HR is a crucial role in any company. With a strong HR to turn to, companies can maintain a satisfied and productive crew of employees and grow it to its maximum potential. Yet, the typical day of an HR is filled with miscellaneous and repetitive tasks. These tasks are time-consuming and sometimes, don’t add much value to your larger goals. This means that you tend to move away from what you need to focus on- connecting with the team and helping your employees grow and achieve their goals.

How can you manage the bigger picture as an HR while also completing ad-hoc, administrative tasks that land on your plate? Many hiring managers ask the same question.

This is why we dug a little deeper to find the best tips to maximize your productivity. By following these hacks, you can make the most of your 40-hour work week, while balancing different duties that come your way.

Here are some hacks to help you boost your productivity and work efficiently.

HR productivity tips to ensure faster growth

Tip 1: Time Blocking

As an HR, a large part of your day would be taken up by meetings. This also means that some of the most productive hours of the day are spent on less important tasks. To save these hours and ensure you can work on your priority tasks without interruptions or meetings, you can start blocking out specific hours of your day.

Since most people would check your schedule- usually on Google Calendar- it’s best if you block out those hours by creating an Event on your calendar. By reserving these hours, you can mute distractions and ensure you aren’t interrupted when working on the most important things on your to-do list.

Pro-tip: The best time to reserve for your priority tasks is first thing in the morning when you’re fresh and ready to tackle the day.

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Tip 2: Put your tasks through the Eisenhower Matrix

Maximize your productivity by sorting your to-do list by how urgent and/or important they are using the Eisenhower Matrix. This method of sorting daily tasks has been adopted by some of the most successful people and has reaped impactful results.

The matrix categorizes your tasks into 4 boxes- urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and neither urgent nor important. This allows you to figure out which tasks to do now, schedule them for later, delegate to someone else, or eliminate the task from your list. By doing this, you can put away unessential tasks and focus on what truly matters.

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Tip 3: Automate administrative task

Your administrative tasks don’t need to take too much of your time. In fact, these tasks don’t need to take any of your time, if you work smartly.

By integrating smart apps into your processes, you can simplify and automate most of your tasks. For instance, apps like Donut and ChiefOnboarding allow you to onboard new hires quickly by allowing you to schedule messages and capture data about their tasks and progress, without requiring too much of your time.

Another exercise that is cumbersome for many hiring managers is collecting and managing data about employee attendance. With AttendanceBot, collecting this information becomes much faster. Your employees can punch in and out with the app that is in-built with your communication platform- whether it’s Slack or Microsoft Teams. If the team works in shifts, you can create shift calendars within the bot and easily access or modify them.

This is very helpful for businesses with a customer service team that works round the clock. Your employees can also use this smart bot to request leaves- no meetings or paperwork required.

Tip 4: Go Paperless

You’ll be shocked by how much time and energy you save by going digital. Most businesses are skeptical to store all their documents on the cloud but with servers built with assured security, you can be sure that your files will be safer online than in your file cabinet.

But, the more important part is how transferring your data online can save time. Here’s how:

  1. Email any essential forms to your employees instead of having to print the form and have it filled out. Make form filling and processing effortless by using online portals.
  2. Use your Google Drive to store employee data, important details, and even, minutes of your meetings.
  3. Refer back to specific parts of your documents easily by using the search function within the file.
  4. Archive old files so that you can access them later on, if required.
  5. Collect data and conduct surveys efficiently with Typeform or SurveyMonkey.

Tip 5: Take a breather

You’d be surprised how not being productive for a few minutes can boost your productivity for the rest of the day. With so many tasks to check off, it’s important to take a few minutes away from your desk. By taking a walk or meditating for a few minutes, you can make your brain less bored and more focused. Taking a break can help you to retain information and boost your thinking.

Pick what you’d like to do. Most people prefer to take a walk and get some sun while they’re away from their desk. Some others use apps like Headspace and Calm and meditate for a while. If you still want to make the most of these minutes, you can spend the time eating fruit, drinking water, or reading an article you’ve been meaning to.

Are you feeling productive already? It’s best to get started on these tips right away. Grab a coffee, block some time out on your Calendar and get to work!

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Employee Engagement, Productivity, Workforce Management, Workplace Culture