Delegate work in your business
Overview
This standard is for entrepreneurs who delegate work in their business. If you find that there is too little time or you have not got all the necessary skills, it may help you to delegate tasks to other members of staff or outsource these to other external associates, subcontractors or specialist consultants. Delegating work in your business involves identifying your requirements, planning the tasks, responsibilities and targets for work that you delegate and preparing information that will help staff do their delegated tasks.
You might do this if you:
need to pass on work that you cannot manage to do yourself;
get other people to work for you;
brief other people on what to do;
check work that other people do for you.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
- identify the tasks and responsibilities to be delegated
- choose internal staff or external associates with the right skills, time and abilities
- agree the delegated scope of work with internal staff or external associates
- allocate and explain the targets and limits of the work
- provide the resources and information to enable the internal staff or external associates to complete the tasks
- provide training for delegated tasks if required
- check that internal staff or external associates understand their tasks
- identify ways to motivate internal staff or external associates to complete the tasks
- encourage internal staff or external associates to be creative in how they complete the tasks
- agree target dates for completion of the work
- agree on communication channels and regularity of contact
- encourage progress by giving any advice and support, where required
- suggest improvements and ways to solve any problems that arise
- monitor delegated work to check that agreed targets are met
- collate feedback on quality of delegated work and use the information for future delegation
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
Planning
1. how to set targets for delegated work
2. how to plan work by setting short- and long-term targets, breaking down the targets into smaller activities, ordering the activities in terms of importance and urgency and estimating the time involved
3. how to set limits and the scope of authority for the tasks to be done
4. the timescales and deadlines, costs, use of materials, tools and equipment, quality, health and safety and customer service
5. how to agree contracts with external associates
6. how to assess if someone can carry out a task
7. how to decide if someone can be relied on to perform the task satisfactorily and responsibly
Motivating internal staff or external associates
8. how to communicate what you expect and check that you are understood
9. how to motivate people and gain their commitment
10. how to encourage internal staff or external associates to be creative
11. how to offer advice and support by providing information, training, giving hands-on help or encouragement
12. the channels of communication and why regularity of progress updates or reporting is important
13. how to train someone to carry out a task in the way that you expect
Checking work
14. the goals and progress of delegated work
15. how to acknowledge any failures and actions to take when these occur
16. how to solve problems with the work that you delegate
17. how to monitor the quality of delegated work
18. how to assess whether someone is performing well
19. the methods of comparison between expected standards and the outcomes achieved
20. how to identify and acknowledge improvements
21. how to action feedback on the quality of delegated work