2017年商务英语中级口语对话练习（3）

　　Time Management

　　Your company has found that ineffective time management is one of the major problem areas throughout the workforce. You have been asked to put forward some suggestions for improving the situation.

　　Discuss and decide together:

　　- why poor time management can become a major problem in companies

　　- what procedures could be adopted to ensure that time is managed effectively

　　A: Mary, don't you think that our company is kind of out of control these days?

　　B: Yeah. I do think so. It seems that everything is in disorder here in our company these days.

　　A: Then, what is the reason?

　　B: Well in my opinion, obviously, it must have something to do with poor time management.

　　A: You mean poor time management has caused all these problems. Why do you think so?

　　B：You know, when time is not well planned within a company, people usually do not allocate blocks of time to specified tasks. That is, they do not have a definite idea of when they should complete a certain task. And...

　　A: And, sorry to interrupt you, I think they often neglect the ordering of priorities. What I mean is that certain tasks need our prior attention. But in our company every task is treated on an equal basis, even if it is something urgent. Don't you think so?

　　B: That's the point. So time should be planned according to the importance of the tasks we need to deal with.

　　A: What do you think we can do so that time is managed effectively here in our company?

　　B: You mean what procedures we can adopt to ensure that time is managed effectively?

　　A: Sure. We have been asked to put forward some suggestions for improving the situation, right?

　　B: Exactly. I think we've got a lot to do. The first thing we should do is that we should make all the staff members realize how important effective time management is to our company.

　　A: Yes, I do think it is of great importance. We can give all the staff instruction in time management, especially those in managerial positions.

　　B: Right, or maybe we can run a few training programs for them. If necessary, we may even invite some experts in this field from outside to help us.

　　A: I agree. And perhaps another thing we can do is to make all the managers, or even every staff member, come up with a job description of their own. In this way, they can be pretty sure about what they are responsible for and what they are not.

　　B: Good idea. And I suggest that the top managers of our company should establish a set of rules as to what kind of jobs should be given priority to. In this way, we can make sure that important tasks are dealt with first.

　　A: I couldn't agree with you more.

　　B: So now we can come to the conclusion: firstly, our company should run a few training programs; secondly, every staff member should write a job description of his own.

　　A: That's it. I hope our boss will be satisfied with this.

　　B: He will, I'm sure.