Once you have set up a meeting, the clients could potentially ruin your well planned out schedule. Here are 3 tips which can help you to avoid these disruptions.

Don’t get left standing on your own.

To ensure this doesn’t happen; a good suggestion would be to ask the clients to arrive 5 to 10 minutes before the start of the meeting so that you can start going over the schedule briefly and then this won’t affect the start of the meeting.

Don’t let your meeting be disrupted by anything!

A good idea is to request that clients switch off their mobile phones or anything else that could go off and disrupt the meeting.

Avoid unnecessary meetings.

Clients can also majorly eat up your time if they request face to face meetings with you to discuss minor points and you have to travel to meet them. To try and avoid this travelling, you should try to extract from the client exactly what they hope to gain from these face-to-face meetings and see if you can settle their qualms over the telephone or some other way which wouldn’t dramatically affect your schedule.

Okay, so you have a schedule all drawn up for your daily routine but the only trouble is that you keep being distracted by fellow employees asking you questions, making conversation, making comments or completing more tasks to your originally well planned out schedule. All these distractions can dramatically impact on your Time Management and throw your schedule into disarray. What you need is one of Infero’s Effective Time Management Training Courses.

If this is the case in the office, you could try using some headphones to give the people around the picture that you are busy and that you don’t want to be disturbed.  To eliminate any background noise present in the office, you could use some music through the headphones which will help drown out the background noise and help keep you focused on task. Also any Instant Messaging Clients active on your computer should be set to Busy so that other people are aware that you are unable to talk at that particular time. Another handy tip to use in an office environment is to make a ‘Do not disturb’ sign to hang by your workspace to alert people to the fact that you do not wanted to be disturbed.

In the case of having extra jobs offered to you, you need give a firm but polite refusal in order for you to complete any tasks you are working on at the moment. A polite yet firm refusal such as ‘I’m sorry but I can’t work on any more projects at the moment’ is much better than a reluctant acceptance for both parties as it means your schedule is unaffected and that the request can be completed by somebody who can give it their full attention.

More Time Management Articles

To enquire about our Effective Time Management Courses, get in contact with us by either phone or email.

Organisations that develop their staff during the downturn will be better placed after the recession. No wonder that a call was made in an open letter Open Letter to UK Employerssigned by Sir Michael Rake (Chairman of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills and BT group plc), Mervyn Davies (Chairman of Standard Chartered), Brendan Barber (General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress), Richard Lambert (Director General of the Confederation of British Industry); and Sir Stuart Rose (Chairman of Business in the Community and Chief Executive of Marks & Spencer).

Train to Gain is the Government service to supports and improve the skills of your employees as a route to improving you business performance.

Until now only organisations with more than 4 employees could access Leaders First Grant. For a limited time only the criteria for funding were eased and the funding is now available for limited companies with 2 or more employees or for other companies with 3 or more employees.

So why not to take this opportunity to develop valuable strategic skills and get yourself on a Prince2 training or Time Management course or simply upgrade your IT skills. Give us a call and we will explain how to enjoy the training while using the funding for the course.

IT Courses and Effective Time Management Training are vital tools to help businesses become more efficient and improve staff morale.

According to the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, one in four companies which fail to train their workforce closes down. This compares to a figure of only one in nine for those that do provide staff training. It’s a case of train to gain.

Benefits of training on business revenue.

Still not convinced? Try this… The Sector Skills Development Agency says that employers who invest in training and certification experience a quick return by:

• Improving skill levels by 51%
• Improving productivity by 22%
• Improving customer service by 22%
• Improving employee morale by 20%
• Increasing profitability by 12%

Effective Time Management

Effective Time Management Training Courses can be invaluable in helping your colleagues achieve objectives by encouraging more efficient ways of working. These training courses can help your staff identify the differences between urgent and important tasks and produce a workable strategy for achieving the previously unachievable. Please get in touch if you want to help eradicate the time-consuming pointless chores and concentrate efforts on tasks that deliver results. We host a popular effective time management seminar and a range of IT courses.

