If you’ve seen the television show Hoarders, you know how people can hold on to excessive quantities of food, dolls, and even pets.  But did you know people can also hoard work?  And just as personal hoarding can hurt the hoarder, his family, and his home, work hoarding can hurt the hoarder, his employees, and his business.  If you’re a manager who never has enough time in the workday, take a look at your schedule—you might be hoarding work.

It’s important to realize, hoarding work doesn’t make you a more valuable manager.  In fact, hoarding can harm your work performance through inefficiency or undue stress.  It can also cause employee boredom and frustration, because you are keeping all the work for yourself.  Employees may also view you as a control freak who doesn’t trust the team.  Since few employees want to work in an environment where they feel devalued and underutilized, your team may be flocking for the exits, leaving you no choice but to do all the work yourself.  Before your staff leaves you short-handed, learn how to stop hoarding and to start delegating work.

Done properly, delegation can be one of the most effective leadership strategies in your arsenal.  So why haven’t you done it yet?  Maybe you’re reluctant to give up control, you don’t trust the job to be done right, or you feel uncomfortable passing on responsibilities that were given to you.  First things first: you need to trust yourself and your judgment.  You hired a talented support team for a reason!  Next, you need to trust your team to help you and your business thrive.

Delegation can strengthen your business by increasing the success of you and your employees through:

• Better time allocation.  As a manager, you have enough on your plate, so you can probably let a few things go!  Trusting employees to handle some of your tasks keeps them busy and enables you to reprioritize your work.  You can allot more attention to key projects and looming deadlines.  You can also focus time on another critical aspect of business: thinking of strategies to drive the business’ growth and success. 
• Increased efficiency.  While you might be swamped, some of your employees might be twiddling their thumbs, waiting for work.  Delegating tasks allows the workforce to be used in a well-rounded way, sharing the load across staff members.  Cross training can also result from this model, which allows work to continue during employee illness or vacation.  Delegation can also maximize each staff member’s strongest skills, so that if you’re terrible at writing press releases, you can assign that job to your employee with the English degree.  Efficiently using the entire workforce creates a more effective, more productive business
• Greater motivation.  What better way to encourage employees than to trust them with new challenges?  Delegation allows employees to take on new endeavors and to really shine.  Professional development and personal growth are great for employee morale and productivity.  And a bonus effect of this process—allowing your employees to spread their wings can help you identify the organization’s future leadership.

While delegating the right tasks can create a more efficient business and a happier workforce, delegating the wrong tasks can have the opposite effect.  Be careful not to delegate, or “dump,” mundane tasks on your subordinates.  Unless you have a personal assistant who doesn’t mind the small stuff, don’t ask employees to answer your e-mail, get your coffee, or pick up your dry cleaning.  That can make employees feel just as devalued as not delegating to them at all.  Think carefully about each employee’s strength before assigning a well-suited task.

When you stop hoarding and learn to effectively delegate work, you, your employees, and your business can each benefit.  Successful delegation is the mark of a mature manager in tune with the business and its employees, so use this tool to your best advantage!

Could your business use a helping hand in management training or workforce planning?  Whether it’s Supervisor 101 Training or a new workforce-planning strategy, YES! Your Human Resources Solution offers efficient solutions customized for your business and its employees.  Backed by over 20 years of Human Resources experience, we pride ourselves on our ability to connect your business initiatives with employee needs to achieve strategic objectives.  We’ll give you that extra push to keep your business running at its best!  For more information on our comprehensive HR-consulting services, give us a call or visit our website for a free consultation.