How To Successfully Allocate Work To Your Team

Posted on written by Marvin

One of the frequent problems that new (and often experienced) managers have is allocating work to a team.

It might sound like an easy task however it is not as straightforward as simply calling a quick meeting and giving everyone something to do.

While new managers may struggle to take on an authoritative role, experienced managers can also make mistakes when it comes to assigning jobs and specific tasks to employees.

We have come up with a few things you need to take into account so that you can successfully allocate work to your team.

Allocating Based On Skill

This is one of the main things that you should take into consideration although, as you will find out below, it is not the only thing that you should base your decision on.

Some staff are better skilled at certain tasks than others. When it comes to allocating work for a project then skill is definitely one of the main things you need to consider.

Having someone who isn’t experienced in dealing with one aspect of the project might be better used elsewhere to ensure quality and that the work is delivered on schedule. That being said, there are other things you need to contemplate too.

Availability and Priority

Beside simply looking at the skill set of your team you also need to consider the availability of your staff and when the work needs to be completed by.

There isn’t much point assigning an important piece of work to someone that is away on holiday for two weeks even if they are the best person for the job. Similarly, someone might be great at what they do but it takes a long time to complete their tasks so if the work is high priority and has to be finished quickly perhaps another team member is better suited.

Ensure that you team members are available before you simply start allocating out jobs and also take into account their present workload too.

Enhancing Personal Development

Finally, what about the less experienced members of your team? How can you enhance their development?

You might have staff that are eager to really prove themselves or are ready to make the step up and take on more responsibility. Continually giving them less important tasks isn’t going to aide either their development or make them a valuable member of your project.

They might not be the most experienced for the job but giving them that extra responsibility and more important workload can massively aide their personal development and that of your team as well.

Successfully Allocating Work To Your Team

There are several aspects you need to ponder before you allocate work.

It might be easy to give everyone the same assignments or keep allocating the more experienced members the important roles but is that practical? Will it hinder the development of certain staff? What about deadlines and the availability of your team members?

The next time you need to allocate roles or responsibilities think about the bigger picture rather than who is best suited to that particular task.

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Project Skills Solutions have been providing NRSWA training to individuals and companies since 2004. Our team are trained to give you the very best advice in your course selection and focussed on customer service.
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