As a business owner, one of the most important things you can do to free up your time is to delegate responsibilities and tasks to your employees. When delegating tasks, there are three things you should remember!
1: Pick a Good Employee to Assign to the Task
When you give someone a new task to accomplish as part of their job, it is important that you get the right person to the right job. Your employees should naturally be hired to have a wide array of skills that will benefit different areas of the company. Picking the best employees to fulfil specific tasks will help you raise your game.
Naturally some employees will be better suited to different tasks based upon their skillsets. It can be helpful to know your employees and know their strengths and weaknesses. This way you can always make sure that your employees are assigned to the right task. It is important that if you have an exceptional employee who is good at everything that you do not give them too much to do, as this will end up impacting negatively on their performance. Whilst multitasking is a thing, it is not good to put too much work on one person.
2: Don’t Micromanage
It may seem almost impossible, especially when you set someone to a new task they may never have done before, but do not micromanage your employees. Whilst it is always good to explain a task to your employee and then ask them to come to you if they need help, micromanaging someone who is not comfortable in a role or even someone who is can have a detrimental effect on performance.
When you delegate a task to your employee, it is important that you trust them to accomplish the task, and that they know that you are there if they need assistance, as are their colleagues. Micromanaging people will slow them down and impact negatively on their ability to focus and concentrate on the task at hand. It will also take up your valuable time as well. The whole reason you delegate a task to a specific employee is that it frees you up to do what you need to get done.
3: Never get Upset or Angry
It is possible that an employee will mess up from time to time. This is completely natural even on projects that may be routine. It’s vital that you never get upset or angry with an employee if they fail in their tasks, as this will damage your relationship with them and cause them to not trust themselves.
People need to feel like you trust them and they need to be allowed to learn from their mistakes. It’s better to allow your employees to feel comfortable in their ability to make the correct decisions than to continually second guess their decisions because they are afraid of upsetting you.
Dealing With Consistent Failure
If someone consistently fails in a specific area, the best thing you can do is to change the tasks they are delegated. This should be approached carefully as you generally don’t want to have conflict within the business. The best way to approach it is to take them to one side and ask them if they will undertake a special project for you. Tell them you are going to take the previous task off their hands so that they can focus on the new project. This should be a good clean escape. Take the employee through the new project in detail and leave them to handle it safe in the knowledge that they can come to you for help at any time.
Rewarding Success
Rewarding success at a business is always tricky, as sometimes you have someone who is always doing well at everything, and giving them employee of the month every month can create dissent within the staff. Rather than giving specific rewards to people, at the end of the working week, have an office meeting and congratulate everyone on a task well done.
Every single person, even the people who aren’t necessarily carrying the company to success will have done some positive things. If you have a large staff, point out the positives that have been achieved in the areas that are most successful and thank everyone. For a small staff, praise every individual for their efforts on the things they’ve done best at. This will keep morale high, and keep people focused on wanting to improve. Everyone likes to be appreciated and praised.
Finally
When delegating tasks, don’t be afraid to give people a challenge within their comfort zone. You can even suggest it as a challenge and show that you have faith in your staff being able to accomplish the task. Everyone likes to be trusted and believed in.
