Delegating Tasks — When And How To Do It?
Are you working non-stop but still can’t complete all your tasks? Despite all your efforts you lack the time and strength to get through your plans. It’s completely natural and happens to almost everyone. To deal with a large number of tasks and increase your effectiveness, you should think about delegating tasks. In this article, you will find out what jobs are worth delegating, how and to whom delegate them. Especially for you, we have reviewed the available literature and summarized the most interesting practices in 2020. Check it out and make your work more effective!
Delegation — why is it so important?
To understand why it’s worth doing, let’s explain what exactly delegation is. First of all, this is one way to deal with a large number of tasks. It consists of transferring the power to perform a particular action to another person and establishing co-responsibility for its implementation. In this definition, the keywords are authority and responsibility, because we must remember that the person who delegates always takes full responsibility for this task.
Delegating tasks has many obvious benefits. First of all, it saves time and allows us to focus on the most important tasks. Another important reason why it is worth delegating tasks is the quality of the performed tasks. If, for example, there is an expert in your team, it is worth taking advantage of their knowledge and skills. Delegate them tasks related to their area of expertise and thus increase the effectiveness of work overall.
Delegating tasks teaches better work planning and teamwork.
What’s more, it also has a positive impact on team relations because it builds trust and shows that we can rely on each other and believe in our colleagues’ skills. It is also worth adding that people who help us in our tasks are able to develop new skills and gain knowledge. It is very important because it prepares them for more responsibility in the future.
Who can delegate?
Although some people think that delegation is only for leaders, we cannot agree with that. Anyone can delegate.
Any employee or even a freelancer can ask for help from someone who feels better about a particular subject.
Don’t be afraid that your team, supervisor, or client will wrongly receive the delegation. Naturally, there are areas where one person knows better than another. Delegating is an opportunity to work more effectively and achieve better results.
How to delegate tasks effectively?
To make delegating effective, you need to prepare your tasks correctly, because only proper preparation can save your time. If you’re wondering how to do it, below, you will find seven most important steps to take.
1. Define the tasks carefully
First, carefully analyze the tasks you perform. During the analysis, you must pay attention to the type of tasks and the time spent on them. It is worth dividing them into categories because this will exclude tasks that have to stay within your scope of responsibilities.
You can also divide the tasks into difficulty levels. Then it will be easier for you to find the right person to perform them. You can delegate a complicated task to an experienced person who can do it better than you. However, functions that are easy for you will be perfect for someone who is still learning, and this exercise can help them gain new skills.
2. Analyze whether it makes sense to delegate defined tasks
When you have defined your tasks, and the time you spend on them, you can now analyze which tasks are best to be delegated. Consider which tasks you have to perform on your own because you are the most knowledgeable and skilled in that area. Then think about which tasks are possible to delegate.
Remember, it doesn’t work in such a way that boring tasks or the ones that you don’t like are the best to delegate. First of all, you should pay attention to the time they take, because the time you spend on appointing or the costs you incur may become disproportionate to the benefits you get. In this case, it may be an excellent way to collect several smaller tasks that take up a lot of time and commission them at once.
The best way to find the right tasks to delegate is to answer the question: Which tasks take up too much of your time, while someone could do it better and faster? It is essential because there may be someone who can do it better and quicker. What’s more, it may turn out that a task that was a torment for you can be done with pleasure by someone else.
On the other hand, it can also be a task that is already boring and obvious to you. Perhaps for another, less experienced person, it will allow personal growth and new skills development.
3. Choose the right person for the task
When you already know which tasks you can delegate, the next step is to choose the right person. First of all, analyze who has the right competence to handle this task well.
Try to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your colleagues, as well as their personality and preferences. For example, if you want to entrust a task that requires a lot of teamwork, do not delegate it to someone who prefers working alone.
If you are not sure who is best suited for the role, just talk with your team members. Show them a list of tasks you need help with and ask who would like to do them. If you are a team leader and allow people to choose the tasks according to their preferences, you will show that you rely on them. It is a great way to build trust and involvement among team members.
When people follow you because they have to, they usually only do what they have to. When people follow you because they want to, they do what they have to plus what they want to. And they are much more productive and responsible.
Mack Story, author of 10 Values of High Impact Leaders (KaizenOps, 2010)
There’s no denying that if you’re the boss, delegating tasks is much more comfortable. But what if you have no subordinates or you’re a freelancer? As we said before, then you can also transfer part of your tasks.
