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DELEGATING IN THE TIMES OF REMOTE WORKING
DELEGATING IN THE TIMES OF REMOTE WORKING

June 18, 2021

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A global shift to remote work may have happened under the thumb of a grim development like COVID-19, but there is no denying its incumbency. Businesses across the world have remained functional only because the internet has allowed for that to happen. Considering this bittersweet new-normal, organizations have started to become attuned to all the good that remote work offers. When leveraged correctly, remote working can not only give your workforce more control over their time but can also help your business move at a faster and steadier pace. Well, we are not implying universality here, but there are enough case studies out there to give weight to our claim.  

 

However, everything is not rainbows and sunshine with remote work. Well, we are not denying that companies that get remote work right prosper like never. Optimizing your organization for the same is no small feat though. Herein, effective delegation plays a key role. Only when employees across the board function like parts of a fine-tuned machine can remote organizations thrive. So, to increase your odds of transforming your company into an extremely efficient entity, here are PERSOLKELLY recommended 7 actionable delegation tips that you can use:  

 

1. Understand your role:

 

Self-awareness is never a bad attribute to have, and its presence on the professional front is no exception. So, before you chart a plan to delegate, understand the distinct roles that people in your organization are suited to. Thereafter, capitalize on your findings by matching objectives to persons best equipped for the task. Moreover, understanding organizational roles will keep you from going all out, and trying to be a jack of all trades. It will keep you from picking up the slack for others and redirect you towards your individual responsibilities.  

 

2. Set the process right:

 

Systems help us mitigate ambiguity and chaos. So, it only makes sense for you to lay forth a detailed workflow for everyone in your team to follow. Assign point persons wherever necessary, and make sure that everyone understands how they are contributing to the organizational machinery at large. Defining processes properly is the obvious next to understanding what roles different people fulfil in your team. It enables you to turn the information you gather at first into an actionable roadmap.  

 

3. Use the right technology:

 

With remote work, the rules of engagement for everyone are different from before. Collaboration among team members no longer happens under a shared roof, but over a shared communication interface. Video conferencing apps and team collaboration tools are just examples of the same. So, decision-makers must engage the workforce by using the right technology. Herein, clearly defined processes and delineation of point persons helps. With the intended flow of communication already defined, making the most out of the right technology only becomes a matter of successful adoption.   

 

4. Avoid ambiguous communication:

 

Clear and concise communication has been a tenet of effective operationality well before remote work became mainstream. So, there is no reason to abandon this principle now that the internet is making office spaces obsolete. As a higher-up, it is your responsibility to leave no room for interpretation when delegating tasks to your team members. Address common queries head-on. Thereafter, ask assigned personnel to articulate their tasks at once. Doing so will help you affirm that your team members can define their objectives themselves, and understand what to do.  

 

5. Prioritize work every day:

 

Make sure that everyone involved in the workflows that you are managing understands what their daily priorities are. To do so, start by defining the objective of the day for immediate point persons. Then, ask them to follow your lead throughout the rest of the hierarchy. This top-down approach to assigning daily key objectives will not only keep your team productively engaged but will also help them exercise accountability and evolve as professionals. However, if you are managing a small team, you can even consider defining daily priorities for all members of the cohort. The important thing is to ascertain that everyone knows what to aim for on a given day, and follows through.  

 

6. Hit the mark on communication and feedback:

 

Communication and feedback are great tools to keep hierarchies at work functioning optimally. However, they must not be abused. When you communicate too frequently with your team members, it becomes an obstruction. Consequently, the communication that you undertake loses its appeal and is less likely to be taken seriously. On the contrary, under-communicating with your team members will make you seem less approachable. The obvious downside to being less approachable is that your team members may not trust you enough to get in touch when trouble ensues. Fires that need immediate attention may come to your notice when it is too late, thereby causing more damage than they should have. The same logic applies to feedback collection as well. When done too little, your team members will not know what performance gaps to fill. When done too much, it will lower the impact that your inputs have.  

 

7. Exercise the right amount of empathy: 

 

Empathy is an invaluable skill for leaders to possess. However, just like communication and feedback collection, it needs to be deployed in a balanced manner. When delegating, consider the circumstances of your team members, and act accordingly. For instance, do not pile onto someone’s workload when they are already firing from all cylinders. Be a little mindful of the degrees to which your team members make contributions. Thereafter, focus on filling gaps in performance instead of taking a blanket approach to delegation. However, make certain that you do not put too much on your own plate to keep your team members from being overburdened. Overall, exercise inward as well as outward empathy when assigning responsibilities across your team.  

 
 

Conclusion

 

Delegating work is important for many reasons. It not only keeps supervisor-level employees from bearing too much load but also encourages accountability throughout the organization. Think about it this way. If even one gear in a machine escapes its rhythm, the entire machinery comes to a halt. However, when gears work in tandem with each other, the machine keeps running without any signs of degradation. Granted that human beings are more complex than machines, they are still susceptible to similar patterns. Moreover, with an upgrade/change as massive as remote work, added layers of nuance invariably enter the arena. To counter the same, you need to upgrade your leadership skills. So, use the tips above to fine-tune your delegation skills, and we promise that you will bear the fruits of your labor. 

 

This article was originally published on PERSOLKELLY India blog here 


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