Shawnee Love   •  
May 3, 2013

Last week, we introduced the ability to Delegate as a core talent every good manager needs.  This week, we tell you how to get started in 8 easy steps:

1. Figure out what you are doing that could be handed off to one of your employees.  This could be a task, a project, or a responsibility.  Tip: Complete this sentence “Work would be better if I could find someone else to do …” and then take a hard look at what you said.  Assuming your answer was reasonable (i.e., not the heart of the job), then you can work towards delegating it.
2. Identify the standards and expectations for achievement as well as any parameters for the work.  It is important to be very clear on these because it is unfair to an employee to delegate a task and then get upset when it wasn’t done correctly. You can’t assume that because an employee has been with you a long time, he understands the right way to do things.  In fact, one of the beautiful things about delegating is your employee might come up with better ways and that is why if there is a reason you want something done a certain way, you have to explain that reason.
3. Consider which employee(s) would like the chance to take on more.  Perhaps you have had conversations about career development with your employees or maybe you have had your eye on someone who is always looking for more work.  Those are the ones to tap on the shoulder. In doing so, it is okay to be clear that taking on this task isn’t going to get them a raise, but rather it is a chance to prove themselves for future opportunities, e.g., promotions etc.
4. Arrange a time to meet with the employee to discuss hand off.  Be strategic about this as it is important to have time to discuss what you want to hand off, the standards of performance, as well as how or why you selected the employee to do it.  Employees will appreciate hearing you say you have faith in them and/or you heard their request for more career development and this new project or task is a step in the right direction.
5. Ask your employee if s/he will take responsibility for the activity and if s/he says yes, agree on deliverables and deadlines.
6. Agree with your employee on how to keep you informed of progress (to ease your mind and ensure the employee is successful) and how to ask questions.  Remember, just because you delegate the responsibility of doing the task, it doesn’t mean you hand off accountability for ensuring the task is done and done well.
7. Focus on your strategic tasks while the employee works on what you delegated but remain available and interested.
8. Don’t sweat the small stuff such as a different style of doing the work.  If the employee meets the standards and expectations for what success looks like while working within any parameters that were important to the business, the rest shouldn’t be important.

That’s delegation at LoveHR in a nutshell.  Is there anything you would add?