Some view a job as a means to solely support their lives, while others consider a job as an outlet to roll in their passion and gain various forms of benefits at the same time.
The saying, “Do what you love” is arguable to a certain extent. It depends on one’s priorities – is it money, flexibility, a higher position, experience, stability, or anything else?
Look deeper into doing business – not only the numbers, connections and so forth. Nobody wants to do work without being given one’s due. Therefore, employee empowerment is an essential core for a business to sustain, if not improve remarkably.
Someone brimming with empowerment is highly confident in themself and their skills. As empowered employees, they’re deeply aware that trust, open communication, and deliberate delegating are welcome. Companies in return comprise employees who are motivated, have greater trust in leadership, spark enhanced creativity, and hold stronger loyalty.
A Safe Space to Communicate
Include employees in decision-making and goal-setting whenever possible. Employees have their own comments and ideas regarding a task, a strategy, and the company’s flow. Just like children on a playground determining a game, they openly communicate their thoughts on how to make a game more fun and comfortable for all players involved.
Employees, therefore, ought to be given a safe space to project their voices regularly. Is the deadline unfeasible to complete considering the project would effectively be done better in a team instead of going on a one-man show? Using the proper engagement solution to facilitate open, honest dialogues between employees and executives is a critical approach to empowering all team members and growing trust.
Delegate Development
Teamwork makes the dream work. Delegate to grow and develop your employees’ competencies and responsibilities. Accept that when you delegate, the employee may execute the work differently than you would.
Give up control, stop micromanaging, and realise that your approach may not be the only way to finish a job. Allow them autonomy, respect, and resources, and then step back. When you give them ownership, they astoundingly display their enthusiasm and creativity.
Clear Expectations for a Clear Road
Define the parameters to give employees a sense of belonging, not merely another gear in the machine. By clearly conveying the company’s mission and how a team and its members contribute to that vision, they reckon that their contributions matter. Setting explicit expectations, but not micromanaging them, allows them to make decisions while ensuring they are in accordance with corporate goals as well.
It’s critical to understand each employee’s personal beliefs and how corporate success may help each of them to reach their life goals. Integrating their own objectives with the company’s mission is critical to fostering independence and autonomy.
Mentoring Through Mistakes
Mistakes will eventually occur regardless of how hard you avoid them. But being open to mistakes enables employees to accept responsibility and assists them in developing resolutions.
Mentoring employees through their errors allows them to grow and contributes to the creation of a culture of growth and resilience. This includes providing constructive criticism. Be attentive and detailed in criticisms by directing the next steps. Be precise too on influencing others in this manner.
Recognition on Efforts
A pat on the shoulder or simple words of appreciation is often neglected. Don’t be sparing with your gratitude!
Showing appreciation for an exceptional job done increases the likelihood that the employee will do it again and boost confidence in their talents. It will also motivate them to keep being imaginative, taking action, and solving challenges.
Why should you care?
Many mishaps from neglecting employee empowerment would only come to light, with the common 2020s “trend” of experiencing job burnout. Mountaineer reported that “an astonishing 42 percent of employees are on the verge of quitting their jobs and another 20 percent have already taken the leap, showcasing an urgent need for change” due to burnout and dissatisfaction. Based on these results of the 2023 Spring Work Insights Survey by FlexJobs 3rd-21st May 2023, the respondents simply yearn for refined work-life balance, fair pay, and a break free from toxic work environments.
Mayoclinic describes job burnout as “a special type of work-related stress — a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity”.
Using your time and energy for a job can give soul satisfaction or worse, a complete case of depletion. Commonly, job burnout can thrive from having a lack of control that affects your job such as schedule and workload; unclear job expectations from what others expect from you; dysfunctional workplace dynamics revolving around your colleagues; a lack of social support in your professional and personal life; and work-life imbalance with less or non-existent me time.
Avoiding these factors can actually bring forth indifferent attitudes and physical complaints to get the job done, including irritability, cynical perceptions, fatigue, loss of concentration, dissatisfaction, alcohol or substance misuse, insomnia, sadness, high blood pressure, excessive stress and vulnerability to illnesses. Do any of these currently reflect you or your colleagues?
It’s substantial to enforce employee empowerment in an organisational structure. Close your eyes and imagine your ideal troupe. Is it a group of skilled experts who take the initiative and utilise their expertise to solve problems, innovate, and assist the company in reaching a shared goal?
Everybody brings uniqueness into their roles. Moulding them into someone they’re not, but embracing their skills and polishing their flaws will not only make them comfortable to do their jobs, the company certainly gains more benefits too.