Skip to main content

Insights on the Importance of Time Management

To celebrate Citi Foundation's Pathways to Progress, Nuno Francisco (Vice President, U.S. Retail Banking Business) shares insights from his first job.

As a junior in high school, I took a position as a stock room associate and weekend brand ambassador at a local men's clothing retailer in Newark, New Jersey. In addition to allowing me to become an expert t-shirt folder, the job prepared me for future success, teaching me to prioritize and manage my time effectively and about the value of teamwork and a client-centric approach to business.

My responsibilities as a brand ambassador included managing the sales floor, taking part in community events and sharing details on in-store promotions. I was also a stock room associate where I was tasked with organizing inventory and price marking our clothing for sales. While I enjoyed the opportunity to interact with customers on a daily basis, I was challenged to manage my schedule and was quick to learn the importance of prioritization.

One year, we were on a tight schedule to launch a new store and I was responsible for stocking the inventory and training new associates. Being 17, I viewed this as a massive undertaking and felt a significant amount of pressure. Luckily, leveraging the time management skills I had previously learned, I was able to complete what was required of me. I am now able to reflect on the success of launching a new store that still exists today.

Much of what I accomplished would not have been possible without the guidance of my direct manager, A.P., who was a huge positive influence on me. She set expectations early on and defined goals and processes for achieving success. Her approach helped me complete tasks efficiently and on time, and has inspired the way I now manage my own team.

In my role at Citi, as a Vice President for the U.S. Retail Banking Business, the ability to manage my time, my calendar and my day to day activities is key the success of my team. Whether I am scheduling time with my boss, setting up a client appointment that may require travel time or carving out half an hour for coaching sessions with my team, I am sensitive to our peak client-servicing hours and any deliverables that may be due. I have found that something as simple as maintaining an up-to-date calendar can make all the difference.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SC asks Centre to strike a balance on Rohingya issue (.hindu)

Supreme Court orally indicates that the government should not deport Rohingya “now” as the Centre prevails over it to not record any such views in its formal order, citing “international ramifications”. The Supreme Court on Friday came close to ordering the government not to deport the Rohingya. It finally settled on merely observing that a balance should be struck between humanitarian concern for the community and the country's national security and economic interests. The court was hearing a bunch of petitions, one filed by persons within the Rohingya community, against a proposed move to deport over 40,000 Rohingya refugees. A three-judge Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, began by orally indicating that the government should not deport Rohingya “now”, but the government prevailed on the court to not pass any formal order, citing “international ramifications”. With this, the status quo continues even though the court gave the community liberty to approach i...
3 comments
Click Here To Read more »

"ISRO has capabilities to build geostationary satellites for air quality monitoring” (downtoearth)

Pawan Gupta's findings on trans-boundary movement of pollution (Punjab to Delhi) from biomass burning in 2015 spurred debates. He participated in discussions with Indian regulators early September at the Better Air Quality Conference in Busan on the advantages of using satellite data for air quality monitoring. He explains to Down to Earth how air quality monitoring is done using satellite data. How is satellite data used to measure air pollution? Satellites that provide information on atmospheric pollutants are normally (not always) in the low earth orbits (400-1000 km above the Earth’s surface). A single satellite can carry one or more remote sensing instruments onboard that look down to earth and obtain information about the object in the field of view of satellite sensor. The Earth receives electromagnetic radiation from the sun, which travels through space and reaches the earth-atmosphere system. The radiation then interacts with the Earth’s atmosphere and the surface...
1 comment
Click Here To Read more »

What's ailing Namami Gange programme?(DTE)

Winters are extremely hectic for Sushma Patel, a vegetable grower in Uttar Pradesh’s Chunar town. Her farm is in the fertile plains of Ganga where people grow three crops a year. But this is the only season when she can grow vegetables. And before that, she needs to manually dig out shreds of plastic and wrappers from her one-hectare (ha) farm. “This is all because of the nullah,” she says, pointing at an open drain that runs through her field, carrying sewage from the neighbourhood to the Ganga. “Every monsoon, the drain overflows and inundates the field with a thick, black sludge and plastic debris. We cannot even go near the field as the stench of sewage fills the air,” she says. But Patel has no one to complain to as this is the way of life for most people in this ancient town. About 70 per cent of the people in Chunar depend on toilets that have on-site sanitation, such as septic tanks and pits. In the absence of a proper disposal or management system, people simply dump the faec...
3 comments
Click Here To Read more »