When money is a little tight, as it is for most businesses these days, a sure way to guarantee success is to invest in the little gems your company already holds, your employees.

Let us say you have 25 employees, what is the best way to maximise your revenue? By making cut backs? Definitely not. You already have a group of hard working people who know your business inside out, so all you need to do is get them working a little harder, faster and more efficiently and you will see the results from your hard work and loyalty paying off in no time at all.

Time management is something that we are generally quite poor at most of the time. We should start work at 9, but things get in our way, we’re on the phone, forget to buy breakfast, the stress is too much, I need another cigarette break. All these distractions are cutting away at the time we should be using to focus on our business and make more money.

It’s not just you that wants results; your employees want to be good at what they do too. Time Management training and IT courses can teach them it all, so that they possess the right skills to do the best job in the most efficient way. If you train your employees to be able to adapt in business, when you need to make changes, they are ready and fully prepared to take on any new challenges. You will probably be surprised to see leaders starting to develop and become more efficient in the workplace, making your job more relaxing.

Studies have shown that training has a very positive impact on productivity, with some showing an 80% rise. And not only will it improve the amount of work your people do, but the quality will be staggeringly higher.

IT courses are perfect for honing in those all so important business skills and making your work look more professional. From memos to producing complicated formula reach spreadsheets, we can show you how to look great, feel great, and be great. So join us for Effective Time Management seminar to find out how we can help you.

The long renowned Prince is back! No not the controversial, rock-and-roll hall of famer or Will Smith’s ‘Fresh’, upbeat character. Rather the project management tool assembled by the Central Computer and Telecommunication Agency in 1989 to plan an organised and controlled event.

Prince2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environment) not only allows companies to create a perfectly productive and efficient method in which to execute their plan, but also offers you an acquired sense of control over your project management and plans long term acquisitions of the business. But not any John can crack the method, as it takes a combination of 4 hours worth of examinations and weeks of revision to function. However once accredited you can comfortably implement your project planning system into your business and tie up all those loose ends.

The Prince2 training provides employees and organisations with the skills to successfully manage a project through the efficient use of their resources. Prince2 will benefit project managers by allowing them to economically manage all of their employees and resources towards their project goals through a structured method. In other words; a perfect tool for project managers.

Key Benefits of Prince2:

• The flexibility suits all projects needs
• Easy mornings for middle management, as all those tedious meetings can finally be reduced to only necessary meetings
• It’s Free! Well to use only, of course there are training costs.

Prince2 and project management are always good entities to be associated with as it gives you that extra edge with potential clients. Yes, you may have to put yourself through Prince2 training and exams, but reaping benefits from it are far more worthwhile than the short-term implications.

Ever looked at your list of tasks wondering what to do first? Well, you are not alone.

The Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923) suggested that the results and the causes of those results are unequally distributed in the ratio of 80:20. The Pareto Principle, more commonly referred as the 80/20 Rule, states that:

•  
  • 20% of your activities will generate 80% of your success, or
  • 20% of a well time managed effort will generate 80% of the desired results.

Although the ratio 80/20 is not always this precise, it is used to put emphasis on how much is lost or how much can be gained with time management. It is not a surprise that identifying the critical 20% is the key factor to success.

A simple Time Management course can certainly help you to learn some tips and tricks and teach you using your time efficiently. But what can we do NOW to minimise our time wastage?

The key in identifying those critical 20% is by prioritising your tasks. You may use the Eisenhower Method to help you with that. It said that former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower used this method in prioritising his daily tasks.

To determine your priorities you will need to use a matrix, where you evaluate each task according to its Importance and Urgency. If you use this matrix then you will need to focus on Important tasks. If your tasks are

• Important and Urgent, then do them immediately
• Important but Not Urgent, then enter them into your calendar to keep track of them
• Urgent and Not Important, then delegate them to a competent person
• Not Urgent and Not Important are time wasters, so minimise them

This is common sense but you would be surprised how much this method will positively affect your productivity. For more info, read our future blog articles, or come to our Effective Time Management Courses and seminars.

