Three Tips On How To Get Others To Do Your Work

There is a lot of group interaction that takes place in the IT industry. A part of working in teams is sharing the workload - you can’t be expected to manage all the work yourself. This article isn’t about delegation from a team leader or manager’s position - it’s more about ways you can other workers to do work for you, fairly, without tricks or any sneaky techniques! Continue reading to learn more!

Why Do I Need Others To Do My Work?

The main reason people do work for one another is that their skills and experience are different. In a team of IT professionals, there may be ordinarily a array of skills and experience - experience with technology, systems or people. Workers ask others to do work if they require help with something, if the other person knows more about a particular area of the business, or if they have the required access or ability to do it. This is an important part of teamwork, not merely for IT professionals, but for all teams.

Give And You Shall Receive

The best way to get other people to do your work is to do something for them in return. What I mean by this, is to be receptive when they ask you to do work for them. If you’re doing work for them, when they ask you for it, and it's of a high quality, then they will keep this in mind when you request if they can do something for you. Providing something to them before seeking something from them is a great way to increase teamwork.

Having said that, don’t mention the fact that you just did something for them. Don’t say that “I just did that thing for you, could you do this for me?” It will make it seem like you only did their job to get something in exchange, which seems insincere, and might annoy the other person. Keep the two tasks separate - they will make the link in their mind as needed. They might realize you did something for them recently, without you bringing it up.

Be Considerate Of Their Time

Once you ask someone to perform some work for you, whether it's to help you with a task, set up some access for you, review some code or anything else, ensure you’re considerate of their time. As you may realize, many of us IT professionals keep busy with our work. We typically don’t like to have extra work given to us, when it doesn’t help us directly.

A good way to help get a “yes” from a team member is to be considerate of their time. Starting with something like “I know you’re very busy” or “I realize you have a lot of work to do” demonstrates you are considerate of their time and that you don’t consider yourself as the top priority. It will help your chances of getting them to agree, and they'd be in a better mood for it, as people enjoy consideration.

Explain The Reason or Big Picture

Many IT professionals are interested in the reason why they do the work they do. They are interested in the bigger picture - why the system is going to be built, why a new server is being requested, why a company is upgrading to VoIP services. If you request they do a task for you, it can help to tell them why you’re asking them. Not only because they are the individual to do it, but why it’s even being performed in the first place.

A task like, “Could you give me a report on everyone who has access to this server?” might seem like enough, but think about adding a reason - “John has been asked to review the list to remove expired users and reduce the security risk to the server”. This will assist the other person why it’s being done - it communicates the advantage of the task to them, which is a good tip for how to get others to do your work.