Vertical Bridge

August 19th, 2009.

Author: Sandra Reder, CPC

Being an entrepreneur myself I know the hardest thing to do is to let go and leave your “baby” behind. Who’s going to take care of things while you’re away?

This is the reality that many entrepreneurs have to deal with (myself included). Recent statistics show that one of the main reasons people take a job because the potential employer offers learning and growth opportunities to their employees. This is especially true of the Gen Y’s.

Learning and growth comes in many shapes and sizes. You can send people out to take courses. You can bring in trainers to train your employees on specific things like sales, communication skills, team building etc. Or you can tap into their strengths and give them an opportunity to handle something that you do that they normally wouldn’t be responsible for. Empowering your employees to take on new and interesting challenges is a great way to ensure that they are able to contribute and learn while working for you. It also tells them that you trust them with the business.

Reassigning some of your responsibilities to others requires some preplanning on your part. You will need to identify key strengths within your team and how they align with some of the things that you are currently responsible for. Then you begin to train and develop those people. Start doing this today and soon you’ll be in a position to free yourself up so that you can focus your efforts on business building activities or taking a well deserved vacation.