How to Delegate in the Workplace
January 9th, 2006 (Professional Appearance)
Unless you are blessed with a staff of go getters and hard workers, it is up to you to make sure that you are properly managing and directing work. And because it is your responsibility to assign specific tasks, you need to decide what to delegate and what not to delegate. Below are two guidelines to help you:
1. Delegate tasks that are routine and necessary. These are the jobs that are easiest to delegate because these are the tasks that you have done so many times over. You are extremely familiar with them; you know the potential problems and how to solve them. And since you know the task so well, you can explain and delegate them away without any difficulty.
2. Delegate the specialties. Unless you are a surgeon, you would not perform surgery on anybody. The same concept is true in your work. You should make the most of any specialties that are in your office. If you are responsible for getting a new computer system, you can delegate the research to the computer programmer in your office. If you have an employee who is good in math, you can give him the responsibility of double-checking the calculations in reports.