Learn Motivating Delegation as a Leader

Speak clearly & communicate instructions to employees as a executive, prioritize time management, trust in other people & let go of fear

Simone Janson, Simone Janson, Simone Janson

• Publisher: Best of HR – Berufebilder.de®
• Year: 2024
• ISBN:
  9783965961814
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Financial Engineering
• Index: Business

Work more efficiently through outsourcing: You must be aware of this when delegating work
// By Simone Janson

With today's oversupply of information and bureaucracy, you spend a lot of time on work that has nothing to do with your job. Find out how to remedy and simplify your daily work here.

Delegate to work more efficiently - that's how it works

Example: Carpenter K. starts the day by calculating his calculation. Then he takes care of customer inquiries, which he gets from a flood of mailings and mailings eMail fishes out. Finally, he thinks about some advertising measures and puts some new offers on his website. It is only in the late afternoon, when he is actually tired, that he starts working in his carpenter's workshop.

That would not have to be the case: Schreiner K. could automate and simplify his bookkeeping if he perceived some tax advantages as a small business owner or delegated the entire bookkeeping to an expert. He could answer customer queries faster if he had an efficient system for filtering out unwanted advertising or if he had a secretariat to do so. And he would not have to maintain his website himself. If carpenter K. simplified some things, he would have more time for his actual work, carpentry.

Save time by delegating

You may find it uncomfortable to delegate. Perhaps you think that you can do everything much better yourself than others and in fact someone else will not do your job exactly like you. You may also be afraid that they are replaceable. However, this is unfounded: after all, several minds think better than one.

If you want to save time in one operation, the most efficient method is that you don't do the work yourself. You can hand in work orders to colleagues or hire employees yourself as an entrepreneur. You can delegate routine tasks such as typing or organizing or special tasks that you are not very familiar with, such as accounting or IT, to others. Even if it is difficult: Admit to yourself where your weaknesses are and delegate these tasks to others instead of doing it yourself. If possible, look for partners and employees that will complement your skills. However, you should take on tasks that you demand as personal, such as representative of the company and dealing with customers, because you are personally responsible for this.

The cost factor

Surrendering work to others initially costs you time and / or money: for example, you have to deal with the bureaucracy and train colleagues or employees. But if you don't want to collapse at some point, you should get colleagues or employees on board at an early stage. If they work competently and independently, you get the investment back with “interest”.

Unfortunately, as an employee, but especially as a self-employed person, you cannot simply look for people to pass on your work to, you have to observe some legal principles. The following overview gives you a first impression of what you need to watch out for when delegating to other companies as well as when hiring employees.

What you need to consider when delegating as an entrepreneur

Outsourcing	Hiring workers
When it makes sense
You can only submit individual smaller work areas, such as typing or input work, which do not necessarily have to take place in the company itself, but also entire company areas, such as the design of your website, accounting or customer service. Advantages: You use the knowledge of other companies when you commission specialists with accounting, tax or IT questions. You can submit jobs quickly and unbureaucratically that you can no longer do yourself and therefore accept more orders if the order situation is booming in the short term (e.g. in the Christmas business). You only pay the fee for work, but no social security contributions. Disadvantage: You cannot control the quality of the work directly, which requires a lot of trust, especially when the work has a great impact on the end product.	The traditional way to delegate work to others is to hire workers. You can do this for practically any task. Advantages: You have better control over work processes when they occur in the company - useful for important work. You secure the income of your employee, who must therefore follow your instructions. Disadvantages: You have an increased bureaucratic effort due to numerous legal regulations. You have higher expenses due to non-wage costs. However, you can deduct labor costs from tax. You have to provide the workplace and work equipment, which results in costs.
Social security and its peculiarities
If you specify the type of work, the place of work (in your premises) and the working time to the contractor, the contract could be a disguised contract, that is, it appears to be self-employed. If this turns out to be the case during a review by the German Pension Insurance Federation (DRV), you have to pay social security contributions retrospectively from the start of the contract, both employer and employee share (unless the employee was insured elsewhere). You must also change the contract so that either a normal employment relationship is created or the contractor is properly self-employed. The contractor can also sue for permanent employment. If you want to get around this: Apply to the DRV in advance for a status assessment procedure. Artists and publicists: Do you place more orders than freelance artists or publicists (for example, web designers, but not programmers!)? For this you have to pay artist social security.	You must register the employee with the health insurance and the professional association, and calculate and pay the contribution to social security on a monthly basis. You can simplify this by hiring a mini jobber. If you yourself are insured through the artist's social security fund, for example, you may employ only one employee. However, additional trainees and marginal employees are allowed. Interns and family members: All regulations shown here also apply to family members or interns. Even if you hire the latter unpaid, you must take out insurance through the trade association.
Employment Law
If your contractor is beyond doubt self-employed (i.e. not bogus self-employed), but receives at least half of his total earnings from you (one third in the case of artistic or journalistic work) and performs his services essentially without employees, he is considered to be an employee-like person under the Collective Agreement Act: he then has Entitlement to paid leave and educational leave and can bring disputes to the labor court. Social security does not cause any problems.	When you delegate work to workers, you have to Agree clear working conditions and write them down in an employment contract register the employee with the tax office, keep a salary account and calculate the monthly income tax and pay it to the tax office if the employment relationship ends, at least comply with the statutory notice periods and issue a certificate.
company law	Which laws you have to observe
As a sole trader, you can also work with other self-employed on an equal basis - e.g. a butcher and a baker who share business premises and customers, but also a journalist and a cameraman who work together for individual projects. As soon as you as an individual entrepreneur cooperate with others on an equal footing, you are a civil law company (GbR), even without a written contract. The GbR itself can not conclude contracts and can take no or money, only you as an individual entrepreneur can do that. The same applies to income tax. However, the GbR may have to pay sales and trade tax. And: The members of a GbR are liable for everything they do together - but not for more. In the case of permanent, permanent cooperation, it may make sense for you to found another company, such as a GmbH.	In all cases, you must comply with the legal minimum conditions for employment relationships. These are set out in the following laws: the partial retirement law the Working Hours Act the educational leave laws of the federal states die Bestimmungen des Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuchs über Entlohnung und Kündigungsfristen das Bundeserziehungsgeldgesetz das Bundesurlaubsgesetz das Entgeltfortzahlungsgesetz das Kündigungsschutzgesetz das Mutterschutzgesetz das Nachweisgesetz die Sozialgesetzbücher

