1.

MANAGING WORK PRIORITIES AND OBJECTIVES

Goal setting and planning ("goal work") promotes long-term vision and short-

term motivation. It focuses acquisition of knowledge and helps to organize resources.

WORK OBJECTIVES

In some cases, each employee/worker will have their own, clearly defined goals and
objectives. These goals and objectives may be specific to the individual or to the current
work tasks that must be complete.

Work objectives may include:

·         Meeting Sales target

·         Meeting production targets

·         Meeting deadlines

·         Meeting budgetary plans

·         Learning new skills

·         Participating in new teams.

                    Your work objectives must be incorporated into your personal work schedules,
and prioritized effectively.

PRIORITIZE TASKS

 
                    It is very easy to take on lots of exciting tasks or projects, only to end up with
too much to do and not enough time to do it.

A METHOD TO PRIORITIZE YOUR TASKS

                    One way to ensure you keep up with all the tasks you need to do is to prioritize.
 

Priorities: Description:
1. Urgent and These tasks are the first priority. They are both urgent and important
Important steps in achieving your objectives.
2. Important but Not These tasks may not seem urgent but they still crucial to achieving
Urgent your objectives.

Failure to complete these tasks has the potential to lead to a crisis

situation.
3. Urgent but not Often tasks in this category may seem urgent as they may cause a
Important disruption if not dealt with quickly.

However the urgency is often set by someone else and they are not
critical to achieving your objectives.
4. Not Important and Tasks in this category are not an essential part of your job and will
Not Urgent not have a significant impact on the business.

Once you have prioritized your work tasks, it is important that you
establish contingencies for issues that may affect the achievement of
the tasks.
 

Once you have planned out your tasks and prioritized them, you need to develop a
schedule.

Scheduling is where the objectives you set are placed on a timeline and given expected
completion dates.

You need to look at the time you have available and plan how you will use it to meet your
objectives.

Effective scheduling will help you to:

•  Understand what you can realistically achieve.

• Make the best use of your time.

•  Leave enough time to meet you highest priorities.

•  Leave enough time to manage contingencies

·      Minimize stress.

RESOURCES

          The resources that you have are also an important consideration when developing
goals and objectives. The type of resources that you should consider includes:

·         Physical Resources- This includes all the materials and the physical space that will be
needed to achieve your goals. They may come in the form of raw materials which will
transform, or materials which you purchase in order to undertake certain tasks.

·         Financial Resources- Money makes the world go round! And money is a key
requirement of any operational plan. You need to carefully consider the cost of the activities
that you and the rest of your team will undertake in order to achieve goals. This generally
requires you to develop a budget and analyze this on a regular basis to ensure that you are
spending the financial resources you have been allocated wisely.

·         Technical Resources- These include all the machinery that you will need in order to
achieve your goals. You need to consider whether you have all the machinery and
technology you require, is it available when you need it, and what about if it breaks down?
What will you do then?

·         Human Resources- Last but no means the least, you need to fully consider the
human resources. This includes all the people that you will use to carry out the various tasks
that will allow you to meet your goals. Will they be available? Do they have appropriate
training? Will you have enough staff?

·         Technology

         

In order to schedule and complete planning to will need to effectively use business
technology.

This could include utilizing basic technology such as:

•   Computers.

•   Computer applications such as scheduling tools, email and internet/intranet/extranet.

•   Modems.

•   Personal schedulers.

•   Printers.

•   Photocopiers.

•   Scanners.

In order to perform complete your planning and perform your work roles, you will need to
be familiar with this basic technology

 
 

4. ORGANIZATIONAL GOAL

 “Goal setting is one of the basic tools used by organizations to assist in setting a direction
and achieving it. Successful organizations often set long- and short-term goals for service
development, improving quality, reducing errors, becoming more customer-focused, and
building better internal and public relations.” – Jeffery Davis, Managing and Achieving
Organizational Goals                 

           A goal is a statement of a desired future an organization wishes to achieve. It

describes what the organization is trying accomplish. Goals may be strategic (making broad
statements of where the organization wishes to be at some future point) or tactical (defining
specific short-term results for units within the organization). Goals provide a way of assuring
that an organization will get where it wants to go.

Setting Goals

When you talk about objectives and setting goals, we often talk about them being SMART.
That is:

SPECIFIC You need to be specific about the end result.

