Working to Deadlines

One of the many Employability Skills. Working under pressure and to deadlines is part of everyday working, with many employees often being under a great amount at pressure and stress to meet certain deadlines.

Making sure that projects or contract work are completed on time, letters having to go out by a certain time of day, responding to customer queries within a defined timescale, all puts pressure on an employee, as well as the business itself as it needs to satisfy its customers if it is to stay in business.

Often organisations will have a customer service policy that will include one or more statements that indicate how long they will take to respond to enquiries, complaints or the turning around of orders.

Productivity is often measured by how well deadlines are met, or not. If you are able to show that you can plan well and prioritise tasks to make the best use of available resources, then the need to work to tight deadlines and under pressure can be reduced because of this insight.

Forward planning helps to alleviate and mitigate potential problems that are the cause of many reasons for having to work under pressure and working to deadlines, although frequent unexpected issues and changes do arise, and this can affect the actions needed to achieve the deadline.