Overview

This is not an ordinary time-management webinar about diaries, task lists and personal productivity. It takes a wider view. In professional practice, people’s use of time is strongly influenced by compliance requirements, client expectations, work processes, management decisions and the activities the practice measures and rewards.

At one level, time management asks whether individuals are using time effectively against the practice’s established standards. At a higher level, it asks whether those standards define and encourage the right use of time in the first place. This shifts attention from individual discipline alone to the way the practice organises, allocates and evaluates professional time.

Recent industry survey findings identify SARS administration and deadline pressure among the most common challenges facing South African tax practitioners. Filing seasons, provisional tax deadlines, monthly PAYE and VAT obligations, eFiling difficulties, verifications and audits all influence what receives attention and when. These external demands cannot simply be managed away. The more useful question is whether the practice’s systems, habits and priorities help its people respond effectively - or make the pressure worse.

The webinar therefore asks: Who keeps time in your practice or professional unit? Is it the owner, a senior practitioner, the compliance calendar, the workflow system, the client or the work itself? The answer affects which work receives attention, whose time is used and what behaviour is encouraged. Workflows, timesheets, performance measures and rewards are more than administrative tools. They communicate what the practice regards as valuable work. Over time, these repeated signals and decisions create a culture of time: a shared understanding of what constitutes valuable work and a good use of professional time.

The webinar gives particular attention to small, owner-led practices. In these practices, the owner is often the main source of expertise, the principal client contact, the allocator of work and the final reviewer. This can create clear direction, but it can also make the owner a bottleneck.

Artificial intelligence introduces another set of choices. As AI reduces the time required for some tasks, practices must reconsider how work is divided between technology, junior staff and senior professionals. The nature and complexity of the work matter. Routine compliance work, work requiring experienced interpretation and genuinely complex matters may require different combinations of process, technology and professional judgement. These choices also affect staff learning, capability building and succession.

The webinar will conclude with a one-page Practice Time Diagnostic. It is designed primarily for a small, owner-led practice in which the owner remains central to work allocation, review and client relationships. These assumptions will be stated clearly. Participants from larger or more complex practices and corporate tax functions can adapt the questions to their own circumstances.

Webinar Content

• The South African time-management challenge: Why practice time is shaped by the compliance calendar, SARS administration and workload pressures, as well as by personal discipline.
• Who keeps time - and how a culture of time takes shape: How owners, senior practitioners, clients, deadlines, workflows, timesheets, performance measures and rewards create shared expectations about valuable work and shape professional behaviour.
• Rethinking the culture of time in an owner-led practice: How owner dependence, different kinds of work, changing task times and AI affect work allocation, professional judgement, staff development and succession.
• The Practice Time Diagnostic: A practical way to examine the practice’s current culture of time, identify possible misalignments and select priorities for further attention.

Competencies Developed

The webinar will help participants strengthen their ability to:

• Distinguish time-management problems arising from personal discipline from those created by external demands, work systems and practice habits.
• Identify the people, systems and external forces that govern priorities, pace and work allocation in their practice or professional unit.
• Interpret workflows, timesheets, performance measures and rewards as signals that create and reinforce the practice’s culture of time.
• Evaluate the factors - including the nature and complexity of the work - that should inform decisions about allocating work between AI tools, junior staff and senior professionals, including the implications for staff development and succession.
• Use and, where necessary, adapt the Practice Time Diagnostic to identify questions and priorities for improving how professional time is organised.

Presenter

Craig Yeatman

Craig Yeatman is a partner at WorldsView Academy and an organisation design and development consultant, educator and facilitator. His work focuses on helping organisations improve their effectiveness by aligning strategy with organisational structures, management systems, leadership practices and team dynamics.

Craig combines practical experience in building and managing businesses with established thinking from organisation design, organisational development and management. He works with executives, senior managers and professional teams across different organisational settings, helping them examine how structures and systems shape behaviour and performance.

CPD

Attending this webinar and the successful completion of the online assessment will secure a certificate of completion for 2 hours of Tax CPD.

Event Investment

Free for Tax Practitioner, Tax Accountant CPD subscribers and Practice Packages. Not a CPD subscriber yet? Click here to register now.

• Regular price:  R460.00
• Group booking discounts available when you register for a group.

Payments & Cancellations

• All payments must be made by EFT or by credit card, at least 3 working days before commencement of an event.
• Kindly note that should payment not be received 2 days after the event, legal action will be taken
• Proof of payment will be requested at registration, if payment does not reflect on Tax Faculty's bank account.
• Cancellations:
  • Only written notice of cancellation will be recognized.
  • If the cancellation occurs more than 4 working days prior to the event no cancellation fee will be charged.
  • If the cancellation occurs less than 4 working days prior to the event a 100% cancellation fee will apply.
• Delegates who book and fail to attend will be liable for the full event fee.
• Tax Faculty`s liability in the case of an event being cancelled will be limited to a refund or credit of the event fee.
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