Advantages and Disadvantages of Delegation

Delegation is perhaps the most significant word when it comes to the organizational structure because if the right job is delegated to the right person then it can be very successful and time-saving for the top management however if there is any mistake in delegating then it can be a disaster for the organization. Delegation in simple words refers to getting job done by others which you were supposed to do, in order to understand more about this term let’s look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of delegation –

Advantages of Delegation

1. The biggest benefit of delegation is that it helps the management in concentrating more on important activities of the company because routine and repetitive work can be given to lower level managers. So for example in a finance department of the company activities like daily payment of wages, payment of routine expenses are given to lower management while important decisions like preparation of monthly and yearly budget, financing decision and so on are taken by the top management.
2. Another advantage of delegation is that it improves the morale of the lower level managers because if all decisions are taken by top-level managers and nothing is delegated than people at lower level work like robots and they do not feel any attachment towards the organization. Hence delegation in a way keep the lower level employees happy by giving them some responsibility through delegation which in turn make them more attached and help align their personal goals and objectives with the organization goals and objectives.
3. Delegation improves the reaction time of the company to various challenges faced in day to day activities of the company so for example if in finance department no work is delegated and some machinery breakdowns and requires repairs then in the case of no delegation that machinery will remain non-operational until top management approves the repair expense. However, if there is delegation then that machinery will start within hours.

Disadvantages of Delegation

1. The biggest disadvantage of delegation is that the success of delegation lies in the employees to whom the task is delegated so if the employee to whom the task is delegated is incompetent then there is no use of delegation as it will harm the company more. So for example, if a company delegates recruitment process of taking new employees to lower level HR managers who are not competent and are biased towards taking their own people in the company then the whole process of the delegating the work will be a failure.
2. It sometimes leads to manager running away from their responsibilities because they tend to delegate all work to lower level and they themselves do nothing and if anything happens then they blame it on lower level people leading to dissent and fight between the lower-level and upper-level management.
3. Chances of miscommunication in case of delegation is high because multiple people are involved so for example in a purchasing department of the construction company purchasing manager delegates the work of purchasing cement to junior staff and instructs him or her to buy cement from area A which has good quality cement but due to miscommunication he or she purchases cement from area B where the quality of cement is not good then the whole exercise of delegation is futile.

As one can see from the above that delegation has both advantages as well as disadvantages and whether to delegate a work or not depends on the person, situation, and nature of work.