The most important and convincing argument of why you want to delegate is that one of your colleagues would do the task better and faster.
You can also look for possible tools that will make your work easier and allow you to perform specific tasks through software or devices. You will find a lot of interesting lists and rankings of tools that can improve your work efficiency. One of them is our list of the best tools for freelancers, which we recommend. You can use this to save a lot of time and do other tasks or just focus on your private life.
Another way is to ask another freelancer who will perform certain tasks better than you because of his specialty. There are many possibilities, and depending on the task, you can choose which solution fits you best.
4. Explain why you decide to delegate
In the process of delegating tasks, clear communication is critical. Start by explaining why you want to delegate your assignments to someone else. Clarify what tasks take up too much of your time and what you would like to focus on instead. Show that the person you have chosen is best suited to the task because they:
- can do it better and faster,
- can develop new skills through it,
- have more free time to do it.
Try to help them see each assignment as an opportunity to develop new skills. Show that you believe in their abilities and trust that they will do their best.
5. Provide clear instructions
This is the most important part of delegating any task. You must give a clear message about what to do. It is crucial to indicate the exact scope of the task and the deadline. Share any tips and materials that may be useful. If you have specific expectations about the result, say it. Remember that everyone may have a different vision, especially in work that requires creativity (e.g., copywriting, graphic design), so it’s also up to you whether the effect will meet your expectations. In this case, a good solution is creating a brief in which you specify what to focus on. It will help to avoid any misunderstandings and achieve the best possible results.
However, creating briefs, especially for people without management experience, is not easy. To illustrate this, here are some examples of well and poorly prepared briefs.
Example 1: Ordering a computer for IT department staff
Bad brief:
Quickly order a computer for the developer. You can check at MediaMarkt; they have a rapid delivery.
Good brief:
Please order a computer for our developer, i5/16gb/500SSD. Ask him if he prefers 13 or 15 inches. The cost can not exceed 3000 PLN. The computer should be in the office before Friday. Remember to ask for an invoice.
Example 2: Preparing graphics for the article
Bad brief:
Prepare two graphics for the article on task delegation by Tuesday.
Good brief:
Please prepare two promotional graphics for the article on medium.com. The article concerns the delegation of tasks. In the first graphic, you should put 7 steps of proper delegation. The second one should show people or a person at work, who may be a potential recipient of the article.
Remember to keep the colours from our brand guidelines and place our company logo on each of them. The preferred dimensions are 1200 x 600 pixels. The maximum size of each picture is 3MB.
In the attachment, I am sending a text to the graphics.*
*Please note: If you send a brief to a graphic designer, don’t expect him/her to create a text for it. Remember to delegate tasks to the right people, so if you also need the text — delegate it to a content specialist. It’s just an example, but it can be similar to other tasks. Delegating tasks to the right people is critical!
As you can see, the details are very important, and often the success of the whole task depends on them. If your brief would look like in our bad examples, you can’t blame somebody for ordering a too expensive computer (example 1) or making a too heavy graphics (example 2).
Tip 1: To make a complete brief, ask for feedback from the person you delegate the task to. Make sure if he/she has received all the information, and the task is understandable to him/her.
Tip 2: If you regularly delegate a task to, for example, a graphic designer or copywriter, you can create a template of the brief that you can complete each time you need something. It will improve your work and make sure you don’t forget anything.
6. Verify tasks and give feedback
When you get a task done, carefully review it, and see if it meets your expectations. If there is something you think it would be worth improving — say it and share your tips. It will help a person who did it to work better next time and enable them to improve their skills.
7. Say thank you
Despite whether the task has met your expectations or the task was really small — don’t forget to say thank you. It’s not a big deal for you, but it can be very important to a person who has taken the time to help you. This simple gesture will help to take care of your good relationship and make the person more willing to help you in the future.
Ready to delegate? Take the first step.
Our article convinced you that delegation makes sense? Take the first step in this direction and check which tasks take up most of your time. You can do it using a time tracking app such as TimesheetKiller. It is our proprietary solution that will allow you to manage your time better and more consciously. You will also find a tutorial on our website on how you can use it to get the best results.
Good luck!
Sources:
[1] Learning How to Delegate as a Leader
[2] Successful Delegation — Team Management Training from MindTools.com
[3] Delegation Is an Art. Here Are 9 Simple Ways to Do It Better
