Empowerment in business means knowing how to "humanize" the work environment so management and employees work together to enhance productivity and achieve greater personal and professional success.
An empowered company understands and appreciates that the "human factor" can add or subtract from the bottom line. Empowerment is a company-wide commitment to respect all employees as intelligent and responsible human beings. The benefits of empowerment are many.
They include higher levels of employee satisfaction, a sense of shared purpose, and greater collaboration. The overall result for the organization is to deliver enhanced value to the customer. A survey by the National Association of Working People examined companies with high levels of employee satisfaction. The survey found that such companies were leaders in work culture attitude and in practices relating to employee empowerment.
They permitted genuine control over identifying problems and creating solutions. They gave workers more responsibility for the performance and quality of their jobs. They rewarded workers for exceeding expectations, and they showed appreciation for work that was done.
Employees were given flexible work schedules and in some cases allowed to set their own objectives. In addition, these companies typically provided recreational and leisure facilities for employees. Empowerment is an entire company mind-set for successfully doing business in a global marketplace. Businesses began asking: What exactly is an empowered workplace? And, how do we know when we have achieved an empowered workforce? Highly successful companies encourage team members to work together for the betterment of the whole company.
A commitment to empowerment influences and nurtures individuals to become active participants in the successes and challenges of the entire company. So, empowerment is both an individual and a team effort. An empowered company begins with self-empowerment. Owners and managers cannot empower others to perform their best until they are empowered themselves. Empowered management begins by hiring leaders who possess healthy self-esteem, superior people skills, and the willingness to share expertise to bring out the best in employees.
Empowerment is a skill and can be learned. Managers can begin by reading empowering materials; attending seminars and workshops aimed at the "whole person"; taking time to rejuvenate their own mind, body, and spirit; learning to manage time and energy effectively; and participating in empowerment training.
Effective management teams must have a firm grasp on the latest business techniques as well as an understanding of the importance of human potential and high self-esteem. Promoting and maintaining consistently high self-esteem in managers and employees is a vital ingredient to a highly empowered workforce.
High self-esteem within the company is achieved by encouraging creativity, individuality, problem solving, and an open and honest exchange of ideas among all the employees in a non-threatening environment.
The opposite of an empowered workforce is one riddled with negativity, low morale, and a distrust of management. A unempowered workforce is an unproductive workforce. Empowerment involves a company-wide program based on promoting well-defined company goals, high morale, fairness, recognition, teamwork, active participation, extensive communication, and a purposeful working environment.
Empowerment is a total commitment to doing business in a productive and positive manner. Managers and workers have the basic need to feel they are contributing and making a difference. Employees who consistently feel enthusiastic about what they are doing, do a good job.
An empowered company encourages employees to actively look out for and solve problems. The main benefit to the empowered company is quality improvement. Empowered workers feel responsible for the industry reputation and consumer perception of their company. Empowered employees take pride in their work. An empowered management team does not manage by iron-fisted control. Successful managers promote an environment of sharing, openness, growth, and reward.
The morale and productivity of a workforce are a direct reflection of the attitudes and values of the management team. Empowerment also requires flexibility. Micromanaging is the opposite of empowering people. Many leaders may be feeling that given the current work from home scenario , and the resulting loss of morale amongst team members, that they have to increase efforts of engaging with their employees directly.
While some may benefit from more consistent communication, especially if work has shifted to remote efforts rather than in-office collaboration, you shou ld still aim to g ive your team space and the time to do their work.
This demonstrates that you trust them to get the ir tasks done, encouraging self-discipline and ultimately lead ing to more proactive productivity. If an employee is struggling, support them. Especially today, employees need guidance and reassurance. Supporting employees through their challenges includes first finding out the cause of the obstacle. This could mean mentoring them, providing some needed time off, or scheduling weekly meetings that work through those challenges with coaching.
Just as s upporting your employees through their struggles is critical to empowering them, so too is demonstrating support through their successes. A common example of this is through recognition — anything from an email congratulating them on a job well done, to a hand-written card, to a monetary bonus, and in some cases even a travel bonus.
Public recognition is not only empowering, but makes it far more likely the employee will strive to continue being a good worker , and also demonstrates to others the rewards of a job well done.
This is an important point when it comes to empowering people. Providing answers is essentially telling them what they need to do, which undermines the whole idea of autonomy, and empowering people. Manage yourself — point them in the right direction, and encourage them to try and solve the problem on their own. This will encourage their autonomy, and provide them a reason to be proactive in their efforts, ultimately engaging them with their work in a far more direct manner.
Independent Contractor or Employee? Learn More! Empowering People in the Workplace Download Infographic. Send download link to:. Follow us on LinkedIn! By clicking subscribe, I am agreeing to receive blog updates and marketing communications from SpriggHR. This article discusses the benefits of employee empowerment and explains how to start implementing best practices and embed employee empowerment into your company culture. Employee empowerment refers to the manner in which companies provide their employees with anything and everything they need to succeed.
This involves far more than simple resource allocation, however. Companies that are interested in empowering employees should act on the following:. All parties need to establish mutual trust, feel comfortable taking risks, and establish clear expectations and guidelines. Without this collaboration, truly empowering employees is impossible. Empowering employees through greater autonomy has been directly linked to increased employee motivation. Experts agree that employees who have more control over how, when, and where they do their job will work harder and find their work more engaging.
And given the chance to show off what they can do, employees will put their best foot forward and feel more satisfied at the end of the day. A meta analysis published in Harvard Business Review states that leaders who empower their employees are more likely to be trusted by their subordinates compared to leaders who do not empower their employees. Leaders who empower their employees act as coaches, pushing their employees to do their best work and supporting them along the way. In the same Harvard meta analysis, leaders who were perceived as empowering had direct reports who were more likely to be rated by their colleagues as being highly creative.
Unsurprisingly, subordinates who allowed their employees to think for themselves and collaborate across teams generated more novel ideas. Not only that, direct reports who felt empowered were more likely to volunteer for extra assignments and support their organizations outside of their day-to-day job function.
Psychologists suspected that empowered individuals were more committed to meaningful goals, and used their creativity to achieve them. Businesses with highly motivated workers are 21 percent more profitable.
On the other hand, disengaged employees in the U. Start implementing best practices throughout your organization by following these four steps. Many companies distribute annual engagement surveys , but very few actually take the time to read employee comments, let alone act on them. Survey fatigue is a direct result of leadership not taking immediate action on feedback. And even if they do act on the results of an annual survey, chances are that any response will take place too late to make a difference, as it takes months to move through stages of the annual survey cycle from deployment to analysis to response.
Encouraging employees to frequently provide honest feedback and actively changing your organization to fit their needs empowers employees by giving them a real voice in how the organization functions. However, only 20 percent use such a tool.
The timing and manner in which a company collects feedback has a direct impact on the results they will receive.
You can combine this type of feedback channel with pulse surveys — another strategic complement to a modern-day employee engagement strategy. Ensure you choose a platform that empowers managers to take action as well.
With these real-time insights that provide guidance for any situation, managers can take positive action by engaging in a post-pulse survey listening session where they and their team can collectively plan and take responsibility for the response to feedback.
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