Empowering Employees
“Empowerment may be about unleashing talent from top floor to shop floor, but it has to start with leadership.” Guillaume Alvarez, Steelcase’s senior vice president EMEA.
Empowerment is a hugely powerful force for an organisation and it starts with creating a culture that is fundamentally based on authenticity, and creating a genuinely valuable experience for employees. However, the caveat is that without the correct management, the new responsibility can massively hinder performance.
According to research by The Leadership Quarterly, when monitoring employees response to being given more responsibility and challenge at work, there was a direct correlation between empowerment and better performance, and it was identified that this was due to those managers having already formed strong relationships with their employees. Therefore the key in empowerment to avoid the see-saw affect, is to build and create trust within teams, and clearly identify the needs and expectations of the each employee.
Here are four tips on how to create more empowered workforce.
Effective Communication. You can leverage your communication skills to drive employee empowerment by fostering open dialogue. Research shows that workers whose managers are approachable are more engaged which, in turn, cultivates a team environment wherein members are comfortable sharing ideas and challenging one another.
“All too often, either due to the press of time or perhaps a feeling of over-importance, executives do not make it clear that they want to hear alternate points of view. Such an approach leads to “groupthink” because no one speaks up.” Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Airlines
Professional Development. The Harvard Business Review identified that empowering leaders had more creative and helpful employees and a key way to cultivate this is through learning and development opportunities. Learning and growth opportunities fuel employee empowerment.
According to research by LinkedIn, employees who spend time learning at work report that they’re:
47 percent less likely to be stressed
39 percent more likely to feel productive and successful
23 percent more ready to take on additional responsibilities
21 percent more likely to feel confident and happy
To help your team members reap these benefits, encourage them to seek out ways to professionally develop.
Practice Empathy. Approaching your team with a mentality that is non-judgmental, taking the time to listen, to understand their points of view will create a culture whereby they feel consistently supported. According to a study by Businesssolver, 91 percent of CEOs believe empathy is directly linked to a company's financial performance, and 93 percent of employees say they're more likely to stay with an empathetic employer.
Articulate Purpose. Another study, conducted by researchers from the Netherlands, examined the relationship between meaningful work and performance. Its findings suggest that feeling a sense of personal attachment to an overarching objective spurs workers to give more. This dovetails with the experiences of Joanne McInnerney, vice president of HR at Novelis, who saw a change at her company when a new CEO made “delighting customers” the goal of frontline employees. “We all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves,” she says, “so if you feel able to speak up and are given control, you’re going to automatically like coming to work.”
The key to stimulating employee voice is to create a suitable company culture. To do this successfully requires leadership to practice empathy, communicate the purpose and understand how to create value for their employees as individuals.
Tom Bednall, Commercial Director