Time Management and Scheduling Plays a Vital

Time management and scheduling plays a vital role in any company. Our case study analysis will be based on the fact that successfully integrating your department's activities and your own responsibilities with those of the other departments plays a key role in getting the job done on time and with the best results. Every member of the company must be a team player and, as any team player, you have to know what your role is on the field.

After having been recently hired by ABC Inc. And placed in charge of campus recruiting, Carl Robins successfully completed a recruitment program for new possible hires within the company. The 15 trainees were to work for the operations Supervisor, Monica Carrolls and needed to be prepared for their future position. The schedule was pretty tight and just as straightforward: the paperwork regarding the new trainees was to be completed by the 15th of June, when a new hire orientation was to take place. As such, all the new hires were to be in business by July. As Memorial Day (30th of May) passed, Carl decided to have a look and finalize the paperwork needed for the orientation. The mess was noticeable: none of the trainees had been sent for the drug tests, some of the applications were not completed, there were only three orientation manuals and, additionally, the training room had been booked by another company member for the entire month of June, for a different seminar. As such, things may point out towards the fact that the 15th of June date that Carl had envisaged, as well as the month of July for starting work, was a fantasy.

Identifying the problems

There are several problems that appear throughout the case study. The first one related to scheduling. As we have seen from the case study, it was Carl who fixed the dates for the hire orientation, as well as the month they would start working. Indeed, Monica, the Operations Supervisor for whom the trainees would be working, had no saying in this. From my point-of-view, Carl proved a certain lack of realism, because he was not able to properly evaluate how much time he would need to perform all the necessary paperwork, drug tests and training. In terms of scheduling, he could have decided to set the date a little forward (especially if we consider the Memorial Day holiday) and would have had enough time to perform all the actions. As a direct cause of this action was perhaps his will to please and impress during his first year on the job. As he tried to get things done as quickly as possible, he lacked the wisdom to evaluate whether or not his plan was actually feasible.

The second issue we need to address refers to time management. Admitting that the first problem does not really exact (although, after the results, it is clear it does), we may admit that the schedule was realistic and the dates set could have been achieved. However, if this is so, then Carl clearly proved a misconception about what time management means. He knew what his work load was and what the dates were (he had set them himself). Additionally, he was reminded by Monica on the 15th of May about all that needed to be done. However, his response is somewhat surprising: not only does he not start work, but he leaves everything for after the holiday, even if (as was the case indeed) there was a large amount of work and problems could have appeared.

This brings me to the third issue on my list: work management. I have referred in the lines here above to time management and to how Carl was in the wrong for not planning his work in advance. This third problem is somewhat connected with the previous. By work management, I am referring to the fact that he has never bothered to check in what state the paperwork was in, what else needed to be done, whether the drug tests had been performed (obviously, this was not the case), etc. Had he done so previously, he would have noticed that some of the things still needed to be accomplished and would have most likely performed some of the actions before time was running so short. Thus, I am marking this as an additional problem, as the case study showed that not only had he left everything on the last minute, but he did not really know what work had still to be done and how much of the paperwork was completed.

Finally, a fourth problem seems to be Carl's relation with the other tasks within the company and with the other employees at ABC Inc. Indeed, as we see from the final paragraph, he is never aware that the training room had already been booked for the entire month of June, time when he wanted to perform his own seminar. As I have mentioned in my thesis, a company is a team and every member needs to be a team player. But in this case, Carl seems to have no touch with reality: he only finds out about the fact when he actually meets Joe in the training room. I will only casually mention that this is also a classical case of not doing your job properly: you work in a company with many other employees, yet you somehow find it natural that nobody should use the training room during the time you will?! Usually, when you eat in a restaurant, you make a reservation previously, because other people may want to eat there at the same time as yourself.

Possible solutions

All the problems I have listed here above have one direct consequence: the dates set by Carl cannot be achieved. As such, there are several possible solutions for Carl in this case. I see two.

One of the possible solutions would be to modify the schedule. Indeed, Carl could let Monica know that the schedule can no longer be respected because of unforeseen problems. The consequence of such a scenario would probably be that Monica would lose confidence in Carl and it is most probable that he will either end up fired or be degraded. This solution will mean that he cannot abide by a schedule and may put the company at risk by doing so.

The second possible solution would be to somehow manage to work his way back into the existing schedule. There are two questions that need to be asked here. The first one is whether or not it is realistic to assert that all the necessary paperwork can be finished on time. The second relates to the training room: Joe has booked it for the whole month of June.