How To Effectively Delegate Tasks To New Employees

When you’re a business owner, a part of your responsibility is making sure that you hire a top-notch staff—individuals who are qualified, productive and offer impeccable customer service. Well, if you’ve recently hired a few new employees, although you might be excited to put them to work, it’s important that you’re cautious when it comes to delegating tasks. You want to make sure that you choose the one with the best skills. And at the same time, you don’t want to overwhelm anyone in the process.

If you’d like a few helpful tips on how to effectively delegate tasks to new employees, here are five things to keep in mind:

Consider your new employees’ capabilities. Although you probably hired your new employees based on their resumes and quite possibly a series of tests that you provided during the interview process, it’s always a good idea to refer back to those things to see exactly what their strengths are. For instance, if they are able to type fast, then they’ll be ideal for transcribing or typing reports. On the other hand, if they don’t type as quickly but they do have years of experience in social media marketing, they will probably be ideal when it comes to helping to maintain your social media accounts or updating your website.

Consider your new employees’ personalities. One mistake that some business owners make is not factoring in their new employees’ personalities. While it’s a good idea to encourage your staff to stretch so that they can grow both personally as well as professionally, you also don’t want to make them feel extremely insecure. So, when it comes to the kinds of tasks that may involve them speaking before a crowd of people or trying something that’s very different from their job skills, speak with them privately to see how they feel about it first.

Consider if your new employees will need assistance. If you were to get a room of employees from different companies together and you asked them to tell you one thing that they wish their boss had done differently during their first week on the job, they might tell you they wished they had received more thorough training. Just because a person has certain skills and qualifications doesn’t automatically mean that they don’t need a certain amount of assistance with their tasks. So, if you have time-sensitive assignments, it’s probably best to give those to someone who has been with your company longer. If it’s not, think about if it would be best if your new employees are paired up with some staff that has been there for a while. The peer support can help them to become more thorough with their assignments.

Consider how thorough your instructions should be. Say that you happen to run a cloud-based software application company such as TaskMaster Pro and you were wondering about something else that you should keep in mind as you assign tasks to new employees. When what you want new workers to do has involved a lot of steps, make sure that your instructions are extremely thorough. It’s best if you jot them down in an email. That way, they will have written instructions, plus you have documented proof that they received them.

Consider the timeframe you need tasks to be done. There’s one more thing that you should keep in mind when you’re in the process of delegating tasks to new employees: the timeframe that you need the work done. Remember, it’s going to take new workers a bit longer to get used to working for you. So, if you are in a real time crunch, pass that work on to a more seasoned staff member. It will prevent you from feeling frustrated and your new employees from feeling stressed and overwhelmed. If you’d like some tips on how you can make your new employees feel welcome, visit Fast Company or Urban Bound and put “how to make new employees feel welcome” in the search field.