Small business owners may find it hard to delegate some tasks to their employees. Surely, if they have enough time, they will choose to perform all these tasks themselves. A small business is just like its owner’s baby. Although they need to entrust it to somebody else at certain points of the day so they can focus on their work, it is very hard to find someone who would be trustworthy enough and whom they believe will care about the small business as much as they do. Still, it has to be done to maintain focus, balance, and even the small business owners’ sanity. Trying to keep doing all these tasks may make the quality of the work suffer.
There are two ways on how to delegate different tasks. One way is that they can delegate the tasks to their existing employees. Another way is to hire a freelancer to do it. Hiring a freelancer can be a better option especially if the tasks are not needed regularly. Freelancers may be paid in a per work basis.
Plan to Delegate
Task assignment must be done ahead of time. It should not be done when the small business owner is already out of time for the task. Doing so will make him or her assign the task to anyone who is available out of a hasty decision-making. It should be done earlier when the small business owner has the time to observe, consider their options, and test their choices before the actual need for delegation comes. This will ensure that the employee is also prepared to take on the tasks. It guarantees the quality of their output and small business owners can have peace of mind knowing that the tasks are on good and reliable hands.
Before delegation, small business owners can start training their employees and see who excels in specific tasks. These tasks may include handling customer calls through the office phone system from providers. This will help the small business owner make the best choice.
Use a Tool for Delegation
A calendar is the best tool to use when considering task assignment. The small business owner can lay down his or her meetings, appointments, and scheduled tasks on a calendar and choose the ones that he or she needs to personally attend to. The remaining items should then be delegated to other employees. Like when planning ahead to delegate, this should be done far early before the actual need for the task to be done.
Small business owners usually choose tasks that are about direct customer interaction. On the other hand, other tasks such as monitoring stocks and inventory, bookkeeping, and other administrative tasks are usually the things that get assigned to other employees.
Test Delegate
The best thing about delegating tasks long before the deadline is having enough time. This will give the small business owner time to test and check if he or she has made the right choice. The small business owner can start with small tasks. These are the tasks that do not make much impact on the whole business operation. It is a good training ground and evaluation process. Having enough time also means that in the case that the employee was not able to deliver the quality that the small business owner wanted, it can be given another try or the small business owner can resolve the case. He or she can do the task him or herself since there is still enough time and it was just a test anyway. Or, they can start training another employee or hire another freelancer.
These are great tools. It might also be a good reason to have a business partner so that the two of you can spend time splitting up some tasks between each other.