09 January 2020
Automate the routine admin and focus on the important
In a standard business environment, a common issue facing staff is that they are unable to focus on important tasks due to the ever-pressing need to respond to urgent tasks, combined with the monotony of time-consuming routine admin. In the L&D world, a powerful way to give yourself more time for the important stuff is to leave the drudgery of routine admin to your LMS.
What is considered ‘important’ varies from person to person, but generally speaking ‘important’ tasks can include up-skilling or spending time establishing relationships with stakeholders, whilst ‘urgent’ tasks often relate to either administrative duties, such as sending out weekly reports, or responding to unexpected situations.
Admin - the thief of time!
Odds are, you can think of an instance where you’ve had to push back your intention to do something meaningful, in order to prioritise a more time-sensitive task, even if the time-sensitive task feels trivial.
A 2018 survey, conducted with participants from businesses around the world, reported that almost 9 out of 10 employees say they waste time daily, completing work-specific tasks that have no impact on their core job. Additionally, 4 in 10 full-time employees say that “administrative tasks that do not drive value for their organisation” are responsible for eating up more than an hour of their precious time every day. Another survey, conducted in 2017, found that employees in the UK spend over 440 million days a year on ‘time-wasting’ office tasks such as managing emails, working through minor technical issues and waiting for slow computers, and sitting through mandatory meetings with an arbitrary length. That’s equal to roughly 1.2 million years!
What’s clear is that routine admin can be a massive time-sinking exercise, especially for those in HR and training manager roles.
Get more from your LMS
Thankfully, there are all sorts of ways to help you free up time to focus on the important stuff. One of the most effective ways for the HR/L&D professional to reclaim their time is to implement an LMS and use it to automate as much routine admin as possible.
Of course, there will be unforeseen urgent tasks to respond to as well as important, time-sensitive issues that might crop up out of the blue. For those instances, we would recommend reading these helpful tips and taking note of effective ways to maximise your time at work, for instance by using an Eisenhower Matrix.
The best LMSs are capable of acting as a ‘robot-colleague’ who’s 100% dedicated to helping you get your admin done. They can ensure regulatory training renewals are happening, send out reminders, assign the correct training to staff, and dispatch relevant reports to managers at all levels. The LMS will achieve all of this automatically.
Reclaiming time is not the only thing your LMS could be doing for you, there are many more benefits to implementing an LMS: Click here to download Breeio’s latest whitepaper, ‘6 ways an LMS can help L&D shine.’