Howard Schultz, Chairman, and CEO of Starbucks, said, “People want guidance, not rhetoric. They want to be given the responsibility to help solve the problem and the authority to act on it.”
Organizations should ensure that their employee’s professional needs and expectations are met and that they feel valued and satisfied. This will enable them to exhibit 100% commitment toward business goals.
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Now the pertinent question is, how can one achieve this?
Employee empowerment is a strategy wherein managers provide the autonomy and tools to their workforce to make decisions and get tasks done. It is a powerful way to build trust, increase employee engagement and improve overall productivity.
This blog highlights the importance of employee empowerment and its benefits. Let’s start with the basics.
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What is the importance of employee empowerment at the workplace?
When employees lack the tools and authority to display their abilities to the fullest, it leads to disengagement, frustration, and reduced productivity. Therefore, employers must provide their employees with the necessary means to express themselves and work to the best of their ability.
Empowered employees feel respected and valued at their workplace, which further leads to positive work culture and high productivity. In addition, when employees get to select their work of interest or hone their skillsets, it will increase their engagement and enable them to deliver high-quality work.
Further, an empowered work culture helps to boost loyalty and satisfaction in employees and retain them for a long time. Therefore, organizations need to empower their employees as they are the brand ambassadors who spread positive word of mouth. All of it creates a positive reputation among stakeholders and potential employees in the market.
The following section mentions various ways to empower employees and increase their productivity.
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How empowerment can help form a productive workforce?
As mentioned in the above section, it is clear that empowering employees is beneficial to both the workforce as well as the organization. The following section discusses the ways in detail.
2.1 Fosters accountability of tasks and projects
When managers delegate critical tasks to competent employees, it makes them feel trusted and valued. Employees believe that their seniors trust their capability and skills in delivering a task well.
Further, when employees take complete ownership of the task or project, they work harder and are more committed to the work. Moreover, they will go the extra mile to deliver high-quality work without error. Thus, when employees are accountable, they participate actively, which results in high performance and productivity.
2.2 Encourages open communication
Employee productivity decreases when there are communication gaps between management and employees. Lack of freedom to express ideas, share grievances, and opinions sabotage employee morale. Furthermore, it leads to disengagement and low productivity. To combat this challenge, managers can set an open-door policy as a workplace standard where employees can openly communicate.
This policy will break down the rigid walls between the senior management and the employees and help build a connection and trust. When employees are able to discuss their challenges and bottlenecks, it leads to higher engagement. In addition, it helps employees get clarity about their roles and responsibilities, which allows them to become productive.
2.3 Helps in succession planning for key roles
A sudden change in a leadership position can hamper the productivity of the organization. It could be due to a critical employee taking leave, quitting without notice, getting sick, or retiring. By implementing succession planning, managers can ensure that any project’s delivery is not jeopardized.
They can set pre-established criteria to define responsibilities, competencies, and requirements to determine which employees can best suit a key role. Furthermore, empowering employees by retraining, upskilling, and offering various opportunities to diversify their portfolio prepares them for these critical roles and safeguards the organization from losing productivity. It also improves individual employee productivity as they are able to hone their skills and get exposure to all the verticals of their company.
2.4 Enhance employee engagement
Providing constructive feedback to employees on a regular basis keeps them motivated and engaged. Effective ways include providing one-on-one sessions where the employer sets up a meeting time and discusses the employee’s performance in detail. This increases employee engagement as they try to reach the root of the problem as a team and tackle it with guidance and suggestions.
Furthermore, organizations can give 360-degree feedback wherein they take anonymous feedback from other employees like their managers and colleagues in direct association with the employee. Therefore, when employees learn how others perceive them, it increases their engagement to develop and work on shortcomings which increases their productivity in the workplace.
2.5 Brings innovation and fresh perspective at work
Empowered employees are creative and highly engaged as they feel free to think out of the box and bring a new perspective to the table. They are always looking to find better ways to execute a project or solve a problem which opens the barricades of possibility and innovation at the workplace.
Since an organization consists of employees from different backgrounds, unique strengths, and skillsets, they come up with staggering ideas and innovations. In addition, when their ideas are taken seriously and when they turn to reality, it engages the employees more and boosts their productivity.
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How does an advanced resource management software empower employees?
In an organization, utilizing employees to the fullest is imperative as it increases productivity. Saviom resource management software can help managers achieve maximum operational efficiency. Managers can create and publish vacancies for new projects, and resources matching the qualifying criteria can apply for suitable positions as per their interests.
Accordingly, the resource managers can consider employees’ interests along with their schedule, competency, skills, and expertise which help them to select the best-fit employee for the job. Therefore, when the right resource is allocated to the work of their interest, it automatically increases their engagement and productivity.
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Conclusion
Empowering employees is imperative as it results in higher efficiency and increased profits. When managers use resource management software, they can better understand an employee’s availability, skills, and competencies and assign work to retain their productivity. In addition, managers can encourage employees to take calculated risks, stay open to mistakes and learn from them.
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