Guideline for Assigning Tasks to Team Members

Assignment of tasks is part of daily office life for meeting organizational goals. When the project manager delegates work to the task receiver, the receiver reacts to the delegated task.

Assigning tasks can differ from person to person concerning different offices. For this reason, it is necessary to look into guidelines when assigning tasks to team members for effective delegation.

Assigning tasks is one of the processes of major importance in an organization. When the members fail to assign tasks legitimately, you cannot expect good results from the delegated task.

Assigning tasks requires understanding, direction, focus, and answerability to doubts within a certain time with a step-by-step guide.

The biggest secret lies in the task assigner and task receiver’s understanding of the delegated task. 

Why is Assigning Tasks to Team Members Important?

Every team is strong when members work together with trust and team spirit. The different types of tasks need division and distribution and knowledge of the capacity of each team member.

Here are some reasons why task assignment is important for assigning tasks to team members:

1. Improvement in Project Efficiency

Tedious tasks are divided among different team members, then the overall efficiency of the team increases.

Without task distribution, the project is unmanaged and vague without effective delegation.

2. Improvement in Project Productivity

When the correct tasks are assigned to team members, each project sector is looked after as responsibilities are divided.

This situation aids in enhancing productivity from every member’s side to complete the task with time management.

3. Highly Developed Morale

Assigning duties to each individual makes them happy, accepts responsibility, and works confidently to reach better goals for delegating effectively.

Project management software with a project management tool helps the project manager assign tasks to team members.

4. Habit of Consideration

The Duties assignment teaches the whole team to consider different situations while completing a project.

Each member earns to support the other, building a stronger team for better outputs and delegating effectively.

Some Guidelines to Assign Tasks To Team Members

A team lead cannot assign tasks to team members without proper planning and experience and the habit of providing feedback.

Task assigners need a good experience of previous task assignments, and the new members can showcase their ability in different types of tasks. 

Another major concern is the impact of employee engagement, for which task holders need interest and passion to continue the work assigned. Some guidelines for assigning tasks to team members are:

1. Assign Tasks Positively

Assigning tasks to employees requires positivity and when you ask them to do a certain task, provide them with details.

A positive attitude will help them know that it is possible to conduct the task in the way the leader wants them to.

If you assign common tasks negatively or doubt their capability, employees will feel demotivated to begin their task.

A hint of positivity will brighten their day and make them complete assigned tasks with full confidence.

2. Be Clear of Goals and Objectives

Before assigning any duties to employees, the assigner needs to know the work’s goals and objectives to know how employees perform. Task givers need to understand what they want and expect from the work process.

When goals and objectives are unset, the task giver is confused due to lack of vision and cannot command the task completers to do a role in a certain way. The task providers need to set clear ways and methods with proper delegation strategies.

3. Right Task to Right Employee

Allotting the right task to the right employee is the key to productivity and needs a step-by-step guide.

But before dividing and designating the work for employees, the role provider needs to know the type of each employee.

The leader should build a delegation strategy including the different capacities of different employees and give duties that fit the employees perfectly.

When a task demands an exceptional employee and a lack of talent, the leaders themselves should conduct the task without a workforce or emergency.

4. Get Ideas and Hold Meetings

Before giving away responsibilities to team members, a discussion with all members is essential.

The team lead can ask each employee to express their assigned duties and get ideas via unlimited access to team meetings.

After attending the meeting with employees, you can get a vivid idea of who is responsible for what and how deliberately they can finish the task.

Getting ideas from employees assures the lead of the task completion from every team member’s side.

5. Communicate Efficiently

There are situations in which employees may let go of duties given. The reasons may include lack of employee engagement, absenteeism, and presenteeism.

When assigning tasks, you should figure out how to deal with lazy employees. Project management tools allow proper communication between team members.

Communication is a great way to improve employee engagement and advise lazy employees to know how employees perform.

If you wish to change plans in the middle of a project process, you can re-explain the team members. Communication also decreases the chance of conflict in an organization.

6. Mark Deadline with Timeline

The best way to finish a work in a team is by properly planning the entire resources like cost, time, and workforce.

When you make a timeline and ask others to conduct work, you can give them deadlines—management software helps track employees’ time.

When each employee finishes the task at the right time, the project takes off smoothly. Assigning tasks with deadlines to follow a timeline is a very good organizational practice that helps in reducing organizational risks.

7. Track Progress and Ask Feedbacks

After task distribution, you cannot just throw tasks away and let the employees handle everything else.

Proper task assigning also includes getting feedback from employees during work processes and tracking their progress.

Tracking productivity with different tools is an easy process. Productive employees yield better results and complete tasks on time.

So it is essential to stay in touch with employees’ progress and know their situation while working.

8. Train and Supervise

Completing a project requires the fusion of different delegation skills and a high level of dedication from team members with proper planning and implementation.

For producing a skilled workforce, there is a necessity to train the team members and meet the team daily.

The training includes unlimited access to skill-enhancing resources like courses from Udemy or Coursera.

After the training phase, the work conduction requires supervision from the expert to check up on the application of skills learned via the project management tool.

Training and supervision are equally important before and during the task assignment and completion among multiple people.

9. Follow up to Stay Connected

It is essential for work professionals to follow up on their team members to get notified of the obstacles and problems faced by the group workers.

