Abstract:

Emerging organizations, as well as traditional ones, are increasingly aiming to present competitive advantages over competitors in the market. Indeed, the survival of any organization and its long-term success depend on its competitive positioning. Competitiveness factors are those that contribute to improving the organization's functioning and increasing its performance. In practice, several factors can contribute to improving competitiveness, but much of this is linked to employees and their job satisfaction. In fact, concern for employee satisfaction is a key factor for organizational effectiveness and efficiency, as well as for the successful implementation of a corporate strategy. In this context, motivation has been widely studied by several researchers, precisely because it plays a central role in almost all aspects of the behavior of employees in the workplace, who are one of its greatest assets. When employees enter an organization, they have professional and personal expectations of progression and recognition, in addition to the natural financial rewards. It is in this multidimensional framework of competitiveness and performance that the need for efficient time management arises, in harmony with the quality of life of individuals. The topic of time management has deserved the attention of contemporary society, with several authors having proposed different models of time management. To improve time management skills, time management training programs are recommended. Time management training allows one to develop cognitive skills. It translates into thought processes that allow the individual to analyze situations and that can be used to understand, address issues or problems, with the inherent assumption that individual effectiveness is linked to organizational effectiveness. It is supported by these foundations that the present investigation emerges, which has as main objectives to apply a flexible time management model to employees of various organizations and to evaluate the presumable evidence of the benefits of this implementation. As a specific objective, a set of principles considered essential for correct time management will be prepared when planning a training program in time management. To achieve the proposed objectives, through a quasi-experimental procedure, three training courses in time management were delivered, in person and online¸ to employees from the Portuguese outermost regions. The program was developed with a focus on the three pillars of the flexible time management model presented by Sardinha et al. (2020): time perspective, self-recognition and time management. Dependent variables were measured before training and two weeks after training. The training program lasted for three hours. In general, statistically significant differences (p < 0.001) were found between the mean of the total scores obtained on the scale that assesses time management behaviors at the two time points in which the questionnaire was administered, higher in the 2nd time, after the training in time management, so the training delivered proved to be effective, as it led the participants to change some of their behaviors, thus contributing to better time management on the part of the trainees.

Keywords:

Time management, training programs, quality of life, job satisfaction, outermost regions.