How to delegate effectively to employees is a major obstacle and frustration for small business owners. The fact is, there are several reasons why owners don’t TRUST handing off responsibilities to others.
The No. 1 reason is, the FEAR OF LOSING CONTROL.
Therefore, owners feel, if they give too much responsibility to someone else, they will lose the ability to keep close tabs on customers’ needs.
For this reason they fear losing business should the newly entrusted employee mess up.
Yep, FAILING TO DO THE JOB THE WAY THE OWNER WOULD DO IT!
Unfortunately, the owner believes:
- “It’s faster and safer if I just do the job myself.”
- “No one seems to do the job the right way.”
- “It hard to find a qualified person who really cares the way I do.”
- “If I don’t handle it, then something terrible will happen.”
- “This is my life; I can’t turn my responsibility over to someone else.”
How to Delegate Effectively and Safely
To delegate without fear of losing control of operations and clients, we highly recommend TWO systems.
1. Employee Daily Routine System
Think of this system as a powerful INTERACTIVE, step-by-step list of call-to-action prompts, which leaves NOTHING to chance.
In other words, the system assures that every task assigned to ANY employee is completed as needed; every day, every month, and every year.
In fact, this Employee Daily Routine checklist is like cloning the owner. As if the owner was doing the job themselves.
At the end of the day, each employee signs their Daily Routine Checklist as completed and submits it back to the owner or whoever the owner delegates to oversee this system.
This is powerful!
In truth, using this very system freed me from ALL daily operations in my former commercial printing business.
No doubt, SYSTEMS allowed me the freedom to work on growing our business and working on many other dreams. Like System100 software.
The next system recommended for safe employee delegating:
2. Quality Control System
This powerful system gives the owner control over quality in building a product or rendering a service.
Sorry to say, in most small businesses the owner has little control over QUALITY, unless they personally oversee a job or service themselves. That’s what leads to OWNER BURNOUT!
The simple reason is … as a business grows, overseeing jobs and services becomes impossible. Therefore, errors and employee miscommunications continue unabated.
Most small businesses only grow to a certain level, unlike franchises and other big businesses.
What those market giants KNOW is, growth is only limited by the quality of their operating systems.
Did I mention? Great systems work to give owners control!
Philip Beyer, founder/president of Ebiz Products LLC and founder of Beyer Printing Inc. in Nashville Tenn., is a chronic entrepreneur, business systems analyst and consultant. Author of "System Busters: How to Stop Them in Your Business" and recipient of an InterTech Technology Award for the design and development of System100 business process management software. Beyer speaks to business owners across the country on how to bring lean, sustainable order to their businesses. Contact him at (615) 425-2652.