As an office manager, I often will find myself doing simple tasks, which take time, instead of delegating them to other staff members. I tell myself, “I'll just do it and it will be quicker.” But what I often forget is when a business owner or management staff does this they are costing the business unnecessary expense.
Do you know what your time and each employee’s time is worth in dollars and cents? You may be quite surprised if you figure it out. It is a fact that many small business owners or key management staff does routine tasks that other employees would happily do, and do them well.
These simple tasks are costing more in time and money than what it is worth when the wrong people are doing the tasks. Taking the time to evaluate what you do, how much time it takes, and whether you can have an employee do the task and save the company money is important for business owners to do.
Having checks and balances in place to oversee certain tasks that you delegate to your staff is important, but carrying them out can be done by someone other than you. When you figure out how much your time is really worth, you start to see things a bit differently and your time becomes more valuable, to the bottom line.
Another interesting thing that happens when you figure out how much your time is worth per hour is that you begin to structure what you do and how you do it in a more efficient way. Take e-mail versus a phone call, you can shoot out a quick e-mail in seconds and if you picked up the phone to talk to someone it could turn into minutes.
There is one factor about time that is important to keep in mind and that is not one of us knows how much we have been given, so make the best of it no matter how you do it, because it is really valuable.
