What is employee empowerment?
Employee empowerment is the practice of giving employees control over their workplace behavior and encouraging them to meet business goals. It entails inspiring them to make good decisions, be accountable and exemplify the company’s values. It’s ideal if they can achieve all of this while also meeting their own personal goals and expectations.
Ways to create empowered employees
Empowerment for employees is a multifaceted concept, and there are numerous ways to go about achieving it. Some of the methods of facilitating employee empowerment may be more accessible than others, depending on the type of company you run. That said, these are some of the most fundamental ways to encourage workplace empowerment.
1. Listen and understand
Before you can begin to create empowerment opportunities for your staff, knowing how they feel about certain work aspects is paramount. It helps with creating mutually beneficial communication and makes them feel respected. You might find it useful to host in-house conferences or meetings that allow your employees to voice their concerns about certain issues. Putting yourself in their shoes can help you understand their goals and limitations.
2. Set realistic expectations
Having learned how they perceive their job roles, you can set reasonable expectations for them. When expectations are set too high, it can lead to employees experiencing a constant sense of failure for being unable to meet them. This may result in negative outcomes for workplace morale.
Contrastingly, when expectations are set too low, employees may feel their work is insufficiently challenging. Striking a balance between achievability and challenge is key to creating an empowered employee.
3. Promote employee autonomy
Allowing employee autonomy when dealing with problems and tasks lets them grow and makes them feel more valued. Of course, there have to be limits and constraints, but you can always outline them first. Autonomy is of particular importance when trying to accommodate for the fact that not everyone has the same way of doing things. While a certain method may work optimally for you, it may hinder someone who has a different way of working.
4. Opportunities for growth and learning
The need to learn is deeply built into humans. Our ability and instinct to keep learning are often cited as the primary reasons for the striking developments that we’ve made as a species. As such, the idea that learning is central to well-being at work is widely accepted, and there’s a plethora of research on the subject.
Likewise, the absence of growth opportunities can lead people to feel stagnant, worthless and unmotivated. As a workplace leader, finding ways to improve learning in the workplace can be beneficial for both you and your company environment.
5. Constructive feedback
Constructive feedback means offering a balanced assessment of someone’s work or progress. Giving constructive feedback isn’t as simple as criticizing wrongdoing and pointing out where there’s a need for improvement. It should also involve reinforcing what they’re already doing well and highlighting where they demonstrate potential for improvement.
When giving constructive feedback, be sure to use neutral language and start and end on something positive. Criticisms should be carefully woven into a greater constructive whole.
6. Reward good performance
People are naturally motivated by rewards, and much of human behavior can be explained by activity in the brain’s reward circuitry. This knowledge can be extremely useful when developing workplace empowerment for employees. Creating incentive and reward systems at work leads to an atmosphere of friendly competition, improved motivation and greater employee loyalty.
Among some of the most popular rewards for good work are cash prices, vouchers, a remote workday or a free lunch. However, every company is unique, so feel free to get creative when thinking up new ways to reward your employees for their good work.
7. Provide quality mentorship
Mentorship at work is extremely important, yet its significance is often understated. Mentorship programs assist employees in reaching their full potential. In essence, these programs facilitate personal and professional development. A mentorship program can help employees improve their leadership skills and increase their work productivity.
Furthermore, having a mentor can increase employee satisfaction, resulting in a higher retention rate and lower costs for employers.
8. Delegate meaningful authority
Delegating authority not only makes life easier for you but also makes your employees feel that they’re valued. Delegating authority should be more meaningful than the likes of “go downstairs to see what’s going on.” It should offer the opportunity to influence the outcome of a situation and contribute to the problem-solving process.
In authority delegation, you’re essentially shifting responsibility onto someone else’s plate. By delegating more authority to your subordinates, you improve workplace productivity and employee motivation and provide career growth opportunities.
9. Build mutual trust
Building strong professional relationships based on mutual trust is an important part of empowering employees. It’s important to remember that there are a lot of employment options nowadays. Yes, employees want to be successful, but they also want to be in a fun and respectful environment. You want to make sure that everyone is involved and committed to the collective mission.
Having mutual trust also means both sides stick to their word. When you say you’re going to do something, following through is important. Otherwise, you run the risk of setting the wrong example, and coming back from that might not be as easy as it was to slip into it.
10. Involve them in important decisions
Sometimes, you might need to make big decisions that affect everyone in the company. With decisions like these, consulting with your team and hearing their thoughts not only leads to new insights, it can contribute toward workplace empowerment.
It could be productive to hold a meeting with employees and listen to their input. Even if you don’t go with their ideas in the end, involving them will still make them feel like their opinions matter.
11. Promote teamwork
One of the main goals of empowering each employee is to encourage active participation in the team’s success. Employees who are empowered take ownership of their work and strive to make a positive contribution to the team. Team-building should be done on a regular basis to promote communication and trust among teammates. Individual goals must be aligned with team goals to form a cohesive team.
For most of modern human history, people have been working together in groups to achieve collective goals. As such, many people naturally find it fulfilling to work as part of a team. Without supervision and guidance, however, team members are liable to become excessively competitive with each other. The distribution of work may also be heavily skewed, with some members pulling more weight than others. Promoting healthy and cooperative teamwork can ensure that work is fairly distributed.
12. Be kind
While it might seem obvious, nobody wants to feel mistreated when they go to work. Leadership often needs a firm hand, but it also requires kindness and understanding. Your employees will respect you for showing kindness, and it’ll make them feel more welcomed and empowered at work. Don’t take the little things for granted and show appreciation where it’s due.
What makes an empowered employee?
Considering how comprehensive the advantages of workplace empowerment are, you’re hopefully convinced about how important it is to strive for. An empowered employee should feel confident and valued at work, be trusted with authority and be rewarded for doing well.
Striking a balance between achievability and challenge is paramount to success when setting tasks for your employees. Understanding their personal and professional aspirations alongside their limits makes it easier for both you and them.
