The Relationship between Time Management and Job Performance in Event Management

Abstract

Time management is the essence of success for any event. The capability of an event organizer to schedule and follow the itineraries of an event meticulously is the benchmark of a good reputation among Malaysian event management and the world in general. However, the job performance of an event management crew depends largely on the ability of the team to achieve the required demands of the client specifically in the aspect of time. The purpose of this research paper was to determine the relationship of time management on the job performance among Malaysian event management crew. The researchers believe that in order for an organizer to be successful in the event industry, they have to make a point to adhere to the timeframe in completing tasks throughout the event from the beginning till the end. Out of 100 questionnaires distributed only 65 returned. The research findings show, that the employees' job performance in the organization were affected by their time management in completing the tasks during an event. Furthermore, the result shows that there was a significant relationship between time management and job performance. Although the relationship is moderate, there are significant between them. In conclusion, mostly the employees said that time management can affect their job performance, by not having enough time to manage all their work when the work is more than they can handle. It is pertinent for the event manager and crew members to identify the right measures to handle the related issues in order to satisfy their client. If the employees cannot manage time properly, it can affect their overall performance in the event. This article ends with suggestions on the importance of time management factor in achieving high performance service among the event crew members that reflect the organizational performance. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Full text

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 65 ( 2012 ) 937 – 941
1877-0428 © 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of JIBES University, Jakarta
doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.223
International Congress on Interdisciplinary Business and Social Science 2012
(ICIBSoS 2012)
The
Relationship
between
Time Management
and
Job
Performance in Event Management
Nor Lela Ahmad,
Ahmad Niza
n
Mohd.
Yus
uf,
Nor Diyana Mohamed Shobri,
Samsudin Wahab
Faculty of Business Management, University of Technology
MARA
,
Puncak Alam 42300,
Malaysia
Abstract
Time management is the essence of success for any event. The capability of an event organizer to schedule and
follow the itineraries of an event meticulously is the benchmark of a good reputation among Malaysian event
management and the world in general. However, the job performance of an event management crew depends largely
on the ability of the team to achieve the required demands of the client specif
ically in the aspect of time. The purpose
of this research paper was to determine the relationship of time management on the job performance among
Malaysian event management crew. The researchers believe that in order for an organizer to be successful in t
he
event industry, they have to make a point to adhere to the timeframe in completing tasks throughout the event from
the beginning till the end. Out
of
100 questionnaires distributed only 65 returned. The research findings show, that the
employees job performance in the organization were affected by their time management in completing the tasks
during an event. Furthermore, the result shows that there was a significant relationship between time management
and job performance. Although the relationship is moderate, there are significant between them. In conclusion,
mostly the employees said that time management can affect their job performance, by not having enough time to
manage all their work when the work is more than they can handle. It is pertinent for the event manager and crew
members to identify the right measures to handle the related issues in order to satisfy their client. If the employees
cannot manage time properly, it can affect their overall performance in the event. This article ends with
sug
gestions
on
the importance of time management factor in achieving high performance service among the event crew members
that reflect the organizational performance.
©
20
12
Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and/or peer
-
review under responsibility of
JIB
ES University,
Jakarta
Keywords:
Event
management; human resource; time management; job performance
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
© 2012 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of JIBES University, Jakarta
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

938 Nor Lela Ahmad et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 65 ( 2012 ) 937 – 941
1.
Introduction
Studies of time management have attempted to analyze and understand the time use of those persons
who want to become more efficient on the job, in their activities that they undertake. The need for
prioritization, the creation and use of lists and the assigning of activities to particular time slots on an
individual's calendar is essential for a successful event. Based on the assumptions that activities can be
completed in manageable bits, allowing a person to work through the obligations of the day to achieve
their desired goals will be the key indicators that an event can be organized in accordance with the client
requirements.
Today, the main concern in management of human resources is the improvement in
performance of people working in the organization with a view of increasing their efficiency through
motivation (A
wosusi
,2011
).
He
added, unless the employees are well informed about their pe
rformance
and also their strong and weak points, it is very difficult for them to improve their level of performance.
This study is focused specifically on event management. The researcher wants to determine whether
employees can or cannot maintain their current job performance within the restricted time frame given
under various circumstances. Therefore, this study was conducted to identify that time management affect
the job performance of the employees of an organization in view of organizing an event. The researcher
also wanted to determine the relationship of time management and job performance and does all other
elements under the main concern affecting each other. Business professionals need to understand that
time is the most important resource that they need to manage and maximize. However, time is also the
most misused and mismanaged element in today s world. Hence, this study attempts to identify the effect
of time management on job performance among employees in the event industry.
2. Literature Review
2.1
Time Management
Time management
is the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount
of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity. For
event industry players, this particular item is tantamount to the success of organizing any event.
According to
Altaf
and
Atif Awan (20
11
), among recent sociologists that have shown that the way
workers view time is connected to social issues such as the institution of family, gender roles, and the
amount of labor by the individual. Meanwhile, according to Mitchell and Samms (2010) description of
time management, individuals first determine their needs and wants and then rank them in terms of
importance.
Specific
activities include setting goals to achieve the needs or wants and prioritizing the tasks
necessary to accomplish them. In the aspect of event management, time is viewed as the planning process
since the initiation stage of the event until the implementation of the program. Thus, the sequence of
actions must be followed through rigorously to achieve the end target of organizing a successful event.
Faulkner et al (2007
)
highlighted
, because few, studies have addressed this specific issue, examination of
the
linkage between perceived control over time and job satisfaction is warranted. It was expected that
those who felt in control of their time would be most satisfied with their job. Little research has been
conducted on the relationship between job performance and time management. This is the reason why
this study is conducted to prove that there is a significant relationship between excellent
performances
with proper time management. Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and technique
s
used to
manage
time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals complying with a due date.

