AIBU about delegating things at work

[Frustratedflatmate]

Hi all,

Just a query about delegating work to colleagues.

I’m in the process of trying to improving my delegation skills, which I’m finding helpful.

I think my real fear about delegation (if I can call it a fear) is the feeling that I will no longer be seen to pull my weight if I delegate things. How can I help myself understand I can still pull my weight and also use delegation/improve my delegation skills?

I think the ‘fear’ comes down to how I feel about myself/my own value, and wanting to always prove myself. I’m working through this in personal counselling but don’t want to make known in a work context (ie to my manager) as I don’t think it’s relevant.

All thoughts welcome :)

I’m a bit confused. Where in the organisational structure are these “colleagues”? Usually “colleagues” mean equal peers. You should not be delegating work to your peers. Delegation is something a line manager does to one of their subordinates, or a team lead to a team member. So either they are not your colleagues or you are not delegating. Cannot be both.

Are you are in a multi-functional team? In that case you are not delegating, you’re really referring work to a team mate that is in their function. For example you are a structural engineer and a building us unsafe, so you pass your condition survey on to the team facilities manager so they can write a risk assessment and work safety requirements which they then pass on to the team member that hires construction repair contractors.

You cant delegate your work to your peers if that's what you mean?
If you're higher up you delegate other peoples jobs to them, but not your own. So I manage a team of engineers, I delegate engineering work between them, I dont delegate my own accounts work to them.

Has someone told you to work on your delegating?

Why are you being told you need to delegate. Are you doing all the work that should be delegated to more junior people? Or do you not seek help when you have too much on. No one is going to give you a prize for burning your self our or being controlling/micro managing at work. Be strategic - stay in control of the ove project and delegate less strategically important bits to others

Usually, “colleagues mean equal peers.*

Er, no.

@MasterBeth

Usually, “colleagues mean equal peers.*

Er, no.

Agree since when does colleagues mean equal peers my boss is my colleague. The juniors I manage are my colleagues

I agree that everybody that works the same place as me is my colleague. But I wouldn’t use the expression “delegating work to my colleagues”, I would say delegating to my team or my subordinates.

Look at it as time spent.

Is it best use of your time, from a company perspective, to be doing the admin / simple task? Or, of your team of people, are you the only one who has the specialist skills to do X, but everyone else can do Y. In which case you need to focus your time accordingly.

I am capable and willing to do all tasks, but I know that my team is better at some of them, and that they employ me to do more complex work that the team cannot do.

If it's their role to do the tasks don't feel bad. See it as trusting them to do what is expected of them.

'Please could you look at X when you have a chance. Let me know if you have any questions' really simple

@MasterBeth

Usually, “colleagues mean equal peers.*

Er, no.

In my experience it has been so. So you wouldn’t say you delegate to a colleague...never heard it said at least. “A colleague is someone you work with or someone who’s in the same profession as you, especially a peer within that profession.” www.dictionary.com/browse/colleague

I’m a bit confused. Where in the organisational structure are these “colleagues”? Usually “colleagues” mean equal peers. You should not be delegating work to your peers. Delegation is something a line manager does to one of their subordinates, or a team lead to a team member. So either they are not your colleagues or you are not delegating. Cannot be both.

I think this may be very different in different industries. In the places where I have worked, colleagues were not just peers, but included my boss and my team. Delegating work to colleagues would be perfectly appropriate, assuming that those colleagues were junior staff within my team.

If someone actually talked about delegating to subordinates, most people in my industry would think they were an arse for using that kind of language. I think it totally depends on the organisational culture.

OP, I understand where you're coming from. I used to feel guilty about delegating, but if you do it well (ie don't just delegate the boring, shit tasks), it can really provide people with opportunities to develop their skills and gain experience. Just be really clear about what your expectations are, what support is available and make sure that they have what they need to succeed at the job. And give them credit for it publicly when it's done!

I would use colleague for anyone who works in my organization. I would only be able to delegate to someone who is "subordinate" to me (although I wouldn't use that term). I assumed the OP meant a subordinate, but just used the term colleague.

OP, in my office, delegating is something we are evaluated on. It is a really good skill to develop, but I know it's hard at first. Once you see the work getting done, you will be happier to do it I'm sure.

I'm not sure having a debate about whether colleagues are 'peers' or not is helpful, nor is sticking to an idealised structure taken straight from a 'business' book.

Whilst delegating tasks to juniors is normal, I work in a fairly large company where delegating even to peers is also appropriate if the sheer amount of project work coming in is too much. For example, you ahev good connections with Client A so they get in touch with you about something, but you also happen to be juggling a load from Client B and C, it is not unreasonable to ask your 'peer' if they have capacity to look at the work from Client A this time.

Thing is, its not about you being lazy or not worth it, its about managing capacity across your team I'm guessing. Very few jobs these days are as straightforward as some posters are making out where you just get 'assigned x task' and should just sheep along and do it, collect pay at the end of the month, pass 'Go' etc....you need to use your critical analysis to effectively manage workloads and that sounds like what your company is trying to encourage.

As a PP said, delegation is not a weakness, its a really important skill and shows you are actively managing workloads and projects and taking initiative.

I would try creating a capacity sheet. I use one I've created in Excel and find it incredibyl helpful as a sort of working to-do list for the coming weeks (jobs down the vertical, weeks across the horizontal and time allotted in the columns). I find it really helpful for seeing ppinch-points in my own capacity and seeing clearly which jobs are absolutely need to be done by me and cant be moved and then identifying which are perhaps more flexible to be done by someone else. That way you can still demonstrate to yourself that your capacity adn workload is at 100% and justify (to yourself) that you are not just shifting work on to others for no reason...

with that capacity sheet approach you can also clearly see when a certain job tips you over the time available in the week (I use a percentage calculation at the bottom and if i start getting to 120% of my hours then I know I need to start moving things around) it also helps to see which weeks might be worse than others if certain jobs are likely to clash