However, the continuing obstacle to improving the performance of a company's human capital is the constant of time. A recent survey by the Wall St. Journal indicated that time was a 3 to 1 greatest need for today's busy individuals. With information doubling every year and those today experiencing more change in one year than their grandparents experienced during their entire lifetimes, validates the need for effective time management.
When we look at time through the eyes of the strategic plan and human capital, we can discover the following:
- Employees work 260 days.
- Employees have at least 30 minutes per work day for breaks or lunch.
- Employees usually have at least 2 weeks vacation.
- Employees usually have at least 4 paid holidays.
- Employees usually have at least 5 paid sick days.
- Employees waste at least 1 hour per day.
- Many employees receive professional development time.
- Majority of employees (over 70%) are not totally engaged on the job.
When analyzing the above facts, most employees are actually being paid for 100% of their time while only delivering a 27% output. Therefore, employers must leverage every single second to reap a positive return on their human capital investment to increase the bottom line.
Since time is a constant, time management is really a symptom about ineffective self-management and should be about individual leadership development. When time management is approached from a development perspective and is part of the overall human capital critical goal category within the strategic plan, then human capital ROI is quickly achieved because you begin to address the real problems and realize greater profits.
