Harjeet Khanduja

There are three fears due to which people ERR on delegating. 1. Effort The effort to delegate a task is high. It is like handholding a baby to walk. You may find it easy to walk the distance yourself. However remember that baby needs support just for a while. 2. Reputation The fear of reputation comes from quality of delivery and delays. Remember, delegation changes your job from operations to quality assurance. You must conduct reviews. And train people on quality. To avoid delays, chip in if critical things are lagging behind. 3. Risk of Redundancy If someone else does your job, what will you do? Ask this question in a different manner. If you aspire to hold something bigger, do you need to let go what you are holding right now?

When we talk delegation, we start thinking team. Even if you don’t have a team, you can still delegate You can delegate to your colleagues, consultants, supervisors, customers & technology Assess the work that can be delegated and the critical core you only have to do. Assess whether the person you plan to delegate to, will be able to perform the job. Let’s take example of recruitment. You can delegate job of crafting Job description to Hiring Manager. You can co-create candidate specs You may delegate sourcing to a consultant or references. You can screen them yourself. You may delegate tough negotiations to your supervisor. You can release offer and empower colleagues to support candidates. You can delegate reminders to technology

Moving from Generalist to specialist role is a bold move. Use I’M BOLD model to make the transition 1. Identify - Area of specialisation based on your preference and skills 2. Mentor - Identify a person in the area of interest to mentor you 3. Branding - Let people know what you want for yourself. Change your social media profile, resume and pitch. 4. Opportunities- Explore opportunities to make the transition. Give more weightage to internal opportunities as you may better leverage your generalist knowledge 5. Learn Language - Specialists have a language of their own. Learn the language and terms 6. Dive in - Collaborate with specialist teams for projects. Read to build expertise. Write about it to improve understanding

You may source creative stars using a STAR method 1. Search Search for the profile on Job Portals. Reach out to search partners. Map the key creative people and approach them 2. Talent Pools Figure out where creative people hang out. They can be on platforms like LinkedIn. You can spot them in competitions. You can offer them internships and active projects to work with you. If you are willing to invest then colleges are a good talent pools 3. Advertisement Post an ad, people will apply. Make it creative, your chances improve significantly. It will get you people who are skilled and motivated to do the job 4. References References are a powerful glue, they bring right people to you. They also improves their longevity in the organisation

Let’s take a difficult situation that employee is not performing. How will you deal with it. Option 1 - Ask employee to go. (Bad option) Option 2 - Issue PIP and let employee deal with it. (Still a bad option) Option 3 - You May use the CHARM 1. Collect - Collect background info. Collect data points like productivity, absenteeism etc. 2. Huddle - Have an open discussion, understand issues & explain expectations. 3. Assess - Assess viable alternatives to solve the issue. 4. Roadmap - Agree on a solution and prepare a roadmap to implement. 5. Monitor progress regularly. The CHARM model has empathy built into it.

Consistency in compensation is built by job analysis, evaluation and salary surveys. It means 1. People performing similar jobs should get similar compensation 2. When people move to the next level jobs, their compensation increases For flexibility 1. Define the CTC (Cost to Company), the cost company promises for the services of the employees 2. Give choice to the employee to design their compensation within CTC It means you give a menu card of cash components and benefits (eg Gym membership) 3. Define the eligibility, limits and conditions for each component Vendors do provide some of these benefits at subsidised rates. Let people choose what matters to them. This way you achieve consistency and flexibility in compensation.