Are you considering implementing an employee empowerment program in your team or business, but unsure if the investment will be worth it in the end? Maybe you've done a cost analysis of a few basic implementations, and the price tag scared you off.
Sure, it's major, but I'm here to tell you that this is a worthy investment. Not only will benefits of employee empowerment make your business more profitable, but it's actually within reach for any size company or team.
The benefits of employee empowerment will become clear once you start down this path, and you'll never look back. I'm not saying there won't be any challenges along the way (there always are), but if you prepare in advance for those too, then you're sure to see some serious benefits on the other side that will more than make up for any hiccups you encounter.
If you're a small company or a startup, empowering employees can mean the difference between success and failure. If you have a larger business it can help give you an upper hand over your competition. And if you have a virtual team, benefits of employee empowerment will increase morale, productivity, and job satisfaction among your remote workers.
Benefit of employee empowerment for small teams
Benefit 1: Empowerment helps create a positive, open environment that leads to maximum productivity. As a small team, you have limited personnel. It's up to you to make them count. One empowered employee is worth ten of the disengaged, uninterested sort, and the positive open work culture you're creating will enable everyone to perform great work.
Benefit 2: Employee empowerment encourages each individual to feel valued by the business, which, in turn leads to high employee motivation. This benefit, again, is especially important in small teams where everyone is working closely together.
Benefit 3: Employee empowerment will help your company meet goals and deadlines more easily. This benefit of empowering employees is especially important if your business runs on deadlines. You'll be surprised at how much more productive each person in the team will be when they're feeling empowered, and their overall performance will increase because of it as you all work together toward your organizational goal.
Benefit 4: Employee empowerment leads to fewer mistakes. It's inevitable that you won't catch every mistake or issue that employees run into, but when they take ownership of their own work you'll discover that self-policing may be even better than policing from above.
Benefit 5: Employee empowerment results in higher morale. As the benefits of employee empowerment begin to take effect, you'll start to see stress drop from your team members' shoulders as their work load becomes more manageable. This will result in a happier, more satisfied team and higher job satisfaction. If you use team recognition software like Matter you’ll be able to track just what an impact your empowerment decision is having on internal communication and peer-to-peer feedback.
Benefit of employee empowerment for big business
Benefit 6: Employee empowerment decreases dead-time. When leadership is decentralized and everyone takes personal responsibility for being productive, dead end work and pointless activities become a thing of the past. If you’re a big company, this dead-time really adds up, and you’ll see a huge increase in productivity and job performance when your employees get to use their time strategically.
Benefit 7: Employee empowerment can open up your company to new ideas and strategies. Since you're no longer the only person with responsibility and decision making power the new paradigm may feel disorganized while you all adjust. But employee creativity can give you a huge competitive advantage over your competition. As an empowered workforce begins to challenge decisions and offer their own suggestions, you'll begin to feel the benefits of having lots of creative people putting their hard working brains to work toward the same goals.
Benefit 8: Empowerment makes decision-making less complicated. As you grow, the benefits of employee empowerment will help to keep the decision making process flowing smoothly even as your team becomes bigger and more complex. This is because by empowering sub-teams and granting autonomy, you are allowing your engaged workforce to make some decisions on their own.
Benefit 9: Employee empowerment benefits company culture. Once your employees take ownership of their own work, you’ll be amazed at the spirit of collaboration you see in your offices and break rooms. You get results faster, even on your busiest days, when employees know that they're empowered to make decisions for themselves rather than wait for the decision of a team leader or boss. This psychological empowerment will help increase employee morale, alleviate stress and create a more comfortable working environment as well as increasing employee retention.
Results of employee empowerment for virtual teams
Benefit 10: When you empower virtual team members, they feel more connected to the organization and the work they do on a daily basis. Even though they might work in isolation, when virtual workers are empowered they feel like an essential part of the organization rather than just another cog in the machine. Communication suddenly becomes meaningful, and virtual team meetings become brainstorming sessions rather than just routine check-ins.
Benefit 11: Employee empowerment benefits your remote team by helping them tackle tough problems. Virtual team members will feel empowered when an empowerment strategy is implemented because it gives them the chance to seek out and find solutions to problems that might be outside of your direct sphere of influence. When they are responsible for finding a solution, both the number of tools available to solve the problem as well as the energy they have to put into it increase exponentially.
Making the benefits of employee empowerment real in your company
What do you need to do to see the positive impact of employee empowerment in your organization?
- Start the process at the top. The benefits of employee empowerment will truly benefit your company only when senior leadership is on board and committed to making empowerment a key part of business strategy. An empowering leader is the first step toward an empowered employee, and when you've got both, it won't be long till you see drastically increased productivity.
- Encourage your employees to take ownership of their projects, and welcome employee involvement at all levels. For example, empowering people with employee cards can streamline financial decision-making, giving them more control over their budgets while helping you maintain oversight. Or empowering sales employees through sales enablement tools would allow them to take the initiative and improve their sales performance. Once you empower your employees, you'll be able to sit back and watch them flourish! The benefits of employee empowerment will come clear when they get a chance to show you what they're capable of.
- Create a learning environment where ideas can thrive. Empowering your employees benefits not only the company but also benefits the employees themselves, and your work environment is critical to the employee experience. When you empower your workers, they have a chance to learn new skills and seek out training opportunities, leading to job enrichment and empowered employees who are that much better at what they do.
Still on the fence? Have a look at these examples of employee empowerment, and see how results were attained by real life companies like Microsoft and Deloitte.
Then give it a try; you’ll be glad you did. Employee empowerment is an ageless strategy, and it benefits both existing employees and attracts new talent. It's not only good for the business, but the benefits of employee empowerment will make it satisfying to work in an empowered company like yours.
