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It’s safe to say that neither employers nor employees desire constant oversight and micromanagement. To avoid this, self-management skills in the workplace are required as they empower employees to manage their own workflows and productivity levels. Self-management skills in the workplace can make all the difference when it comes to people management, employee productivity, and overall job satisfaction.
In this article, we will share what self-management skills are, what makes them so important for businesses and individuals alike, and how organisations can play a role in strengthening their team member’s self-management skills.
In turn, you’ll see how your employees and overall business will benefit from strengthening these crucial skills.
Self-management skills refer to the skills needed to plan, organise, and execute one’s professional day-to-day duties without having to be told to do so. They are the skills that allow for autonomy in the workplace and ensure that employees can handle their own success and responsibilities.
These skills all add up so that an employee can be responsible for their own professional actions, development, output, and ultimately, their own mental wellbeing. At their core, self-management skills are what allow people to gain and take control of their own lives. These skills often dictate how one reacts to challenges and day-to-day scenarios. As such, self-management skills have a direct impact on one’s mental wellbeing. So, by honing this group of skills, people can strengthen their mental fitness and levels of resilience.
Self-management skills exist in the workplace and at home. For example, if you run a household, you know that it’s up to you to pay your bills on time, keep your space clean, go grocery shopping, and manage all other duties for the functioning of the household.
The same can be said within one’s professional life, as it’s up to an employee to meet deadlines, attend meetings on time, and get their tasks done effectively. With self-management skills, people reduce their risk of losing track of time, becoming easily overwhelmed, suffering from burnout, being overly stressed, etc.
Since mental fitness and mental wellbeing impact self-management skills (and vice versa), it’s no wonder why so many organisations are turning to employee wellbeing platforms. Organisations recognise the importance of helping employees to maintain healthy mental wellbeing.
In turn, organisations are able to reduce employee absenteeism, lessen the chance of employee turnover, and support employees to become more happy, engaged, and motivated when they show up for work.
Self-management skills make up the difference between being successful or being overwhelmed and risking burnout. In a workplace, this basically comes down to getting the job done or being done with the job (a.k.a. being fired or quitting).
Businesses don’t have the time or resources to single-handedly oversee every employee’s respective workload. That’s why employers hire employees that they can trust to get the job done, which relies on their self-management skills.
Employees who hone their self-management skills are more likely to be promoted and excel in their careers because they possess the skills to be autonomous.
As an employer, it’s within your wheelhouse to support your employees’ development of their self-management skills. When employees feel supported and have what they need to succeed, everyone wins. In a workplace setting, you can improve your team member’s mental fitness levels by deploying an employee wellbeing platform. The right employee wellbeing platform will help to build employee’s mental fitness with the right tools and resources focused on supporting the 4 pillars of mental fitness.
By also providing a place for employees to document how they are feeling on a regular basis, the wellbeing platform provides each individual with a better understanding and look at what is impacting their mental wellbeing.
There’s a long list of self-management skills in the workplace.
Let’s take a look at some of the most important ones to consider and sharpen.
One of the most useful skills in any job is time management, and that’s because time is a constraint. However, with time management skills, employees can maximise the value that they create from the time that they have to work with. Time management comes down to prioritisation of tasks in the time available.
That means that people need to know how to estimate how long a task will take, plan their time based on prioritising their to-do list, and pay attention to how long they spend on any task. This way, they can avoid over-spending time on unimportant tasks and will ensure that they can use time wisely to meet deadlines.
To be in control of one’s own destiny, it’s necessary to set goals so that you have a benchmark to measure progress towards what you are trying to achieve.
A guideline to set measurable goals is the SMART framework, which stands for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. For example, you may create a goal of earning a certain amount of revenue in the span of a month.
By having the parameters of time and a number in mind (which is specific and measurable), you can help to narrow in on setting an achievable and realistic goal based on what you’ve been able to earn in the past months.
In Atul Gawande’s book The Checklist Manifesto, the author stresses the importance of checklists and showcases examples of how people in high-stress positions, like doctors and pilots, all use checklists that oftentimes ends up being the difference between life and death.
Organisational skills, such as the use of checklists, helps you to keep your mind focused on tasks, reduces the chance of having something important slip through the cracks, and makes you aware of what to expect down the pipeline.
Organisational skills also aid in reducing one’s stress levels because instead of having to keep repeating mental lists, you can put everything down in a centralised location for easy referencing.
Speaking of stress levels, even the most laid back work environments still have employees that feel stressed at one point or another.
Difficult and changing situations arise in work settings, and to be able to manage them successfully, one must be able to keep their stress levels in tow. This way, a person will be able to use their brain to make rational and logical decisions, rather than being swept up by emotions, acting rashly, and making otherwise avoidable mistakes.