MEASURABLE You need to be able to gauge how well you are progressing towards the
end results.
ACHIEVABLE If the objectives are too hard, it is likely that your team will give up
before they even start.
RELEVANT The objective must be something you can control or influence. It must
relate back to your goals.
TIME- BASED There must be a time- frame for achieving the objective.
 

Influences of Meaningful Goals in Organization

 
It is the job of manager to achieve organizational goals. He does this through management
systems and the proper utilization of human resources. There is synergistic relationship
between interpersonal competence, goals and systems.

Successful goal setting is a formal organization requires:

·         Being able to relate personal goals to organizational goals.

·         Having helpful systems for setting and achieving goals.

·         Being ready to respond favorably to organizational goals.

Goals can also be:

 Big-picture goals – your end destination as defined by the ‘Big-Picture' Statements

for your various life aspects.
 Milestone Goals – these are the series of goals that will take you to your destination.
 Mini Goals – milestone goals may need to be broken down into bite-size chunks to
make them more manageable.

This is shown diagrammatically as follows, where you can see that your ‘Big-Picture’.

 
    

1. MANAGING WORK PRIORITIES AND OBJECTIVES

Goal setting and planning ("goal work") promotes long-term vision and short-

term motivation. It focuses acquisition of knowledge and helps to organize resources.

WORK OBJECTIVES

In some cases, each employee/worker will have their own, clearly defined goals and
objectives. These goals and objectives may be specific to the individual or to the current
work tasks that must be complete.

Work objectives may include:

·         Meeting Sales target

·         Meeting production targets

·         Meeting deadlines

·         Meeting budgetary plans

·         Learning new skills

·         Participating in new teams.

                    Your work objectives must be incorporated into your personal work schedules,
and prioritized effectively.

PRIORITIZE TASKS

                    It is very easy to take on lots of exciting tasks or projects, only to end up with
too much to do and not enough time to do it.

A METHOD TO PRIORITIZE YOUR TASKS

                    One way to ensure you keep up with all the tasks you need to do is to prioritize.
 

Priorities: Description:
1. Urgent and These tasks are the first priority. They are both urgent and important
Important steps in achieving your objectives.
2. Important but Not These tasks may not seem urgent but they still crucial to achieving
Urgent your objectives.

Failure to complete these tasks has the potential to lead to a crisis

situation.
3. Urgent but not Often tasks in this category may seem urgent as they may cause a
Important disruption if not dealt with quickly.

However the urgency is often set by someone else and they are not
critical to achieving your objectives.
4. Not Important and Tasks in this category are not an essential part of your job and will
Not Urgent not have a significant impact on the business.
Once you have prioritized your work tasks, it is important that you
establish contingencies for issues that may affect the achievement of
the tasks.
 

Once you have planned out your tasks and prioritized them, you need to develop a
schedule.

Scheduling is where the objectives you set are placed on a timeline and given expected
completion dates.

You need to look at the time you have available and plan how you will use it to meet your
objectives.

Effective scheduling will help you to:

•  Understand what you can realistically achieve.

• Make the best use of your time.

•  Leave enough time to meet you highest priorities.

•  Leave enough time to manage contingencies

·      Minimize stress.

RESOURCES

          The resources that you have are also an important consideration when developing
goals and objectives. The type of resources that you should consider includes:
·         Physical Resources- This includes all the materials and the physical space that will be
needed to achieve your goals. They may come in the form of raw materials which will
transform, or materials which you purchase in order to undertake certain tasks.

·         Financial Resources- Money makes the world go round! And money is a key
requirement of any operational plan. You need to carefully consider the cost of the activities
that you and the rest of your team will undertake in order to achieve goals. This generally
requires you to develop a budget and analyze this on a regular basis to ensure that you are
spending the financial resources you have been allocated wisely.

·         Technical Resources- These include all the machinery that you will need in order to
achieve your goals. You need to consider whether you have all the machinery and
technology you require, is it available when you need it, and what about if it breaks down?
What will you do then?

·         Human Resources- Last but no means the least, you need to fully consider the
human resources. This includes all the people that you will use to carry out the various tasks
that will allow you to meet your goals. Will they be available? Do they have appropriate
training? Will you have enough staff?

·         Technology

         

In order to schedule and complete planning to will need to effectively use business
technology.

This could include utilizing basic technology such as:

•   Computers.
•   Computer applications such as scheduling tools, email and internet/intranet/extranet.

•   Modems.

•   Personal schedulers.

•   Printers.

•   Photocopiers.

•   Scanners.

In order to perform complete your planning and perform your work roles, you will need to
be familiar with this basic technology