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Nor Lela Ahmad et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 65 ( 2012 ) 937 – 941
2.2
Job Performance
Job performance is one of the most important factors that most of organization should consider to
focus in. According to Oswald et al (2007)
and
Appelbaum et al (2008), as cited by Smith and Segal
(20
12
) show us that job performance is the most important dependent variable and it is also the most
important constr
uct in industrial
-
organizational psychology research and practice. Based on the definition
of job performance by Otto et al (2012), job performance divided into various important factors that need
for further explanation. In event management, the tasks are divided among the crew members as would
any job division within an organization. Job performance involves something that people do and can be
reflected on what the action that individual takes (Oswald et al, 2010). However,
Faulkner
et al. (
2007
)
as cited by Watson and Strayer (2010) identify that performance does not include the result of those
particular actions. Usually, results are often mistaken to be easily quantified and tracked to measure job
performance due to their ability.
The results are not what the actions that individuals takes but the result are influenced by individual
efforts.
Smith and Segal (2012
)
discovered
the results are often affected by factors beyond the individual
control.
Event management focuses on individual job performances due to the nature of events which are
usually short term. Most event organizers
sub
-
contract
functional divisions while putting one main
supervisor or person-
in
-charge of each task to oversee that particular function. Therefore, individual
performance
is basically dependent upon others that
do
the groundwork to ensure the smooth flow of the
event. That person is entrusted to ensure the success of his/her function which in the end will contribute to
the overall success of a particular event.
3. Method
ology
The type of sampling technique that the researcher used in this research was convenience sampling
which means each individual of the population has an equal and independent chance for being chosen to
be part of the sample. For this study the researcher has distributed
100
questionnaires to employees at
Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC). The return rate was 65%. The questionnaires were
distributed by hand to the respondents. The researcher waited for the respondents to finish answering
the
questionnaire and collected them afterwards to ensure that they had assistance and explanation. The
Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 18.0 was used to analyze the data. The initial
analysis was conducted by calculating descriptive statistic including frequencies, mean scores and
standard deviation. Pearson Production Moment Correlation analysis was used to determine the
correlation of time management with job performance at 0.05 level of significance.
4. Results
and
Analysis
The
orientation each workers, groups, departments, and countries have toward time differs relatively
with respect to different cultures or norms of each workers, groups, departments and countries. The
effectiveness and efficiency of an organization comes down to the effectiveness and efficiency of
individual workers in the organization. The management of time is an issue which is fundamental to job
performance, and how a worker manages his/her time will depend literarily on his/her favourable or
unfavourable attitude towards time which will invariably influence his/her perceived job performance in
an organization. The researchers found significant relationships between management of time and
allocation of time to managerial tasks and job performance, concluding management of time is a key to
managerial performance.

940 Nor Lela Ahmad et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 65 ( 2012 ) 937 – 941
Relationship between Time Management and Job Performance
Table
1
: Correlations between time management and job performance
Time
Management
Job
Performance
Pearson Correlation
1
.344
**
Sig. (2
-
tailed)
.008
Time Management
N
59 59
Pearson Correlation
.344
**
1
Sig. (2
-
tailed)
.008
Job Performance
N
59 59
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2
-
tailed).
Table
1 shows the correlations between time management and job performance. Based on the table, there
is a significant relationship between time management and job performance with the p value = 0.008 (r =
.344, p < .05).
5. Conclusion
The study proves that there is a significant relationship between time management and
job
performance especially in the context of event management as event managers or organizers are
constantly working to meet deadlines given by their clients and the planning process takes months in
advance to prepare. However, the short duration of planni
ng process usually
affect the job performance of
event professionals or crew members
.
Objective approaches to time generally consider time as a uniform
commodity where people view it much as they do money. The basic contrast between ``objective'' and
``sub
jective'' time is that the former is characterized by concrete or measurable quantities of time which
people actually have to work with, and the latter is based on people's perceptions of the amounts of time
available, relative to the things they have to do (Appelbaum, 2008 and Bauer, 2008). Therefore, it is of
the utmost important for event crew members lead by the manager heading the organizer appointed and
entrusted by the client to carry out their responsibilities to execute the tasks following up to the event.
Event management companies must recognize the importance of time when creating, planning and
executing any event.
6. Recommendations
Event planning never stops. This industry goes 24/7, 365 days a year. Planners work evenings,
weekends, and holidays, often far away from their home base, organizing and running events that simply
must go on, and go smoothly. Missing a critical deadline is not an option in the event planning field. Time
management errors can cost a company a potential sale, lose t
hem an existing customer, and damage their
professional reputation. For smooth event implementation, and for business success, it is essential that
planners know how to manage their own time as well as they manage an event. They must be able to
successfull
y manage their workload, and do what matters most, when it matters most:

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Nor Lela Ahmad et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 65 ( 2012 ) 937 – 941
Analyze and prioritize tasks. Structure workload for maximum performance.
Identify red
-
flag activities that hinder productivity.
Save time using technology.
Reduce stress
-
producing
time crunches.
Work with, rather than against deadlines.
Identify when extra help is needed, as well as how to delegate, outsource, and even partner with
suppliers in crunch periods.
The researcher recommended that each of the employees involved in co-ordinating different areas
such as logistics, operations, time management and cost management
need
to
have
a
tim
e table in
their
task execution. This will enable the employees to use time wisely in order of priorities. There
must
be a
balance in the distri
bution of workload to enable all the employees to have a fair chance to perform.
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