Delegating Important Tasks

Many business owners have a hard time delegating enough tasks to employees. Common reason? “It is easier and faster for me to do it.” But, there are many tasks you need to delegate so you can focus your time on the future of the business. In order to dedicate the time necessary to truly work on the business, you need to develop employees who are capable of adequately handling assignments.

Sure, the employees may or may not do it as well as you would. But, do you need them to? The goals and standards of your employees, for a specific task, normally do not require perfection. Yes, there may be certain assignments that no one other than you is capable of adequately performing. On the other hand, there is always work employees can be trained to handle if they are properly delegated.

• Identify the responsibilities that employees are capable of handling and take the risk of delegating. You will need to be patient because there will ve a learning curve on any new tasks they take on. The learning curve will be greatly accelerated if you provide detailed instructions for each task.

• Give authority and freedom to make decisions. They will grow in their ability to make decisions to adequately complete the tasks only if you empower them to be decision makers. The authority must be enough to permit your employees to use their initiative.
  

• Accountability. Your employees must understand that they are accountable for results within a clearly defined scope. It is best if this scope of accountability is in writing and includes such things as the objectives of the task and how and when results from the activities will be reported to you.

• Written expectations, priorities and other relevant information. The more you are able to write down such as potential problems, expectations and priorities, the more likely misunderstandings will be avoided.

• Clear deadlines with progress reports or checkpoints will enable you to determine whether sufficient actions are taking place in achieving the objectives of the delegated task.

It will take some time both for you and your employees to become comfortable with delegation and specific tasks. By following a process, you can ensure responsibility and knowledge transfer happen quickly and effectively.