It’s stronger than coffee, more powerful than any energy drink and more beneficial for your business than you could ever imagine. And it can help create a happier and more motivated workforce. Have you realised the power of praise in making the most of your team’s talents?

Employee motivation is a must for every business – especially in the current economic climate. You believe in what your business has to offer, but if your staff don’t, what’s it all worth? Research has revealed that staff perform better and achieve more with the timely application of genuine praise. Not just from managers but from colleagues, too.

We human beings need to feel valued. It’s what interests and involves us and gets us at our best. Yet it’s all too easy in the hurly-burly of daily life to overlook the valuable contribution that individual staff members make every day. But with the right kind of approach and motivation training, you could be on your way to boosting your team’s performance.

Don’t Fake It

Keep your praise real and you’ll keep your people on board. Make your compliments genuine and honest. They’ll mean more to your team.

It’s the Little Things that Count

You don’t have to deliver an elaborate compliment in flowery language. Just regular, thoughtful praise. A quick, but considered comment recognising someone’s hard work is all it takes. You don’t even need to use words. Friendly, appropriate gestures such as a pat on the back, a nod, or even a thumbs-up can do the trick too.

Don’t Hold Back

As a new manager or with a new employee you may think you need to be cautious with praise. But the sooner you start recognising your employees’ achievements, the sooner you’ll develop a rapport with them. They’ll associate you with feeling positive and that can only be good for your business!

Be Creative

Try smart little ways of showing your staff how much you value them. Ask them what they think by saying things like: “I’d like to hear your view on this, Clare.” There are other ways to boost employee morale and business performance. You can recognise outstanding effort with simple, but meaningful gestures such as writing a note, sending an e-card, or giving a small present or even time off.

So now you know. Don’t ply your people with coffee to get the job done. Motivate them with recognition. After all, genuine praise is the ultimate energizer. Staff morale is a wonderful thing. It gets things done, it creates a better working environment and ultimately it helps keep your business healthier and happier.

Find out how to make the most of your workforce with our Motivating Your Employees training course. We can give you straightforward, no-obligation advice on your training options and tell you how to access training grants. Contact us now.

Projects – wouldn’t it be great to know how to turn them from a bit of a nightmare into a dream for your business? A project has the potential to boost a company in all kinds of ways. But with the extra demands on your staff and your workload, even a relatively small project can snowball into something slightly scary that falls behind schedule and goes over budget. Successful project management depends on a strong mix of tools, skills and attitude. Here we list the key ingredients to getting it right.

Get in Touch

Do you know what they know? Could you be missing out on valuable project management experience within your own business? For each new project ask around your company to find out who has relevant experience. You might be surprised. Find out who they are, then get ahead of the game by building on their experience with up-to-date training and support. You’ll then have your very own in-house project management experts!

Get Connected

Every project has the potential to affect your business – for better or for worse. So don’t keep it to yourself.  Make sure the rest of the company is invested in the process. That way you’ll be more likely to have people’s cooperation when you need it. It’s easy to stay caught up in the day-to-day running of a business without sharing the strategic leaps forward. Keep everyone informed and do it appropriately. Senior management may like to have regular updates or one-to-one meetings whilst front line staff may appreciate a brief weekly email.

Get the Right Tools for the Job

You wouldn’t paint a wall with a hairbrush. So why are you trying to achieve first class results for your project with tools unfit for the job? Every project is different, but each and every one can benefit from the smart, structured software that makes up Microsoft Project. This resource will actually do a lot of the ‘thinking’ for you. Let’s face it, managing a project is multi-tasking multiplied by 100! But MS project is designed to turn the process into a clear-cut sequence of tasks. Whether you want to track budgets, workflow or people, MS Project takes the pain out of project management. It can even help you spot a specific problem long before it starts becoming a barrier to project success! Taking a little time to get skilled in using the right software is very likely to save you time, money – and headaches – further down the line. So, sign up for an MS Project training.

Would you like to get prepared for better project management with a short, affordable Project Management training course? As well as IT and business training for individuals and companies, we also offer helpful, no-obligation advice on your training options (and information about training grants of up to £1000)! Contact us now.