It is important to stay connected with each member to check on work progress and complete the task.

Issues like stress and pressure can tangle the employees and slow them down, so following up on common tasks helps them cope with pressure and increase work productivity.

Micromanagement is not a good idea as it leads to employee burnout. It is better to set employees free by casual follow-ups.

10. Authority and Control Handover

Decentralization of authority relieves an employer for managing tasks. When you assign duties, make sure you allocate a certain amount of power to the employees via management apps.

The control handover makes employees empowered and responsible for finishing tasks.

Providing very little power can result in problems as employees lose interest in the work while giving too much power can overpower employees, making them forget basic duties.

The strength lies in giving enough power to each member that only deserves it and providing feedback.

11. Respect and Support

Every employee in an organization deserves equal respect and support. Each role has its significance, and without equal respect from the employer’s side, it is impossible to reflect the same behavior from the employee’s side.

Respect is mutual, and when working, it is important to let go of judgments and unnecessary assumptions about each other.

Acceptance is a way to help each other during any technical, moral, emotional, or skill-related difficulties.

Supporting and working along in a team is a great idea for completing a task. The task assigner is responsible for setting such a culture, keeping in mind the importance of time management.

12. Learn from Last Project

Before planning for the upcoming project, it is essential to reflect upon the past projects and learn from the delegation’s mistakes.

Leading other team members requires experience and, more than that demands the idea of accepting mistakes and learning from them while assigning responsibility.

When you assign new team members, use the same strategies and ideas you did in the previous project.

If there were errors in the previous try, assign tasks to correct the previous ones and accept the changes as a stepping stone for success.

13. Evaluate Project Post-Assigning

After all, employees are done with their tasks, and it is time for you to evaluate the quality of work and check if all the criteria are fulfilled. Sometimes some tasks are incomplete, and some are full of bugs.

You will have to re-assign the same tasks to members due to lack of perfection and inefficiency to deliver proper output by tracking time.

It is better to analyze the task output and ask the responsible person to fill gaps in the work provided. 

14. Brain-map to Assign Tasks Again

All projects have different tasks and require different approaches to reach goals. Task assigners must detect which approach is better for a certain project, i.e., which methodology to follow, like the agile model or the waterfall project method.

The research for the new project includes ideas for task division and finding the best employees.

The leader needs to brainstorm accordingly so that the newer ideas are included. The foremost task of assigning tasks to others runs smoothly for the overall conduction of the project in a directed and glorious way.

Some More Guidelines for Task Assignment

Team members require extra care and a lot of patience to understand the objective of common tasks and delegation strategy.

When conflict arises, it is upon the person to solve the matter. Soft skills with proper guidelines help assign employee tasks and remedy conflict resolution.

Some other guidelines for assigning tasks to team members are mentioned below:

15. Focus and Direction

After tedious tasks are provided to every team member, it is important to know where each member is heading with their duties.

In the first place, the task giver should have clear ideas of responsibilities and follow directions. 

Secondly, it is upon the task to stay focused and move in the correct direction of task competition.

The team leader’s responsibility is to guide the employees in the correct direction so they don’t lose focus and get distracted by unnecessary things during office time.

16. Avoid Stressing and Pressure

When you distribute tasks, ensure you don’t stress employees without beginning the task. Complications during task completion are common, but a good leader does not pressure the employees for task assignments.

You must understand the situation of employees and take steps accordingly. Working under stress and pressure may decrease workers’ productivity as they cannot deal with such complications. This situation hampers the employee’s well-being and wellness.

17. Be Answerable to Doubts

Questions can arise anytime regarding the task completion, and it is upon the task provider to clear doubts and queries of the seekers.

When you fail to deliver the correct answer or provide what the employees are seeking, that may harm the process of task completion. 

As team managers, it is upon you to remove the veil of doubts from their minds in the bigger picture, so they conduct the work with dedication and enthusiasm.

It is bad to leave employees confused as a confused state is a dormant state that hampers the speed of work completion and demotivates multiple people.

18. Honest Feedbacks to Employees

Speaking softly and not hurting others is a good virtue, but there are times when you have to act abruptly and state the employees’ mistakes.

It is essential to give honest feedback to employees who need to work on their mistakes.

If you don’t give them honest feedback before assigning tasks, there is no hope for completion. Honest feedback helps employees rise in their respective works and provides a great chance for improvement in their careers.

19. Do Not Assign Same Task to Different People

Assigning the same task to different people is a waste of time and resources unless you want to compare the results of two task receivers.

It is better to plan the task division than mess up assigning tasks to team members at the last moment.

Healthy competition between the team members is a good idea but make sure you don’t hurt the feelings of any of them.

Working and learning are part of every employee’s journey, and it is important to keep them interested in any task.

20. Listen to Your Employees

When you assign tasks, it is equally necessary for you to listen to your employees. Some employees may not be sure about a certain task and can ask you to switch tasks with other members.

So it is needed for the team leader to understand each member and listen to them from the beginning of a task to the end of a work assignment.

Conclusion

Assigning tasks to team members is the most important step for task completion. Delegation mistakes are common while managing tasks, and so it is important to take help from management apps while assigning responsibility to employees.

Marketing automation and other features are provided by project management tools that help in better task assignments.

The guideline for task assignment helps in employee development and setting aside time tracked; employees remain engaged.