Empowering Employees

[tconnor]

Management Advice #170
Empowering Employees

During the past 25 years I have worked with a variety of organizations which display any number of management styles. These varying styles contribute greatly to the corporate culture as well as the productivity of individuals and departments.

It is clear to me that empowering employees, departments and any group of employees improves performance and increases organizational effectiveness. It can also create a great deal of stress and havoc if management does not totally buy into this philosophy.

What is empowerment? It is not a fad, although it seems to have gained in popularity the past several years. Empowerment can be defined with a variety of management approaches. Rather than give you a narrative I though I would share a list. I find that lists help people better identify strengths as well as weaknesses more easily.

Empowered organizations:

1. Give authority with responsibility.
2. Communicate corporate direction clearly to all employees.
3. Have clear and flexible goals and focuses.
4. Focuses not on menthols or activities but results.
5. Goalsetting is a combination of top-down and bottom-up.
6. Listen to employees.
7. Create a safe environment where employees can feed up bad news without the fear of criticism, termination or being perceived as a poor team player.
8. Get lots of suggestions from employees.
9. Do not make decisions that impact employees without first consulting them.
10. Delegate results not tasks.
11. Encourage mistakes, failure and risk as a tool for learning and improving.
12. Do not micromanage employees actions and decisions.

One of best ways to determine how empowered your employees are is to observe their behavior. Do they behave the same:

• When their manager is out of town vs. in town.
• When they are alone vs. part of a team.
• When they are being observed or left up to their own devices.
• When it is near their review time or after a review.
• When they are a new employee vs. a seasoned vet.
• When they are in a support role or a management one.

If your employees never make mistakes, you may not have an empowered environment. If your employees never take risks or communicate reality be advised - you may have a heavy top-down 60’s style management culture. And, if you do you may be in serious trouble. The world may be passing you by and you don’t even know it.