTIVITIES Averaged across all managers, travel takes up just 1.0 hours per week. However, unlike other categories, this category contains just a single activity, business travel. Among those who tracked travel (24% of managers), the figure is higher, 3.5 hours per week. This consists of 5 trips of 43 minutes each. Ideally, the sub-group of managers who tracked travel would do much less, just 2.1 hours per week. Managers prefer to do their work at a central location rather than spending their time travelling. Miscellaneous is also a category with a single activity. It averages 2.5 hours per week. It can include dealing with computer problems, filling in for another person s job, office announcements, etc. 53% of managers spend less than an hour per week on miscellaneous activities. Small as these other activities are, they nonetheless add up, along with personal time and administrative time, to 41% of managers time that is non-value added. 19

21 13. IMPLICATIONS Work hours continue to increase across all jobs for a number of complex reasons. In particular, those rising in the organization will find themselves working longer rather than less. There are no leisure time perks associated with seniority. But longer hours do not necessarily mean more high priority work gets done. Managers cannot be expected to work 100% on their top priority activities all the time. 60% is an average target for value added work. The figure plummets for high priority tasks. Increased time management training should focus on better quality focus of activity, not on saving time. Bring back the secretaries. The elimination of clerical assistance in favor of technology solutions may have had detrimental effects. The way to reduce administration time is to give it to someone else to do. Directing and coaching people is difficult to make time for when crises abound. Yet managers need to make this area more of a priority. Many customer activities are not high level priorities, nor low level requirements, but fit in the middle; day to day responsibilities. They comprise the activities that need to be done each day, but must be done without compromising planning and people activities. 20

22 APPENDIX 1 : TIME TRACKING METHODOLOGY This paper does not deal with one particular study designed to determine managerial effectiveness. Rather it summarizes and collates data from a number of corporate time studies, each of which was designed with a different purpose. It is a summary of data combined from 98 time studies commissioned by corporate clients. Typically these were designed to identify what activities make up the day of a group of employees. For this paper, managers have been isolated. Pace Productivity Inc. has conducted these studies on behalf of corporate clients since The database of results gathered from 1990 to 2005 contains over 170,864 hours of real time data, covering 678,979 events. Focusing on managers only, this group of 385 participants tracked their time for 42,639 cumulative hours, recording 126,401 events. The purpose of the typical study is to improve organizational effectiveness by creating an environment where employees can spend the greatest amount of time on their highest priority tasks. The corollary to this is that they should spend as little time as possible on their lowest priority tasks those that do not contribute directly to results. In other academic research, the interest has been to study the role of a manager how he or she is effective in doing the job. In this study, the concern is more about what is to be achieved what the output of the job is. For instance, regardless of whether the manager uses meetings, face-to-face contact or , are sales calls being made? Are orders being processed? Are customer service reps being coached to do their jobs better? The TimeCorder electronic device used to gather the data was introduced in the spring of The previous version of the device was slightly larger and heavier and had a flip top lid. The newer version of the device is 4 inches wide by 7 inches long (deep). The TimeCorder device allows users to easily track their time by pushing buttons associated with pre-coded activities. It has a series of buttons labeled A to Z. Each button is associated with an activity. Each time a study participant presses a new button, time stops recording on the previous activity and begins recording on a new one, like a chess clock in reverse. In addition to cumulative time, the TimeCorder also tracks the number of occasions for each activity. When a button is pressed, the count for that activity increases by one. In the report, the accumulation of 21

23 these is referred to as occasions. By dividing cumulative time by the number of occasions, a typical duration is derived. It is the average length of time for which an activity occurs, expressed in minutes. Data recorded with the TimeCorder is tracked accurately to the second. Employees consistently embrace TimeCorder studies with enthusiasm. This is because a unique methodology that a) gets them involved from the beginning, b) asks for their input c) makes the process fun and d) gives them instant feedback. Cooperation level, based on an initial review of raw data is approximately 96%. Typically the managers in this database are middle managers and above. For instance, production line supervisors or team leads for clerical staff are not included. Following is a list of industries from which data has been collected: Financial Services Manufacturing Wholesale Distribution Retail Consulting Banking Advertising Sales Travel Computer Software Professional Hospitality Public Service Typical jobs covered include: Area Manager Business Banking Center Manager Branch Manager Chief Financial Officer Clerk of Works (Municipal) Deputy Clerk Director Facility Manager General Manager Various Middle Managers Manager - Customer Support Manager - New Product Development Manager of Customer Service Manager - Product and Market Analysis Manager of Personal Banking Staff President Sales Manager Senior Manager Store Manager Treasurer Vice President Typically, the purpose for conducting a time study was to gather data to: Increase organizational effectiveness Recruit qualified managers and staff Train managers to acquire and apply new skills Eliminate activities that don t contribute to primary job functions Provide appropriate technology that automates mechanical, clerical, repetitive tasks Introduce systems that facilitate communications without adding to administrative work. 22

24 APPENDIX 2: PRE-STUDY QUESTIONNAIRE METHODOLOGY 588 managers responded to the form part of the pre-study questionnaire. This is higher than the number of people who participated in the time studies because questionnaire responses were occasionally collected from participants at time management seminars. The four questions are: 1. In your job, what are the most important things you need to do? 2. What things outside of your control get in the way of your productivity? 3. What things within your control / personal habits get in the way of your productivity/ 4. What could be done to enhance your productivity? The distribution of response that respondents gave in the table below shows that the first question elicits the largest number of responses, 2 per person on average. The third question, generating only 1.1 responses per person, is the most challenging for respondents. This is because it requires them to attribute productivity shortfalls to their own behavior. Essentially, people do not like to admit that their own experience, work habits or skills are part of the problem Question # # of responses Average # of responses per person APPENDIX 3 : IDEAL EXPECTATIONS: METHODOLOGY Prior to beginning a time study, participants are asked to estimate their ideal hours. Those are the hours they would like to work on the various activities on the list they are given in an ideal situation. This list has a maximum of 26 items. Participants are first asked to estimate their total ideal hours per week, including breaks, evening and weekend work. They are then given a set of tokens; coins or small candies such as Smarties or M&M s are usually used. They are asked to count a number of candies corresponding with their total hours. For instance a 45 hour ideal week would require 45 candies. The rest are put aside. Then, they allocate the tokens according to ideal times for each activity; 2 tokens on the first, 3 on the second, and so on. By forcing participants to use no more than their total allocation of tokens / candies, results for individual activities are guaranteed to add up. However, participants are encouraged to change their total allocation during the exercise, if needed. They are also encouraged to write down half hours or quarter hours, using the tokens as a rough guide only. 23