What Are Organisation Skills? (Plus How To Improve Them)

Updated 30 September 2022

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Organisational skills can be crucial for employees to work, collaborate and progress in the workplace. By being more organised, you can manage your time effectively, minimise work pressure and accomplish tasks on time. Learning about the different abilities that constitute organisation skills can help you improve your work performance and output. In this article, we answer the question, 'What are organisation skills?', outline different types of organisational skills, explain how to improve them and share how to highlight them while applying for jobs.

What Are Organisation Skills?

Knowing the answer to, "What are organisation skills?" can help you understand why they are crucial for workplace efficiency. Organisational skills are different abilities that help you increase productivity, manage time and enhance performance by optimising different work processes. These skills help employees stay focused on achieving their goals and reduce the workplace-related stress that can occur due to missed deadlines or pending tasks. Developing organisational skills helps employees obtain expertise in various functions that add value to the organisation and help them advance in their careers.

Types Of Organisational Skills

Here are some common types of organisational skills:

Decision-making

Decision-making means choosing the best option available out of various alternatives to deliver maximum results within less time. Effective decision-making skills require objectivity, attention to detail, analytical thinking and creativity. By considering the pros and cons of different alternatives, you can take an informed decision that can help enhance productivity and solve complex problems. Intuition or reason can drive decisions, and an effective decision-maker relies on both. Balancing both these approaches can be crucial to following a flexible, fact-based and stress-free decision-making process.

Planning and prioritising

Planning and prioritising are essential organisational skills that help employees adopt a proactive approach in anticipating potential challenges. These include planning for factors like timelines, budgets, delegation and delivery. Effective planning helps employees account for unanticipated delays and errors. Prioritising also involves deciding which tasks require urgent attention according to their importance. Both these skills ensure timely completion of the work tasks and improve overall productivity.

Time management

Time management refers to controlling the time spent on the activities in a manner that each task gets adequate attention and you can meet all your deadlines. Besides helping improve your efficiency, effective time management can help save the team's resources and efforts by reducing the chance of duplication of effort. For managers and leaders, time management also includes accounting for the time taken by different team members on assigned tasks and preparing for potential challenges in advance. Some critical abilities that can help you improve your time management skills include goal-setting, planning, delegation, flexibility and communication.

Analytical skills

Analytical skills involve using your intellectual and cognitive faculty to arrive at logical conclusions. This involves gathering, assimilating and presenting information in a manner that helps identify challenges and insights. Strong analytical skills can help professionals in diverse functions such as marketing, research, data science, finance and project management. Analysing complete data and deriving suitable conclusions can also help you avoid costly errors. Analytical skills include having the ability to research, hypothesise and think creatively.

Attention to detail

Attention to detail is the ability to focus on minute details in a task. Having strong attention to detail can reduce the number of errors you make and helps save the time and effort that would otherwise go into rectifying mistakes. Having strong observational skills and memory that enables you to remember small details can improve your attention to detail and make you more efficient. This is a valuable skill that can benefit professionals who work with numbers, data, variables and text.

Communication

Communication skills are abilities that help employees convey and receive information clearly. This includes using several other crucial skills, such as active listening, speaking, observing, comprehending, giving feedback and asking questions. Communication also involves non-verbal cues, body language and hand gestures. Knowing how to communicate through the spoken and written word can help you interact and collaborate with team members effectively. It can also be helpful to learn about the different forms of communication, such as face-to-face conversations and phone calls, and how they differ.

Delegation

Delegation becomes important for team leaders and managers to assign different tasks based on the expertise of team members. Effective delegation can make work processes more efficient and prevent duplication of effort. It also helps clarify team and individual goals and effectively leverage each team member's unique strengths. Delegation can also help set clear expectations and makes following up easier.

Physical organisational skills

Physical organisational skills include maintaining a clean and tidy workspace, arranging stationery items smartly and preventing redundant documents from piling up on your desk. Working in a physically productive space can be essential for having a productive day. These skills are particularly important for employees who regularly work with documents and paperwork, such as accounting, human resources and administrative professionals.

How To Improve Organisational Skills

Here are some ways in which you can improve your organisational skills:

1. Plan your day

An effective way to improve your organisational skills is to plan your day in advance. Planning can help you organise all the tasks scheduled for the day and allot them time according to their importance. Planning can also help manage distractions and unanticipated tasks, like urgent meetings. You can spend a few minutes every morning before starting your workday reviewing the pending tasks from the previous day and planning for the day ahead.

2. Make lists

Making a to-do list can ensure that you do not miss any crucial tasks. These lists can also help you write any notes or ideas quickly. As you plan your day in the morning, you can start listing all the different things that require your attention and prioritise them according to urgency. If you have the space, you can also pin this to-do list anywhere on your workstation to ensure that you do not forget your tasks for the day. Completing different items from the to-do list can also provide a sense of accomplishment at the end of the workday.

3. Develop a routine to organise your workspace

A well-organised workspace can help you enhance your efficiency and reduce stress. To ensure cleanliness and orderliness on your desk, maintain a habit of filing important documents before you finish your day. Clear your workspace of redundant papers or stationery items so that you have ample empty space to work comfortably. You can also develop a fortnightly or monthly cleaning schedule if you work with high volumes of paperwork.

4. Use technology to your benefit

You can use technology to help you stay more organised. From creating to-do lists digitally to setting reminders, there are many ways in which you can use organisation tools and applications to improve productivity. For instance, you set a timer when performing tasks like replying to emails or group messages so that you do not spend more than a few minutes on it. Similarly, you can block notifications from social media and instant messaging apps while working to improve focus by reducing distractions.

Ways To Highlight Organisation Skills When Applying For Jobs

Here is how you can show your organisational skills during different stages of the job application process:

On a resume

Review the job description carefully to identify specific skills that employers are looking for. Incorporate skills and phrases such as 'multi-tasking,' 'resource management,' 'meeting deadlines,' and 'task-oriented' to highlight critical organisation skills. You can also include traits like 'reliable,' 'goal-setter' and 'strategic thinker' to convey your strengths.

During a job interview

During job interviews, you can respond to questions about your skills and expertise by sharing examples of how you stay organised and efficient. You can discuss certain time management techniques you adopt or explain how you prioritise critical tasks during the workday. If there is a specific instance in your work history where your organisation skills helped your team to work more effectively, make sure you elaborate on it. Try to focus on your ability to adapt, delegate, prioritise, manage and align work processes.