When people meet processes
Roles, responsibilities, delegation and training
By Will Hill, MBA
October 9, 2024
The intersection of people and processes is an intriguing place for small businesses.
We tend to start with processes, often drawn out on a whiteboard or compiled in fancy technical tools to create wonderful visuals that border on works of art. Then we sprinkle in the people. Once that happens, the day-to-day reality frequently turns more chaotic than we envisioned. Aligning people to a function when there is no process in place will be futile but, at the same time, ignoring the reality of the human equation will render the best processes infuriating.
However, we can’t just expect perfect people and perfect performance.
When we think about the people aspect of workflow, it isn’t about perfection — it’s about success. For us to have success, we must be clear on two key areas: roles and responsibilities. On top of that, we need to have skills in two other areas: delegation and training.
Roles
The concept of roles is deceptively simple. Where we stumble is that we often stop with a title, considering that alone to be the role. While part of the definition consists of the responsibilities, it is not all that comprises the role.
For a role to be effective, there are three elements beyond the responsibilities that need to be understood.
- Context: No role exists in isolation, there are other roles around it, which need to be known and communicated. Let’s say you hire a tax preparer — they should know the roles of not just what comes after them in the workflow, but the entirety of the roles existing around their workflow.
- Function: This is the most obvious, and likely also the most well executed of these elements. The function is the ‘what’ of the role. However, the function should be communicated from the perspective of the firm, as well as the value given to the client through this role.
- Expectations: This is where you will drive home the expected elements and quality of the job done. What is an acceptable performance? What would make the job performance in this role unacceptable? Although we hope to not have to lean into that second conversation with our teams, those conversations become infinitely more difficult when we haven’t set the expectations clearly enough.
While each of these three elements are needed for roles to be successful, it’s important to know they will fall apart if we don’t also incorporate the responsibilities.
Responsibilities
Responsibilities within a job role reflect what is being done, how it will be done and when it needs to be done.
Firms today have the biggest struggle with responsibilities from two angles. The primary one is that responsibilities are often not documented anywhere. Oral command and scattered chat messages are not enough to rely on for success. Written documentation allows for clear expectations, consistent expectations and constructive dialogue.
The second angle that firms wrestle with regarding responsibilities is that as things are changed, we lack clear communication regarding these changes. Some of this spawns from the fact that nothing is in writing to begin with. It is a challenge to adjust responsibilities when the starting point may be up for debate.
In the past four to five years, we have experienced the steady shifting of responsibilities. In working with many firms, I have seen the confusion and misalignment between team members of who is supposed to be doing what, leading to greater error rates, slower production and more staff frustration.
We may shy away from documenting and keeping up to date the responsibilities because it feels like micromanagement. However, the opposite is true. When the responsibilities are well documented, management can back off and allow the team to execute freely. Then team members can know that what is expected of them is consistent, rather than changing based on who is giving direction or the emotion of the moment.
Delegation
As your firm continues to shift and move, delegation must be a strong consideration for leveraging the strengths of your team, the technology in your firm and handling staffing shortages.
Too often we think of delegation as giving an entire job to another person. Instead, we must be willing to look at the components of what is being done and delegate those components. This will allow you to use both your highest-level team members to their greatest degree, but also drive the use of the technology already in play in your firm forward.
But so many people have tried to delegate and just gotten frustrated — feeling as though things were done wrong and it would have just been faster to handle it themselves.
Is it true, or should we consider trying again? I believe you should try again! And to help with that, here are what I consider to be the
don’t delegate without it items:
- Written (or video) instructions of what to do. Don’t assume they know or fall back on showing them once it just won’t have the impact you need.
- Clear timelines.
- Procedure to follow if something appears abnormal.
- Repeatability of process. There is little point in delegating properly if that work is only done once. You gain speed and efficiency as the delegated item is repeated more and more.
Training
Perhaps your firm is great at training when someone new is hired. If so, the same level of attention to detail must be given for later training, as part of a shift in responsibility.
First, the training needs to be timely. We must train people in close proximity of when it will be used. If there is no time to train them later, then find the work to let them do it now after the training.
Secondly, the training needs to be interactive. Your trainee must have the chance to practice what is being taught and the freedom to ask questions. I realize that asking questions doesn’t always happen — but what if you invited the questions? For instance, after going through a chunk of material, perhaps ask the trainee(s) what questions they have. This sets a tone of expecting questions and encouraging dialogue, not judgment for having questions in the first place.
Thirdly, the training needs to be supported through multiple avenues. If you are training verbally, have supporting writing or videos. Conversely, if you are training through videos or written documentation, then there needs to be live Q&A time afterwards.
Fourth, the training needs to be revisited after first use and after the first high frequency use. This could be a dedicated Q&A time or it could be more tips and tricks that you believe will be better understood after they are a little more battle tested.
I know the people component is a challenge, but with proper attention you can turn this into the element that makes your processes hum. Does it take some time up front? Yes, but I would rather see you take the time up front that you planned for than to take time in the middle and the end that you had not planned for.
The people will make the difference even though they are not perfect, use these tools of roles, responsibilities, delegation and training to set them up for maximum success.
Will Hill is the founder and owner of Will Hill Consults, LLC, a coaching and consulting firm serving the tax and accounting profession. Through his 20-plus years in the profession, Will has taught countless classes on firm management, change management and advisory services. You can reach him at will@willhillconsults.com.
