Delegating tasks and responsibilities – how to do it effectively?

Delegating tasks in an organization is a key skill that increases company productivity. It is the transfer of a task and responsibility for it to other people, with the aim of increasing productivity and saving time for other important tasks. In short, it is simply outsourcing your work to others in order to achieve better results. However, it often happens that managers do not do this due to low trust in the people to whom they could delegate tasks and the belief that they themselves are best able to perform a given activity. Delegating tasks is directly related to sharing responsibility for them.

Delegating tasks – the benefits of it

The inability to delegate tasks in the company reduces the effectiveness of the entire team. A manager who does not do this does not allow the rest of the employees to work independently and usually takes on more responsibilities than necessary. So why is delegating tasks so important?

• focus on the most important tasks – delegating lower priority tasks allows you to focus on the key challenges at a given moment, which may have a direct connection with the company’s profits.
• increasing employee efficiency – employees who take over some of the manager’s responsibilities have the opportunity to prove themselves and increase their competences. Thanks to this, they learn new things and become independent, which translates into the subsequent effectiveness of the entire team.
• reducing stress levels – perhaps handing over responsibility for a given task to another person can be stressful for a manager. However, the greater stress comes from actually controlling the entire company and taking on more work than you can handle. In the worst case scenario, it may even lead to burnout.
• the ability to perform a delegated task better – it is true that you do not have to like all the tasks for which you are responsible. The possibility of delegating part of the work that will give another person in the company more satisfaction will mean that this specific task will be performed better and with greater commitment.
• avoid doing too many things at once – there are only 24 hours in a day – so it is worth managing your time, which is so valuable, as effectively as possible. The more duties you have to perform, the less time you can devote to each of them. And the less time left to complete a task, the worse it is done.
• improving communication with the team – by delegating  tasks to employees, the manager shows that he trusts that the task will be performed correctly. The team will feel appreciated and know that they can ask for help if they have a problem. Contact with the team will increase and, as a result, communication with them will improve.
• increasing profits in the company – delegating tasks that can be performed by other people will simply increase profits in the company. Outsourcing work means more time for direct sales and contact with the customer, without whom the company does not exist.

Delegating tasks – how to do it correctly?

For delegating tasks to be effective, it must be done skillfully and properly prepared.

1. Understanding the goal that you want to achieve. Like all activities in the company, delegation should also start with a clear determination of the goal that you want to achieve.
2. Choosing the right person.Choosing the right person for the entrusted task is the key to success. Each person on the team has a different level of competence, which should be taken into account. The time resources of the selected person should also be taken into account. Isn’t she already burdened with too many responsibilities? For delegation to make sense, tasks should be distributed evenly to the team and assigned to people who will be able to perform them with the best possible effect.
3. Collecting and providing appropriate information. Once we know which person we will entrust the task to, we should collect all the necessary information and provide it in the most understandable way possible. The employee should know what goal is to be achieved and by what date, and the manager should be open to all suggestions from the employee.
4. Supervision and support. This is a very important stage in the process of delegating tasks. The person entrusted with responsibility for the task must feel supported by the manager and be able to turn to him when he encounters a problem.  The employee is responsible for the task, and the manager is responsible for the entire delegation process.
5. Recognition. Assuming that after selecting the right person and successfully conducting the delegation process, the entire process should end with recognition for the employee. This will increase your self-confidence and willingness to do your job as effectively as possible, and your relationship with the manager will improve. This will impact the quality of other tasks the person performs later. 

Dividing responsibilities is not an easy task and requires great commitment from both parties, but as you can see, it has huge benefits for the development of the company. Delegating tasks improves and accelerates the implementation of projects, gives the opportunity for team development and more time for the manager for the most important processes in the company. This means increasing the quality and profits of the organization. Learning to delegate tasks itself is not easy, but you can learn this process with coaching. If you find it difficult to delegate tasks or want to increase the level of effective team management, contact us. Thanks to the right tools and our knowledge, we will help you run your company effectively and take it to a higher level.