Employee Empowerment

Empowerment means letting go of the authority to make certain decisions. This is partly a good management practice and partly about facing reality - the reality that modern employees won't accept jobs where they have no say in their day to day operational decisions. Still, old habits die hard and some managers will struggle for awhile to change their roles from prime decision maker to facilitator. Empowerment is not the same thing as employee engagement but it does help employees feel more engaged.

Several factors contribute to effective empowement. Your organizational culture must support empowerment. It won't work if managers feel threatened by a loss of authority, for example. There is also the question of what to empower and when. In addition, self-awareness is essential to be sure that you are not actually disempowering employees.

Read on to learn how to empower employees and how to overcome barriers to empowerment.

Culture and Empowerment

• Empowerment often fails because the employee is the only focus.
• But the organization's culture may prevent managers from letting go.
• Empowerment means LESS decision making for managers.
• Managers may not be helped to clarify their changed roles.
• If managers are insecure they hang on even harder to their "rights".
• Risk taking may be encouraged while mistakes are still punished.
• Empowerment entails a total culture change...from top to bottom.
• Role models and success stories should be celebrated.
• Initiative which leads to reasonable mistakes should be rewarded.
• Empowerment is an excellent tool for motivating employees and for talent retention.

Empower people to do what?

• How to do their job OR what their job should be about?
• Discretion in how to do the job is easiest but provides less latitude.
• "What the job should be about" can also be decided by the employee, when their options are acceptable and add value.
• Creativity will be more likely if employees have some say in WHAT they might contribute.
• Handling customers and urgent problems are two commonly empowered tasks - but people have much more to offer.
• If employees are your partners, they should be empowered to make more strategic contributions.
• Empowering means giving power - not just to DO things but to participate in major decisions - to be listened to with respect.
• Empowerment is also the natural shift of power - to knowledge, away from position.

When is it best to empower?

Consider not empowering when...

* consistency and uniformity are essential
* costs need to be minimized and tightly controlled
* operations are too routine and need to be standardize
* errors are too costly
* employees are untrained or otherwise unready
* employees are too dependent and lack confidence
* individual initiative may be too costly
* motivation is already strong the way things are
* close supervision is essential
* the organization's culture is not supportive
* the managers are not ready to let go

How do you disempower employees? Do you...

• Make sure YOU handle the important issues?
• Insist on approving actions they could take on their own?
• Criticize them for not consulting you on decisions they could make?
• Offer your answers instead of drawing solutions out of them?
• Occupy most of the spotlight most of the time?
• Lead all your meetings and cross functional exchanges?
• See your role as making decisions and having the answers?
• Feel you need to look after or protect your subordinates?
• Show discomfort or disapproval when they disagree with you?
• Jump on them for mistakes but forget to praise their successes?
• Ridicule their ideas as unworkable?
• Generally like to see things done your way?

The reality of empowerment

• Empowerment is viewed as authority that managers grant employees
• The reality is that many front line employees already have a lot of power.
• Recognize their power and motivate them to channel it productively.
• Employees who serve customers have the power to make or break a business.
• Empowering them means acknowledging how powerful they already are.
• The same applies to knowledge workers whose innovations can build your business.
• In the old days when most employees did only routine jobs, they had no power other than what managers condescended to grant them - this was called job enrichment!
• Now, employees are doing the critical jobs and managers are increasingly facilitators or coaches who need to get out of the way and let powerful employees do the business.
• This is a profound shift in organizational power.
• Nevertheless, it is hard for employees to fully utilize their power because the other reality is that managers still have the power to promote or fire them.
• So, both sides have their own sort of power and today the balance is more even than it used to be.
• An even balance of power implies partnership, not empowerment.
• The catch is that partners expect an even balance of reward distribution as well
• The key is not so much to empower employees who are already powerful but to motivate them to channel their power to maximize business results.