Employers: Hate To Delegate? You Won’t After You Read These Tips
Recognize the signs, employers:
- You stay late at the office to finish up (long after your staff members have gone home).
- Vital duties get pushed to the backburner, while other tasks such as responding to email swallows up the day.
- You feel burnt out, while the rest of your team seems perky.
If there is simply not enough time in the day for you to get everything done, you’re probably doing too much. But sharing the load can be challenging. Some people simply don’t like delegating.
Our collective distaste for delegating goes back to that weary old saying, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
Works for some, but we want to enjoy our lives and make more money, right?
Get comfortable with delegating, for your business and your wellbeing. It’s much less loathsome when you have these tips in your back pocket. Read on for all the details.
- Track your work days
Where does your day go? Before you start delegating, track your hours to determine how much time is sucked up by pesky tasks another person could handle.
Tracking can be as simple as keeping a journal throughout the day, or as high-tech as a web-based program like Harvest or Replicon.
After a week or two of tracking, you will have enough data to define the problem areas. For example, do you waste hours attempting to solve an issue beyond your expertise? Does filing, sending out mail, or answering the phone overrun other responsibilities? Both challenges can be addressed – and justified – through confident delegation.
- Hire for exactly what you need
After assessing your productivity potholes, it’s time to get in touch with a staffing agency. Go for an agency that can provide a range of solutions, from temporary to permanent part and full-time. Take advantage of the staffing agency’s expertise to determine the best fit for your needs.
With the help of a staffing agency, it’s easy to maximize your work force budget so you can grow your profits faster.
- Look at the big picture
Still feeling disgruntled about delegating? Maybe your attitude is holding you back.
As entrepreneur and author Penelope Trunk says, “instead of delegating small, low-impact tasks, delegate with the goal of accomplishing the larger agenda.”
In other words, focus on what you can achieve over the long term with the help of others. Over time, you will see every team member, temporary or not, as essential links in a chain supporting your company in reaching greater heights.
- Share your wisdom
When you hand over a task, hand over any advice you can give to help your assistant succeed. If you’re used to getting something done a certain way, communicate it. Not only will you set your team up to be effective, but you will also ease some of the stress of letting go of duties you normally handle yourself.
- Trust your team
Easier said than done, right? If you work with a staffing agency to build your team, you can count on having skilled, motivated people for your business. People you can trust.
When there’s trust, your staff won’t need to get your approval for every move they make in their roles. Delegation will be seamless, and execution of tasks, will be effective.
Trust also helps cultivate mutual respect and workplace culture, which aren’t bad things to have!
Start building your team or add to your work force with temporary, permanent part and full time employees. Contact Aspire Recruitment Solutions today!
Photo by Flickr Creative Commons user Martin Brunenieks. Go to the profile and photo license here.