How to Empower Employees

Employee empowerment is a term used to describe an employee mindset of responsibility, accountability, capability, and autonomy. In terms of business, empowerment is the opposite of micromanagement. For this reason, it may be very beneficial for managers to empower employees, thus fostering employee reliability and an environment of team-work. If you are interested in knowing what it takes to promote employee empowerment in the workplace, you do not have to be a college business major to learn how. Just follow these guidelines for how to empower employees

1Adopt the traits of a good leader who promotes employee empowerment.

Show respect for yourself and for your employees.

Be accountable for the things you say and do, and expect the same from your

employees.

Listen to what your employees have to say.

Show sincerity in your dealings with employees.

Be a good example of discipline in the work place.

Avoid taking credit for team accomplishments.

Communicate regularly and effectively.

Focus on having a positive, winning attitude.

Keep asking "What are the key traits of highly effective leaders?" Make a list and

build on it, then develop those skills

2Delegate tasks clearly and concisely. See to it that there are no gray areas when it comes to assigning specific duties to specific employees. That way, employees will know exactly what is expected of them and there will be no room for passing the buck. Additionally, when you show employees that you are entrusting them to complete responsibility for a task, it improves their confidence and boosts pride in their work.

3Acknowledge employee achievements. Making it a point to cite successes at board meetings and to verbally congratulate employees on a job well done is a great way to create an office atmosphere focused on success and to empower employees to keep up the good work

4Open your door to employees. An important part of empowering employees is letting them know their opinions are valuable to you. Adopting an open door policy lets employees know you care about what they have to say and enables them to give their input and play an active role in the well-being of the business. Any employee who feels involved is an employee who is empowered.

5Become BRILLIANT at coaching employees to be all they can be in the role they have, not sure about being a coach, go searching for info and learn the skills fast.

6Promote employee education. Provide a means for employees to get whatever training is necessary to their optimal performance so that they can truly master their job responsibilities. Also, show that you are invested in their professional success by arranging for them to attend career development seminars and courses. Not only does this provide for employee empowerment, but it is a great way to gain employee loyalty and improve employee performance.

7Give up some of your power in favor of employee autonomy. As you feel more and more certain that your employees are skilled and dedicated enough to take responsibility for their own tasks, allow them more freedom in defining the methods by which they will accomplish those tasks. For example, if your ace marketing exec insists that telecommuting part-time would aid creative flow and ultimate productivity, provide for that flexibility.

8Invite feedback from your employees. You can go a long way in empowering employees by asking them how you could best aid their empowerment. Put out a suggestions box and ask for opinions at meetings and one to one. Take well-intentioned suggestions into consideration and let your employees see that they really do have a role in the overall success of the business. Then acknowledge their ideas have been looked at and or implemented.

9Be willing to do what you ask them to do. Then stand 'shoulder to shoulder' with them assisting them with the task, this helps to build your respect as a leader. At times you might need to 'take the lead' and take over the task for a while as you coach them along the way.

3 Ways to Empower Your Employees To Own Their Work

How do you make your team more efficient? You empower them to take ownership over their work.

"Empowered people are crucial to any organization's success," says Dan

Sanker, CEO of logistics outsourcing company CaseStack, in his post on

LinkedIn. "They will go the extra mile for clients, colleagues, and the

company. They are happier, more productive, and more independent, which

allows the whole team to be more productive."

But how do you empower your organization? Sanker says it's all about

building a culture that encourages open communication, provides plenty of

context, and requires accountability.

1. Encourage open communication.

Organizations that use a formal top-down communication

hierarchy make it difficult for their employees to speak up.

Even if they did gather enough guts to share their opinions,

they may feel like their input won't matter much. After

awhile, these people may give up on speaking up.

"Create methods for direct communication," writes Sanker. "Acknowledge

input. Foster an open exchange of ideas. Face facts - every idea isn't good,

but you won't find the game-changers if you don't explore new concepts."

2. Provide plenty of contexts.

Be transparent with your employees. Tell them why you

make certain decisions and what direction you're planning

on taking the company.

"If we can do a better job of sharing the core values and the

important business goals, we can hope to draw out team

members' talents and energy," he says.

3. Require accountability.

The best way to do this is by discussing setbacks and recognizing extra

efforts among your people. Why would someone want to continuously work

hard if they don't think that their efforts are appreciated?

"Empowered people are confident, knowledgeable, and able to be more

productive without being micromanaged or having excessive

oversight," Sanker says. "They demonstrate initiative and own their

work." At the end of the day, this is better for you as their

superior and better for the organization as a whole.

6 Ways to Empower Employees

From Whole Foods' Co-Founder and CEO, John Mackey

- See more at: http://www.success.com/article/6-ways-to-empower-employees#sthash.dPIm3PaT.dpuf

Team members are well-trained, and 88 percent of them are full-time employees.

“Happy team members create happy customers, and happy customers create happy

investors.... Make sure the people you work with are able to self-actualize themselves to the

greatest degree possible so they can advance, make more money, learn and grow on the job.”

