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With Good Management, Time’s on Your SdeBy Patricio Figueroa, Jr. The organizational calendar is a tool no corporation or agency can do without. We all have tools to remind us when to do something. From your alarm clock to your body’s demand for nourishment, we are prompted routinely to fulfill a need or an activity. There is a time for everything. We have timetables, appointments, deadlines and other activities that have to be accomplished by a certain time, day or date. Like the alarm clock going off in the morning to wake us up, a calendar is a prompt. We all need prompts, or reminders, to get us to start an activity or tell us when to complete it. Many organizations have no calendars. Some have a big two-month plastic chart with the names of the months and the days and their numeric equivalents. The charts are rudimentary and are only a beginning. Let’s examine the need for an organization wide calendar, one that is more advanced than the calendar on the door or wall. Let’s figure out what we would use a calendar for. What is the first thing we should identify on a calendar? What about holidays observed by the organization and the dates the entity is closed for business? Of course, these should be spelled out in the personnel policies. But suppose, like many entities, you have a floating holiday. Do you take it the day after Thanksgiving or, maybe, make a four-day break during the holiday season? What about religious holidays? Whereas the organization may not observe some Jewish holidays, for example, some staff members might. In fact, there may be so many staff members opting to observe a Jewish holiday that the organization won’t be able to function. In that case, the calendar has served a purpose. What else should be in the organization’s calendar? Here are some important Items to include in it: payroll days; board meeting dates; staff meetings; funding-source report deadlines; annual events (organization picnic, fund-raising dinner, etc.); staff member vacations; timesheet due dates; payroll taxes deadlines; state or federal services report due dates; staff evaluations; budget process start times; time of the organization audit; deadline for delivery of W-2 Internal Revenue Services forms; in-house appointments; staff out-of-office appointments; and many other activities and events. In fact, a service entity, especially a not-for-profit organization, may need several calendars. For example, one calendar may be for internal organization activities and the other for the board of directors. A multidivisional organization may need a calendar for each division. Obviously, these calendars should not be in conflict with one another, so key activities should be consolidated into one calendar. Of course, staff members have to maintain their own personal calendars to schedule office appointments, travel out of the office, and note important holidays, doctor appointments, etc Staff calendars that contain office appointments with consumers or clients, or for travel out of the office for appointments or training courses, should be reflected on the organizationwide calendar. Why? Essentially, so everyone in the office is aware of the whereabouts of the person involved. Suppose this person gets sick, has a family emergency or, worse, is involved in an automobile accident? Who is going to cover that scheduled appointment with a consumer in the office? I highly recommend that when staff members schedule appointments outside the office, they list the place they are going, a telephone number at the location and the time frame involved. In addition, for appointments in which consumers/ clients are coming to the office, a telephone number where the consumer/client can be reached should be on the calendar. There are possible legal ramifications covering the latter two conditions. Suffice to say, it is a prudent practice. When I ran my agency, all appointments with a consumer or client, or anyone for that matter, had to be put on the agency calendar (for office appointments) kept at the secretary’s desk. Later on, we advanced to the large plastic month chart on the wall. But that was before we had computers on every desk. Nowadays, this is a much simpler task. The modern organization provides a computer for virtually every staff member. These computers are linked via intranet, which means that they are all connected at a “hub.” The neat thing about an office network is that you can set up “shared files,” which all staff members can access. The organization calendar should be in the shared files folder, visible and accessible to everyone. Of course, staff members can still maintain their own personal and semiprivate calendars. This arrangement does not require fancy or expensive calendar software. The best organization wide calendar I saw was on what is now Microsoft Outlook. With respect to the degree that this software is useable by staff members who are blind, I am not prepared to comment because it depends on the screen reader software used by that individual or individuals. I would like to mention, however, that these software applications list appointments, activities and other information for users to view on a daily or weekly basis. I also use this software for tasks, e-mails and a list of contacts that also serves as a telephone book. The software also dials telephone numbers for me. One other feature of the Outlook software is that one can download or synchronize the calendar to a hand-held computer (i.e., Palm, IPAQ, etc.) and to some cell phones. If cost is a concern, set up a calendar using Access software or Excel. Whichever course you choose, just remember, a calendar is useless unless people enter information and appointments. You should designate someone in the organization to be “the calendar police.” I don’t know how anyone can be an effective manager nowadays without a calendar for his organization. Being a time manager means you manage your organization more efficiently with fewer hassles. ******************************** Patricio Figueroa, Jr. is a first-generation CIL director who has worked as a consultant with countless not-for-profit organizations, CILs and corporations. He lives in New York state. We welcome your questions, comments and suggestions. ___________________________________ More on boards of directors, executive directors, and management issues in future issues of Independence Today |
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