Time Management Practices of Administrative Staff of the University of Education, Winneba

ABSTRACT

Time management is a conscious control of the amount of time spent on work activities in order to maximize personal efficiency. In nearly all institutions, there are many trivial events that waste time that have to be identified and separated from the vital few on which scarce time must really be spent. The study attempted to investigate time wasters which inhibit the amount of planned time spent on work in University of Education, Winneba (UEW) by educational administrators and administrative staff. The study also explored the time management practices used in order to maximize efficiency. The research design employed for the study was a descriptive survey. In view of the varying professional groups among the subjects of the study, a convenient sample of both the administrators and their staff were used for the study. The sample size of 83 consisted of 22 educational administrators and 61 administrative staff who worked in offices of these administrators. Questionnaires which contained both open and closed ended items were administered to these subjects. The results showed that both the administrators and staff perceived receiving drop-in visitors, receiving calls on private mobile phones, and looking for documents because of inefficient filing systems, as the three worst culprits in terms of wasting time in UEW. While the administrators ranked “saying 'NO' to work which was outside their plan” as the seventh time waster, the staff ranked it among as the fifth. Thus, they both agreed to some extent that „saying 'no' to work outside one‟s plan‟ was one of the worst culprits in terms of wasting time in UEW. The administrators and staff however disagreed on the fourth time waster, “running out of materials needed to carry out work”, with the latter rating it very high. Finally, on the measures used to curb time mismanagement practices in UEW, it was found that over 90% of the administrators „set priorities in order of importance of the tasks that staff do‟ and „use diary or personal organizers‟ in their offices. However, it was found that over a quarter of the administrators do not use planners, fail to prepare weekly schedules and do not use time book in the office to track staff movements. It was recommended that administrators in UEW put in place a policy to make use of good time management measures in order to minimize time that is wasted. In particular, the policy should ensure administrators set goals which are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (i.e. SMART), prepare and keep to daily, weekly, monthly and yearly planner/diary, as well as use time book to track staff movement in and out of their offices.