The PAYE Tax Office may be different from your own Tax Office. If you are planning to employ someone, contact the office and they will give you a PAYE reference number. When an employee joins, you send off his or her P45 to the PAYE Tax Office. They will then send you a starter pack with all the various forms and tables you need to fill in.
- Learning to delegate. Delegation has always been recognized as a key ingredient of successful management and leadership. But in the 1980s delegation underwent a crisis of confidence - managers were intent on progressing as quickly as possible up the corporate ladder, working 12 hours a day to succeed rather than delegating so that others could share the glory. In the corporate cut and thrust, delegation appeared to be a sign of weakness. But for the self-employed learning to delegate is a vital factor in allowing the business to grow. This may go against the habits of a life-time. Many people have been brought up to believe that running a business was all about controlling, commanding and planning. Now the emphasis - particularly in small businesses - is on coaching, leading and acting as a resource. Though there are some problems.
- It is hard to let go. When the business started you needed to do everything. You sell, meet customers, do the accounts, deal with the bank manager, clean the coffee machine, paint the building and virtually everything else. As the business develops so, too, must your role. You have to learn to let go.
- Everyone thinks they can and do delegate. People rarely admit to being poor car drivers, nor do they readily admit to being poor delegators. Try asking people who work for and with you what they think of your willingness to delegate?
Then analyze your approach to delegation. In answering these questions the golden rule to be remembered is that if you do something which someone else could do, you are preventing yourself doing a task which only you could do.
- Do you only delegate straightforward or mundane tasks? If you only delegate things which are either unpleasant, boring or which you now regard as beneath you, think of how this must make other people feel.
- Is delegation a last resort? Often people only delegate when they are so deluged with work that they cannot handle another task. Delegation is the last resort. Clearly, it is better to think about what you can and should delegate and to do so sooner rather than later.
- Do you interfere with tasks you have delegated? Often people delegate tasks and then interfere so much they might as well have done it themselves. This does not build any confidence in the person you have passed the job on to. If they have a problem they know you will be along in a couple of minutes to sort it out. If you delegate, you have to step back and let people get on with it. Often you will be delegating tasks which you can do easily or which you would do in a certain way. You have to be prepared for other people to find them harder and to accomplish them in different ways.
- Do you worry about how the tasks you have delegated are being carried out? As well as delegating a task you are also delegating responsibility. There is no point in delegating if it simply makes you worry even more. Delegate the worry.
- Do you take time to delegate - explaining things properly - or do you do it quickly without thinking? If you simply throw a file at someone and say 'Sort that out' you are not delegating in a productive way. The person left with the file is liable to wonder why they have it. What they need to do with it and, most importantly, why they should bother when you obviously aren't prepared to spend any time explaining things.
- Do you take the safe option? If you are too busy to do something the obvious temptation is to pass the job on to someone who is highly accomplished and can do the job. This minimizes your worries, but is not always the best way to delegate. Instead, try a riskier strategy - but one which will pay dividends in the long term - and delegate jobs to people who haven't done them previously. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but if you take the time to give them the skills they need and are there to coach them (rather than to interfere) you are actually developing people while delegating.
- Do you give feedback? If people are to learn from the tasks you delegate, you have to give helpful and positive feedback. Criticism needs to be constructive.
