BUSINESS managers should take responsibility for helping employees improve their time-management skills, according to Peterborough Chamber of Commerce.

This in turn would benefit the business, as by placing added emphasis on helping their staff to manage their time more effectively and become more productive in the workplace, more time can be spent on tasks which add value to the business.

Helen Bosett, co-ordinator of Peterborough Chamber of Commerce, said: “The pressure being placed upon staff to perform additional tasks is mounting, and every time an employee spends five minutes worrying about their mounting workload or wondering how they are going to get everything done by the end of the day, they are wasting valuable minutes which could be better spent benefiting the business.

“This is why it is so important that employers take responsibility for providing employees with the skills needed to manage both their workloads and their perspective of it effectively. The less time spent worrying about how much there is still left to do, the more time will be spent focused on the job in hand.

“If employees are not feeling under pressure, they are more likely to be more productive and not just in the business environment. For women in particular who need to juggle work and family commitments, there are practical, straight-forward strategies that enable them to manage their time more effectively and become more productive at home as well as in the office. There are also psychological advantages to arranging your workload into manageable, bite-sized chunks to avoid that ‘overwhelmed’ feeling, which improves an individual’s quality of life generally.”