Delegation Gone Wild

Think twice before assigning an employee any of these tasks

The ability to effectively delegate is one of the hallmarks of a good supervisor: assuming, of course, that the tasks are job-related and appropriate. A recent CareerBuilder survey, however, showed that’s often not the case.

Of the 3,600 workers polled, 23% said that their supervisors have asked them to perform tasks unrelated to their job duties, including the following, where the boss asked the employee to:

• Be prepared to delete all emails and computer files at a moment’s notice
• Spy on senior management
• Be a surrogate mother for her
• Buy a rifle for him
• Post false (good) comments about him online
• Come up with a science fair project for her daughter
• Fire his (the boss’s) brother
• Lend him $400 for a down payment on a car
• Remove her stitches
• Be better friends with him
• Scour an abandoned office building for furniture and supplies they could use
• Bail a coworker out of jail
• Clip her dog’s nails