People Management 101 – Employee Empowerment

The more empowered you can make your employees feel – the  more productive they will become. Although this is a hard task for most managers because they want to make decisions themselves and be in control. It is hard for managers to let go or “cut the employee lose”, so to speak. After you have coached and mentored your employees the next step is empowerment.

If you’ve done your job well by training and coaching your employees – allowing them to make decisions on the own (without your involvement) might take some self-discipline, but is well worth it. There are a couple of factors at play here, first it allows the employee a feeling of self-confidence in knowing you trust them to make decisions on the own, second – it allows decisions to be made faster because the employee does not have to chase you down and third – you have more available time to do other things.

The fringe benefit of doing this is productivity. When employees feel trusted and have the capability to make decisions on their own, they begin to take pride in their work. One sure way to achieve this is to maximize each employees skill set. When you first interviewed the employee you should have picked up on their skill sets, if not – then why did you hire them in the first place? In doing so – the employee feels properly utilized because they get to use all of the skills.

If we define the word “empower”, Webster’s Dictionary describes it as: “to give official authority or legal power to” and “to promote the self-actualization or influence of”.  Basically this means as a manager you give your employees the power, authority, ability and permission to accomplish their objectives independently.

Empowered employees endeavor to work above their anticipated capacity. So – how can you empower your employees?

You need to create an environment where:

• Employees behave as they own their job
• Employees see the consequences of the work they do
• Employees are responsible
• Employees know how they are valued
• Employees are included in determining solutions

If you have created this type of work environment – you are clearly empowering your employees.

Think of employee empowerment is a strategy and philosophy that enables employees to make decisions about theie jobs. It helps employees own their work and take responsibility for the results, plus empowerment helps employees serve customers where the actual customer interface exists.