Do deadlines constantly make you nervous? Are sleepless nights and working overtime normal things to you? Well, if you’ve answered ‘yes’ to at least one of these questions, it’s high time to get rid of those numerous tasks on your list.
Why Do So Many People Fail to Let Anyone Else Help Them?
Perhaps because asking someone for help is one of the most difficult things in management, especially if you are a perfectionist and believe no one else can do it better than you. Whether you like it or not, there are some spheres where others perform better, because you simply cannot be experienced in everything at once. Sooner or later, you’ll have to share your duties. But before that, you should decide what exactly you need—delegating or outsourcing.
Reasons for Outsourcing and Delegating Tasks
To be honest, there’s little-to-no difference between outsourcing and delegating, as the result is the same: you get part of your job done by other people. The main distinguishing point is whether you use in-house resources, or employ external experts.
According to the Deloitte’s 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey, the most popular areas to outsource are IT (72%), legal (63%), and RE&FM (60%). Besides this, over 78% of respondents felt positive about their contractors. Also, 85% of survey participants are companies that generate over $1 billion revenue yearly. The main reasons they outsource are as follows:
- Significant cost reduction (59%)
- Capability to concentrate on core business values (57%)
- Ease of overcoming capacity issues (47%)
- Improvement of services delivered (31%)
- Access to highly experienced niche specialists (28%)
Thus, if duly approached, outsourcing or delegating tasks may save you time and improve business outcomes—not to say that in some cases you cannot go without it. For example, if you are short on qualified resources or if completing a task doesn’t require in-depth brand knowledge, you can use services like CopyCrafter to get a well-written blog post. Also, you can go to freelance platforms like Upwork to order something more sophisticated. That may be website or mobile app design and development, or other services.
To Outsource or Not to Outsource: When Should You Do It and When Not
As you see, if you know how to delegate tasks to employees or outsource experts, you’ll win priceless minutes for strategic planning and business development. Yet, you may be questioning confidentiality, or meeting deadlines, or effectiveness. Needless to say, to dispel doubts, you must thoroughly choose the employee or contractor for performing the task. That is why you must know for sure when should you outsource and when not to outsource. So, to choose the necessary option, ask yourself the questions below:
- Does the task directly influence revenue? If so, address your employees. On the contrary, if it is not integral and distracts your team from important things, do not hesitate to outsource it.
- Will outsourcing increase operational performance? If the task is important for your daily business processes, consider also what strategic importance it has. In case the latter is low, outsource it—otherwise, retain it in-house.
- Do I have enough resources for completing the task? It is about both manpower and budgets. Are you sure your employees are experienced enough to do it on their own? If not, be sure to outsource.
- Will the task help to improve employees’ skills? In case of a positive answer, delegate it immediately.
- Is the task a one-time or recurring one? Outsourcing is a better option for one-off tasks. And vice versa, if it’s a long-time project, ask your team to undertake it.
- Would it be more expensive to do it in-house? This may refer to highly paid specialists you can’t allow to employ. Still, sometimes it may be cheaper to hire a niche expert than training your employees.
[Bonus] 5 Hints on How to Delegate Work Effectively
If you have finally decided to delegate or outsource, then here’s a short list of must-have things while passing the task to others:
- Choose what and whom to delegate to
- Provide clear task specifications
- Set up transparent communication
- Control but don’t be intrusive (introduce KPIs and checkpoints for performance review)
- Conduct gap analysis
Follow these simple steps and the outcomes will be rewarding—you’ll get quality products and/or services delivered in time without heavy investments.
