Developing your empowering people (delegating) skill

A manager has many responsibilities and duties to perform. However, sometimes a manager does not have enough time to complete their tasks. Therefore, the manager may choose to delegate tasks to finish the job. The delegation refers to assigning tasks to be performed by another employee (Robbins and Coulter, 2012).  We have a contract administrator for a large regional distributor of office supplies.  His manager has commissioned him to prepare a new procedures manual that explains how to negotiate contracts.

However, the contract administrator is currently working on another project and need to get help from one of his employees. To be an effective delegator, The contract administrator should follow the five behaviors of delegation which are, clarify the assignment, specify the range of discretion of the employee, allow the employee to participate, inform others that delegation has occurred, and establish feedback channels.

Clarify the assignment

Based on current job, the contract administrator is aware that the development task of the new manual of procedures needs to be delegated to The employee.  The employee has the experience, knowledge, and the ability to prepare the manual. When the contract administrator meets with the employee, he will have to clarify the assignment. He will provide clear instructions and expectations, as well as the expiration date. The contract administrator will have to make sure that they both come to an agreement on expectations. However, the employee will be the responsible for developing the manual.

Range of Discretion

The contract administrator must make clear to the employee that the work should be done under strict confidentiality, and it must be committed to complete the manual. The contract administrator should be clear and specific so the employee can work with the relevant parts and both of them can complete the work on the required timeframe.

Employee Participation

The power to delegate work to employees is necessary for any employer, because sometimes, managers do not have enough time, and maybe too many commitments to meet the short-term goals like some secondary tasks. But it is necessary to keep the employees informed that they must follow the instructions and established parameters in order to complete the task.

Inform others that delegation has occurred

            Besides inform everyone, the contract administrator must be prepared to explain the adjustments and the new instructions to be performed by the team. Also, the contract administrator will have to defend why he selected the employee, to prevent other employees questioning about his selection.

Establishing feedback channels according to the stage

Feedback is a process that will help The contract administrator Lee to provide information on the skills of The employee, about what he knows, what he is doing, and about how he will act in the process of preparing the new departmental procedure manuals for negotiation of contracts that have been requested by upper management (Robbins & Coulter, 2012).

The feedback will allow the contract administrator Lee to describe the thinking, feeling and acting of the employee in his environment, in the project and therefore can measure the performance, and how the employee can improve it in the future. This will help the employee to align his own image with reality, so the process can be considered as a mirror reflecting the image of the employee, and what he is doing, or how he is behaving. For this reason, we can say that the feedback process is an effective tool for learning as the contract administrator Lee and others perceive the actions, knowledge, words and work of the employee, and allow the contract administrator to find and give the impressions of upper management.

Analyzing the above data, it is understood that, in order to give feedback, there are several criteria that the contract administrator Lee should keep in mind to be constructive on his feedback. For this, this feedback needs to be (Starr, 2004):

·         Descriptive

·         Specific

·         Timely

·         Appropriate

·         Clear

Therefore priority becomes for both, the contract administrator Lee and The employee, while understanding some basic concepts involved in their feedback (Starr, 2004):

·         Conduct: Referred to the actions of people who are likely to be observed and analyzed.

·         Note: Ideally, feedback should be provided by the same person who is making the observation, so that should occur naturally as part of the daily work and should include timely recording of data and information that serve as evidence for the process.

·         Evaluation: To evaluate the observed behaviors, goals should be shared by all persons involved, which mean they must be communicated, orally or in writing, and remembered periodically.

In conclusion, the experience will prove to the contract administrator Lee that feedback is one of the less used resources in the process of employee assessment. This is understandable when you take into account the amount of content to be covered to complete the required procedure manuals, and the short time in which has to be worked, and also evaluated.

The feedback will allow the employee to refine and correct himself during the process of creating the procedure manuals. The feedback process becomes, from this point of view, a fundamental part of the manager /employee relationship, for which they need to create an atmosphere that facilitates communication between them (Starr, 2004). Managers who regularly and consciously practice feedback, have pointed out that in most cases employees appreciate and welcome it, noting that they would like to receive it in a regular basis (Robbins & Coulter, 2012).

References

Robbins, S. P., & Coulter, M. (2012). Management. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:      Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall.

Starr, J. (2004). The Manager's Role in Coaching. Developing and Learning in    Organizations. 18:9.