Delegating tasks in your hostel

Every entrepreneur is faced with the challenges of limited time and personal resources.  It is simply not sustainable to do everything yourself.  If we want our hostels to succeed, then we need to hand off some responsibilities to others and trust our teams to bear the weight.

The article Learn When to Delegate and When to Micromanage offers some tips on delegation.

“… some tasks are so vitally important that you, as a small business owner, need to ensure they are done correctly. In such circumstances, it’s better to think of micromanaging as opposed to delegation.
…
As your business grows, you’ll inevitably have to hand over tasks that once fit comfortably into your schedule to other members of your organization. It arouses conflicting feelings in many entrepreneurs. While you obviously trust the people you've hired, you also want to make sure your baby is in capable hands.”

According to the article, here are some benefits to delegating tasks:

• Frees up your time to develop and grow your business and facilitate the performance of your team
• Give your team the opportunity for personal development while building their confidence
• Allows your team members to learn new things, embrace new challenges, and grow as contributing team members
• Increased job satisfaction for employees who successfully meet the challenges and complete their tasks
• Improved employee retention as a result of increased job satisfaction
• Increased bottom line and improved company culture due to retention of satisfied team members

I would add:

• Frees up your time to enjoy some life balance outside of the hostel
• Creates a habit of utilizing your resources for maximum effectiveness
• Creates reciprocal trust and support between the team and the management
• Gives each team member a greater sense of ownership of the hostel
• Greatly expands the variety of skills that can be applied to any project beyond the ones that you possess yourself
• Creates proactivity among the team so that they don’t feel like they need to turn to you every time something comes up
• Prevents feelings of ineffectiveness and burnout that can come from stretching yourself too thin
• Offers alternative perspectives on challenges that can lead to even better solutions

The article also offers these rules of thumb when delegating:

• Set your employees up for success. Never assign a task that am employee is not capable of completing, or that they do not have the necessary tools to complete
• Follow the 70% Rule: If a team member can complete the work at least 70% as well as you can, then it is beneficial to delegate that assignment
• Once you delegate a job to someone, let them do it. Don’t undermine them by jumping back in to micromanage the process

I would add:

• Be very clear about the tasks that you assign and your expectations for that assignment. The minimum information that should be given includes: What needs to be accomplished? How would you like it to be done? When should the task be completed?
• Discuss your hostel philosophy and business objectives with the team so that they understand why you make decisions the way you do.  This way each team member can have the flexibility to find their own solutions that are in line with the hostel philosophy

Obviously every hostel is different, so the tasks that are delegated or restricted to management will also vary depending on the situation.  

Which tasks have you found to be particularly helpful to delegate in your hostel, and which ones do you think really need to be done by the manager or owner?  

Which responsibilities have you found to be especially difficult for you to let go of and hand off to another team member?