A wellbeing platform is a great aid for employees in any organisation because it offers a space for employees to proactively notice patterns of what may be causing them stress, so that they can work to minimise it.
At the same time, employers can gain real time insights from the data to direct resources towards the teams and departments that may be suffering from high stress levels to work to alleviate their burdens. Furthermore, there are wellbeing platforms that are dedicated to improving mental fitness. When a person possesses resilience and the tools to deal with challenging situations, they are better able to respond calmly to stress-inducing situations.
This skill may seem a bit less obvious in terms of being a self-management skill, but once we break it down, it’s very clear to see why it is actually one of the most important.
People often are reactive based on whatever situation they find themselves in. In a work environment, the ability to be self-aware means that you can see how your actions and words affect those around you and play a role in the bigger picture, namely achieving organisational goals.
With self-awareness comes the capability of being adaptable when circumstances change on the fly, which is something that any employer would naturally seek in an employee.
Wellbeing platforms help to promote self-awareness. They offer employees an intuitive way to reflect on how they are feeling. The data collected gets integrated into an overview of insights, so users can track their emotional patterns and make connections between how their experiences impact their feelings and reactions.
When it comes to work, people all too often get so carried away with finishing a task that they fail to take the time to notice how they are feeling or doing on a personal level, which will end up affecting their professional output, whether its subconscious or consciously noticed.
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Improving upon one’s self-management skills in the workplace doesn’t just happen overnight.
It’s a practice that relies on paying attention, being present, and being patient. Employers can create a supportive environment that helps employees to be their best.
Here are a few ways to help improve self-management skills.
Take the time to recognise your team members’ strengths and showcase appreciation (rewards and recognition programmes can help here).
When you understand your team member’s strengths, then you can provide tailored opportunities for them to showcase their strengths. For example, if you know that someone on your marketing team is a very persuasive and strong writer, then you may task them with developing an email newsletter for clients.
As they succeed in their role and responsibilities, they’ll feel more motivated to keep performing well.
Patience is a characteristic that requires practice in its own right. But, by being patient and compassionate with your team members, you can better understand where they may need extra support.
It’s of utmost importance to prioritise mental wellbeing. With the aid of a wellbeing platform, you’ll gain access to analysis and insights that will help you to better understand how your employees’ are feeling and what's impacting how they feel
This way, you will know which teams may need extra support. If they are nearing burnout, the tool will help you to be aware of the situation and take preventative measures, like offering the break they may need.
Wellbeing tools also empower your team members because it gives them the space and place to take a step back and assess how they are doing for themself. Within the platform, users can access bite-size content that provides knowledge which can work to improve their mental fitness and help them to become the best versions of themselves.
Not only will this enhance self-awareness, but it also can play a role in improving their work life balance and overall happiness.
All self-management skills can be utilised and useful in your professional life (and quite frankly, in your personal relationships, too).
To understand how, let’s take a look at a few examples.
Showing up to work on time is an expectation and necessity; it’s not really a choice. This is where time management comes in so employees can understand their morning routine, leave enough time from waking up, fulfill home responsibilities, and make it to work on time to start your day on a strong note.
Once employees are at work, time management will allow them to meet deadlines, arrive to meetings on time, and manage expectations of customers, co-workers, and superiors.
Organisational skills come into the picture when you design to-do lists and checklists that are purposeful. Employee items can be listed in order of priority, or cross off the easiest and least time-consuming tasks first to build up momentum to tackle the bigger items on the list.
When you are physically in pain, you seek solutions like ointments, physical therapy, or prescription medicine. In the same vein (no pun intended while we are on the topic of medicine), employees' mental wellbeing needs to be equally cared for.
Sometimes, you may not feel like you are in total control of your own mental wellbeing, but employees can take steps to improve their mental wellbeing so that they can show up to work with a clear mind that’s ready to be engaged and focused on whatever is in front of them.
Employers can help to support and develop a self-aware environment with wellbeing platforms that are designed to raise mental wellbeing awareness and empower people to make healthy decisions while understanding mood in real time to take proactive steps.
Self-management skills in the workplace are empowering and necessary to show up as your best self. When an employee's head is in the game, and have the resources needed to be their best, they will be engaged at work, happy about their success, and motivated to continue to develop professionally.
Employers can support every individual’s ability to strengthen their self-management skills by providing access to an employee wellbeing tool that is focused on mental fitness. When employees exist in a state of optimal mental wellbeing, they are more present, aware, and invigorated to perform at their highest potential.
To find out how LUME can help your organisation to better understand and support the mental health of your employees, just fill in the form and we’ll be in touch.
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