HELPING STAFF IDENTIFY WORK PRIORITIES
© Achieve Global - used with permission

You may need to help staff identify work priorities when:

• Staff members are confused about conflicting work demands
• You're beginning a planning or goal-setting cycle
• You're concerned that people are not devoting enough time to top - priority responsibilities
• You need to help staff reevaluate their workloads in light of a change in university, faculty, department or center strategy
• You're orienting someone to a new role

Although the key actions that follow are structured toward working with an individual, the techniques can also be used with a group of people (such as the department staff group or a project team) provided everyone shares essentially the same work responsibilities.

Before meeting to set priorities and goals

Key Action 1

Develop a list of work responsibilities.

To help someone prepare for a meeting with you to discuss work priorities, have the person draw up a list of work responsibilities ahead of time and indicate their percentage of time spent on each activity. To help, you can give the person a copy of "Worksheet for Identifying Your Work Priorities" in the appendix of this workbook.

The list should include the following types of responsibilities:

• Ongoing activities
• One-time tasks and projects
• Responsibilities to the department/faculty/center
• Learning or developmental opportunities, both current and anticipated

For each responsibility, ask the person to estimate the percentage of time it takes or will take per month and to record this information. Have the person bring the worksheet to the meeting.

During the meeting

The purpose of the meeting is to draw out the other person, encouraging him or her to take the lead. Instead of imposing your views, try to create a shared understanding.

However, you should be prepared to clarify your expectations should the staff member seem unclear about responsibilities you see as important.

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Key Action 2

Review and revise the list.

You want the staff member to maintain ownership of the list. However, he or she may need help from you to overcome blind spots and to put his or her work in perspective. For example, you may want to point out some overlooked responsibilities or to identify opportunities that the staff member may not be aware of.

Use open-ended questions to draw out the other person's ideas.
For example:

How does that task fit in?

What do you think about...?

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Key Action 3

Rate each responsibility based on its contribution to the university, faculty, center or unit.

The task here is to determine the extent to which each responsibility contributes to University, Department or Faculty goals, not to establish an order of importance or priority. For example, you and the other person may decide that two or more responsibilities are equally high or equally low in terms of their impact on the unit.

Use questions like these to stimulate discussion:

What is the purpose of this responsibility?
Which university unit goal or goals does this activity impact?
Who are the stakeholders or clients?
What do they expect?
How does this responsibility relate to what the University or the unit is trying to accomplish?

Remember, although you may be aware of what the university or unit is trying to achieve, the staff member may not. If necessary, share your understanding of the university or unit goals, strategy, and direction. This will provide a basis for evaluating how a responsibility contributes to the big picture.

If you disagree on a rating, don't compromise by splitting the difference. For example, if you rate a responsibility as a 1 and the other person rates it as a 3, don't compromise on a 2. Instead, continue the discussion until you reach agreement.

After you have reached agreement on the university or unit contribution of each responsibility, write the rating in the space provided on the worksheet under "unit contribution."

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Key Action 4

Rank responsibilities in order of priority.

Using the ratings as a starting point, discuss and rank each responsibility based on its contribution to the university or unit.

Here are some suggestions for handling two or more responsibilities with the same rating:

• Rank individual responsibilities ahead of shared responsibilities.
• Rank responsibilities only this staff member can do ahead of those others are capable of handling.
• Give priority to the responsibility the person is more enthusiastic about.
• Give priority to the responsibility that will produce the greatest impact in the least amount of time.

Record the ranking for each responsibility in the boxes provided on the worksheet.

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Key Action 5

Make adjustments as needed.

Review the percentage of time the staff member spends on each responsibility and assess its priority ranking. Discuss the results. Encourage questions about workload and competing priorities. Jointly make adjustments so that the staff member will spend most of his or her time on the highest-priority responsibilities.

Consider the possibility of the following types of adjustments:

• Shift responsibilities to or from others.
• Eliminate low-impact responsibilities.
• Examine tasks and activities to see if they can be streamlined.
• Explore the possibility of applying new technologies to tasks or activities.
• Negotiate time lines.
• Assign additional resources.

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