About Weekly Reports Writing

In general, the employee’s performance can be evaluatedby the achieved results.

But as for an employee’s day-to-day activities, the productivity of his/her efforts during the paid work-time, and…

…finally, the employee’s own thoughts about the job itself all of that might be known primarily from his/her weekly reports.

Of course, if these exist at all….

For a junior staff member the weekly report is the only possibility to demonstrate to his/her managment that he/she is:

doing the right things, doing things right, loyal to the company, constantly progressing his/her

knowledge and skills.

evaluation of their performance, keeping notice on their daily

activities and issues they face, keeping track of the progress on

the assigned tasks.

The middle-level management uses the reports of his/her subordinates for the:

The report should be concise and clear, and shall not generally exceed one page.

A long weekly report:

requires longer time for preparing and, consequently, for reading and checking it,

is an indicator of writer's inability to analyze information, and to set up the priorities.

Weekly report must serve like two-way communication tool.

Manager shall not just read, but make comments in the employee’s report. Feedback is crucially important, even if it will look like a simple “OK“ remarks. Subordinate shall keep asking his/her Manager to make comments in his/her weekly reports.

Weekly report shall be sent in-time.

It is better to send your report on Friday’s afternoons instead of Monday’s mornings - simply because your Manager may have time for checking them only on weekends.

The time required for writing and checking the weekly reports should be planned in your schedule.

Spend 5 minutes daily to summarize your activities, and you will make a remarkable weekly report on Friday evening in just 10 minutes.

Weekly report shall have a permanent structure.

It shall contain permanent sections placed in a certain order. This will make the report easier to write, and, consequently, easier to read.It is better to assign numbers to the report lines within each section.

Weekly report structure

Urgent! Reminder Problems Daily work Requests and Proposals FYI Plans

Weekly report structure

Urgent!

Immediate feedback or action is needed

Weekly report structure

Reminder

Still waiting for… Waiting for… since… Waiting for… untill…

Weekly report structure

Problems

You shall report here the problems encountered during the reporting period and expected to be resolved in a regular way, with no need for the additional resources. Suggest an action plan.

Weekly report structure

Daily work

You shall list here your own activities as well as activities of the unit that reports to you for the reporting period. Support your report with facts and numbers highlighting the achieved results. Group the items by related topics.

Weekly report structure

Requests and proposals

Ideas, suggestions, enquiries for complementary information or requests for the allocation of additional resources.

Weekly report structure

FYI(section for the middle-level management only)

Overall work assessment of the managed units in terms of their plans, KPI and progress towards Company’s objectives.

Weekly report structure

Plans

You shall briefly specify them for the next reporting period.Rank the priorities as: important and urgent, just important, and just urgent.

Weekly report shall demonstrate primarily the achieved results but not just things in process.

Weekly report shall indicate how productive is employee’s worktime, and how well the employee performes his/her duties.

And the last important note about weekly reports writing:

Clarity of writings indicates the precision of mind.

Presentation by

Vladimir Nikolaev

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