I finished up another online corse at my job and took notes:
Here they are:
Delegation to employees:
Evaluate work involved.
see if volunteer has the necessary skills and monitor her progress.
maybe be a lead but give employees new experience as they gain experience
Warning signs that you’re delegation skills may need improvement:
1. Your inbox is always full.
2. Regularly you are working overtime on tasks only you can do.
3. You are frequently interrupted
4. You frequently intervene staff’s projects
5. Direct reports seem inadequately done.
6. Redo staff assignments.
7. Staff is not taking responsibility of their tasks
8. Morale is low and staff turnover is high.
Establish the right environment:
1. Encourage staff to share interests and time availability for new projects.
2. Build senses of shared responsibility
3. Delegate projects that match staff interest
4. Delegate projects that help provide visibility with your manager and high level manager in another organization.
5. Delegate tasks to people you trust
6. Recognize that a task is a learning experience for you and your staff and offer coaching as needed.
7. For inexperienced staff, give structured tasks and provided support for the person to gain competence.
8. When possible, delegate an entire project not just a small piece and this will likely increase motivation and commitment.
9. Provide clear guidelines, follow-up, monitoring and feedback.
10. Maintain open lines of communication
11. Clearly define goals, outcome and measures of success.
Approaches to Delegation:
1. Delegate to one responsible person. If there are multiple people to do the task assign one person who is ultimately responsible for the outcome.
2. Delegate a task as it involves a specific task or subtasks to staff members. ie. wriiting a report, plan a meeting etc.
3. Delegate a project (is a group of tasks related to a specific objective. This increases person to employ a wider range of skills and responsibilities.
4. Delegate by function: function requests to group of tasks and project that are all related to one outgoing activity such as sales or training. Get regular updates.
Decide why to delegate:
-decrease workload
have staff develop new skills
launch a new project or function
Provide staff members with visibility and recognition
You need to match the assignment with the most appropriate staff members.
Decide what to delegate:
-analyze your workload to see what can be assigned.
-Tasks can add variety to work load
-Staff members develop new skills
-maybe subdivide or share a task with someone where you do parts together
Items managers may not want to delegate:
-direction and motivating your team
-employee evaluations
-complex customer negotiations
-tasks requiring your specific set of technical skills
-hiring, firing and career development
Identify skills required for the assignment:
– What kind of thinking jobs are required for the job
Problem solving
Logical thinking
Planning
Decision making
Creative design
– What are the activities that need to be performed and what systems’ or equipment will be needed
New database, training, developing, organizing
– What people skills
Speaking with suppliers, negotiating for resources, consulting with experts)
Match the person to the task:
– See which people who have asked for more work
– Be careful to not pull a person away from another important project
– Try to give all your people different opportunities
– Determine how much help you’ll need to provide.
– Avoid overloading new employees with new assignments.
– Divided tasks between two or more people to use each of their skills
Setup the discussion:
– Present that task/project clearly and responsibilities being delegated.
– Secure the employee’s commitment.
– Review performance standards, criteria for success and deadline for completion.
– A survey of resources, training or coaching
– A plan to follow-up and feedback to monitor progress.
Track delegated Assignments:
– Need to maintain an adequate level of control by providing completion dates and regular monitoring.
– To keep track try referral folders for each project
– An assignment log to track projects and functions
– Staff meetings
– Written status reports
– Project management/tracking software
Provide support:
– Let others know what authority you’ve given to the employee
– Review resource needs and make sure they are available
– Provide reference material
– Make clear when you want to be involved. (like when a deadline may not be met or if there are problems).
– Provide suggestions only when asked.
– Point out difficulties that are ahead based on your experience.
Reverse Delegation:
– Happens when staff member want to return to job to you or expect you to solve problems or make decisions.
– Resist the temptation to step in. build trust and confidence in your employee.
– Provide positive reinforcement for work done before
– Help employees assess the situation
– Encourage employees to come up with a solution
– Provide coaching as needed to help employees refine his or her new skills
When the delegation is in trouble:
– Occasionally you may need to reassess an employee’s skills
– Complete selected parts of assignment to lighten the load.
– Help0 solve the problem without placing blame on difficulties
– Creating an agreed upon plan of action and timetable for addressing problems
– Don’t take back task unless deadline will be missed or failure to meet established goals that will cause a negative impact on other projects.
Step back and reflect:
– Set up an evaluation and discuss with employee after the project.
– Ask the employee opinion about how this delegation worked for them
– Recognize the employee’s achievements
– Compare results achieved with expected standards.
– Avoid criticism and blame for any problems and discuss possible improvements for future projects.
– Create a plan on action to continue to support employees growth through ongoing coaching/training.
Surround yourself with the best:
– Don’t be afraid of appointing people who are better than you.
Frequently Asked Questions:
– How to avoid staff feeling things are being dumped on them
mix tedious or difficulty with tasks that spark staff interest can be enjoyable and gain others recognition
Split mundane tasks among members and yourself to promote sense of shared responsibility
Seek input from staff on assignments they find interesting and challenging
Communicate benefits and opportunities from their point of view.
– Is it okay to use delegation to test an employee’s skills B4 promotion? Yes.
It gives you a chance to evaluate skills
Check the match of skill to new job.
Provide additional training if required.
– Can find employee with needed skills
Train or coach someone in the skills you need
Look outside your group or organization for the expertise ou need. Maybe borrow a staff member or hire a temp employee for a short or fixed duration
Review a task that might be divided into subtasks that match skills your employees have
– How do I handle delegating upward?