Employees vote every three years on benefits they want. “The benefits that they think are

most important that fit within the budget we’ve established are the benefits that we’ll have for

the next three years.... The team members are the best judges of what benefits they would

most like to have.” New hires require a two-thirds vote from their team to stay. “How can a

team have true accountability if they can’t select or have a final say of who gets to be on the

team? I really believe that empowerment requires having the team have veto power over new

hires for the team to have psychological ownership over their workplace.” Regional managers

design brand-new stores instead of borrowing blueprints from corporate. “As much as

possible, we decentralize back to the regions and the stores. They have a real sense of

psychological ownership. It’s their store. It’s their region. We are allowing individual

innovation and creativity to bubble up from the store level, and then the good ideas that get

created get copied by other stores.” Individual stores determine what items are stocked, based

on local tastes and goods. “To fulfill our mission, our purpose and create value for our

stakeholders, we are pretty decentralized. We are organized into 11 geographical regions, and

the regions are fairly autonomous.” Employees determine how to spend their paid time off

and their store’s emergency fund. “If someone gets sick, a lot of times team members will

donate hours from their own benefit banks [paid leave] so that person will be taken care of

while they are ill and recuperating. - See more at: http://www.success.com/article/6-ways-to-

empower-employees#sthash.dPIm3PaT.dpuf

7 Ways to Lead and Empower Your Team – Because Satisfied Employees Make for Happy Customers

Don’t you just hate it when you walk into a store or business and the first person you come across is unwelcoming, disengaged, or neutral at best? It immediately sends the message that the employee is not happy, that this might not be a great place to work, and, by extension, is it really the kind of business you want to give your patronage to?

Studies have long shown the links between employee morale and business success, but new findings published in the Journal of Service Research,* demonstrate direct links between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Other studies* go a step further and point to a link between the satisfaction levels of employees in a back office and customer satisfaction, even though there is no direct contact between them.

So there’s little doubt that employees are an essential part of your brand – they are often the face of your business, they reflect its culture and values, and let’s face it: they can be an underlying factor in your success.

What is a Satisfied Employee?

More than just happy (a very subjective word at best). Science Daily* identifies satisfied employees as those with a sense of well-being. This includes the presence of positive emotions such as joy and interest, and the absence of negative emotions such as apathy and sadness. And, just as positive emotions can enhance employee perceptions of finding meaning in their work, they can also be a factor in performance, achievement and employee growth.

7 Ways to Lead and Empower Satisfied Employees

While it’s hard to hire only employees with an innate sense of well-being, here are seven ways you can foster a positive work environment and empower your employees, without breaking the bank.

1. Be a Good Leader – You might be a good manager, but are you a good leader? Do you always have one eye on inspiring your team to excel and succeed? Assess your leadership skills and find out how you can use them to nurture employee potential in: 4 Tips for Effective and Inspiring Business Leadership in Uncertain Times.

2.

2. Give your Employees “Boss Time” – Everyone wants to spend time around inspirational leaders, and it’s important for you to listen and show you care about your employees’ work, their concerns, and their aspirations so that they stay engaged and productive.  This can take many forms. From mentor/protégé programs to giving your employees more face time (try skipping email for once and have a quick one-on-one meeting in your office).  In hierarchical businesses, it’s also important to recognize your management team: it’s likely they already get workplace face time with you, but consider giving them “social” face-time too. Whether it’s a game of golf once a quarter with your entire management team, or one-on-one lunches with individual managers once a month.

3. Empower Your Employees –Employees with a strong sense of well-being tend to be more eager to take on new challenges and play a wider role in the success of your business. Likewise, high-quality performance is greatest when the demands of the job are highest! Here are a couple of ways to empower your employees:

Let them make decisions independently of you. Very often your employees are closer to the action than you are and often know the right decision to make. But first, be sure to put some parameters around the decision-making process. When employees make decisions, they’ll need to consider the impact on three things -- customers, the team, and your business profitability.   

Encourage creative thinking. There are always problems to be solved and better ways to do things, so why not challenge your employees to come up with creative ways to deal with common business issues.Whether it’s tasking individuals to seek out a low-cost software solution for streamlining your invoicing system or suggesting a process improvement for managing inventory – put the challenge in the hands of your employees. If there is no time to do this during normal business hours, make it a lunchtime challenge that takes place over five days, with teams regrouping each day to report progress.

4. Have Educational “Lunch and Learns” – Give your employees the opportunity to learn more about your business as well as the market with informal brown bag lunch and learn sessions. Come up with a topic calendar and each month set aside time for the team to meet and learn and participate in these interactive sessions. Topics might include:

Business performance and team goals – Keep everyone engaged and aware of the impact they have on your business by presenting your quarterly business highlights, areas that need to be improved and plans for the future. Remember to set aside time for Q&A so that your employees can participate and stay engaged.

“Show and Tell” – Has an employee, partner, or team achieved success by doing things differently? Is there a new technology or market force changing the way you do business? Give those involved an opportunity to showcase what they did or what they are observing so that others can learn from it and apply those skills and insights to their areas of responsibility.

Bring in a Guest Speaker – Whether it’s a business partner, an industry thought leader or a community leader, bringing in an inspirational speaker from outside the company can help give perspective and broaden everyone’s horizons to new ways of doing things.

5. Go on, Let Them Telework –Telework is a huge incentive for employees and when handled and managed correctly can be a win-win for both of you. Here are some considerations, how-to’s, and tax incentives to bear in mind as you go about setting up a telework program: How to Make Telework Work for Your Small Business.

6. Be Unexpected in your “Thank You’s” – We all appreciate being thanked, but why not go the extra mile and make a point of using gift cards, hand-written thank you notes, and other gestures to recognize achievement. To avoid any sense of favoritism this is best done in the case of significant team achievements. You could also write hand-written thank you notes to employees on their anniversary dates.

7. Set Up a Formal Performance Review Process – Everyone deserves to know how they are doing against both your business goals and their own performance goals. This quick article (Recognizing Performance in a Tough Economy) has some useful tips on how to assess employee performance. It also outlines options for rewarding employees with wage hikes and bonuses, and demystifies the facts of employment law as it relates to wage-related benefits.

*Note: Hyperlink directs reader to non-government website.