Richtig Delegieren lernen

Ob Sie nun ein anderes Unternehmen oder Mitarbeiter beauftragen, damit die Sache rund läuft, reicht es nicht, wenn Sie die Anweisung geben: “Machen Sie das bis übermorgen!” Es ist kein Wunder, wenn der andere etwas nicht zu Ihrer Zufriedenheit macht, wenn Sie nicht möglichst genau sagen was Sie wollen – der andere weiß schließlich nicht, was Sie denken. Verwechseln Sie klare Arbeitsanweisungen aber nicht mit Kontrolle: Ihr Partner oder Mitarbeiter sollte zwar wissen, was zu tun ist, aber sprechen Sie ihm dabei nicht die Fähigkeit ab selbst zu denken. Klären Sie, bevor Sie etwas delegieren, folgende Punkte.

• Überlegen Sie: Wer kann die Aufgabe am Besten ausführen – und warum? Wer hat die geeignete Sachkenntnis, wer wird am Schnellsten arbeiten. Teilen Sie mit, warum Sie sich gerade für diesen Partner oder Mitarbeiter entschieden haben – dieses Vertrauen wirkt motivierend.
• Was soll ganz genau soll getan werden? Achten Sie hierbei auf genaue Formulierungen und stellen Sie durch Nachfragen sicher, dass die andere Person alles verstanden hat. Sprechen Sie alle Vorgaben zu Quantität und Qualität ab, schreiben Sie es auf. Achten Sie aber darauf, dass Sie das Ziel beschreiben, nicht den Arbeitsgang an sich. Unter Umständen können Sie einige Vorschläge zur Ausführung einbringen. Die anderen haben so die Freiheit, selbst zu entscheiden, wie sie die Arbeit ausführen. Diese Eigenverantwortlichkeit fördert die Motivation.
• Benötigt der andere eine Spezielle Ausrüstung, irgendwelches Werkzeug oder auch Informationen und Fakten. Achten Sie nicht nur darauf, dass Sie den Auftrag erteilen, sondern auch darauf, dass Sie alles was, zu seiner Ausführung wichtig ist, mitgeben.
• Bis wann soll die Aufgabe erledigt werden. Legen Sie den Zeitpunkt der Fertigstellung wenn möglich mit den anderen zusammen fest. Wenn das nicht geht, erläutern Sie, warum der Endtermin schon feststeht – etwa weil der Kunde dann die entsprechende Lieferung haben möchte.
• Warum soll der Auftrag ausgeführt werden? Menschen führen nicht gerne Arbeiten aus, deren Sinn sich ihnen nicht erschließt. Machen Sie daher noch einmal explizit klar, was der Sinn und Nutzen dieses Arbeitsganges ist. Wenn der andere das versteht, wird er viel besser arbeiten.

Bürokratie vereinfachen

Wenn Delegation oder Zusammenarbeit mit anderen für Sie nicht infrage kommt, etwa weil Sie ein zu kleines Unternehmen sind, gibt es vielleicht auch andere Möglichkeiten, Zeit zu sparen: Etwa indem Sie Ihren Bürokratischen Aufwand minimieren.

Experten hinzuziehen

Suchen Sie nach Experten bei bürokratischen Fragen: Ein Steuerberater speziell für Ihre Berufsgruppe, ein Buchhalter (vor allem dann, wenn Sie eine doppelte Buchführung machen und/oder Arbeitnehmer einstellen wollen) sowie ein guter Anwalt, der Sie auch zwischendurch immer mal wieder in Rechtsfragen berät (und erst rech...