BSBPEF301 Organise personal work priorities and development
In this unit you will learn to;
- Organise and complete own work schedule
- Evaluate own work performance
- Coordinate personal skills development and learning
Introduction
Wherever you work, you will have certain tasks to perform. There will be standards to which these tasks must be performed in order to maintain the highest possible quality of service and / or product and there will be time frames in which these tasks must be completed.
Understanding the importance of your own role to the organisation
No one in an organisation, however, works in complete isolation. You will work with colleagues and supervisors in your own department. You may work with other departments as a member of a committee or team. Whatever the case, it is important to understand how your role fits into the departmental and/or organisational picture. The duties you perform may represent an important step in an organisation’s procedures or processes, or, they may be part of a larger task or project working with others – all contributing towards getting a specific task done. You may all be working on the task or project simultaneously or each person may need to complete their part, so that the next person can complete theirs. So you must be aware of who relies on you to get your work done so that they can complete their own tasks.
You will also need to be aware of the timeframes in which you need to complete your tasks. Holding the work up could cost the company its customers, revenue and/or reputation. A successful organisation should run like a well-oiled machine with each cog turning in sync with the others so that it meshes with the machinery as a whole. Broken cogs can damage the machinery just as inefficient work practices and team work can damage the organisation.
Finally, it is important to learn and grow in your work role; taking advantage of all opportunities to improve your skills and knowledge. Opportunities to learn will enhance your value to the organisation, but will also give you greater job satisfaction and may lead to more responsibility or promotion.
Organising and completing your own work schedule
Most employers, after an initial induction period, will expect you to get on with your job. During the first few weeks you may be somewhat hesitant in your actions so putting together a schedule of what you need to do is always useful. Then, as you become more proficient in your role, the schedule can still be used to help you keep on track and ensure that all your work is done, and is done on time.
As mentioned, the work that you do will have an impact on others within your organisation. Using a marketing coordinators role as an example, you might be responsible for:
- preparing and placing advertisements for staff vacancies – other departments within the organisation would be waiting on these ads to be placed so that they can employ people they need to either work on specific short term projects or come on board as full time staff. In either case, a hold up on your part of the process or recruitment means holding up the work they are planning.
- preparing advertisements for the promotion of the organisation. This is a very important task. Often an organisation will plan the placement of their promotional advertisements very precisely. For example, they may be introducing a new product line and have organised a major launch campaign – with sales, celebrities, prizes and all manner of other things to entice customers to buy the new product, so ads promoting this must be placed to an exact time schedule to ensure maximum exposure. Forgetting to place the ads for this event could lead to serious embarrassment for the organisation and, not the least, a serious loss of sales.
- specific project work – often involves a team effort with each person on the team being allocated a task to complete within a given time frame. If a team member is behind on their particular task it can hold up the entire project and, subsequently, cause great problems.
What this means is that you need to be organised and know what to do, and when. A well thought out and thorough schedule (or work plan) is an excellent tool to help you keep on top of all the things you need to do.
Developing work goals and key performance indicators (KPIs)
Many organisations have clearly defined business plans and will be working towards specific goals.
In achieving these goals every staff member must play their part and may, in fact, be given specific targets or Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to achieve. For example, if one of the organisation’s main objectives is to increase their profitability then;
- each individual sales person would be given a specific sales target that they must meet
- administrative staff would be set targets to minimise resource wastage; use of paper products, use of copier toner and so on, which will reduce office expenses.
- Operational staff would be given KPI’s tailored to their individual roles; production staff (for example) may need to produce a specific number of products per day and these must meet organisational standards
- marketing and PR staff might have KPI’s based around media exposure – and so on.
All of the above KPI’s are designed to decrease costs, increase sales and profitability; each team member contributing.
Organisational policies and procedures relevant to work tasks
In addition to business plans, most organisations will also have operational plans determining how the organisation will actually function. This may include having policies and procedures that deal with such things as;
- compliance with legal obligations including;
- anti-discrimination legislation
- privacy and confidentiality laws
- workplace health and safety obligations
- and many others.
- customer service standards, providing staff with guidance on how they are to interact with customers.
- the manner in which work tasks are to be undertaken and completed. This, too, may involve specific steps and standards to make sure that work is being carried out efficiently and effectively.
- Industry codes of practice. Depending on the industry you work in there may be specific rules you must follow. In the hospitality industry, for example, you must comply with legislation governing the sale of alcohol, and hygiene practices.
Organisational standards, then, are an essential aspect in supporting a consistently high level of workplace efficiency.
… continued in learner guide…
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