Once a new employee has been on-boarded effectively and is ready to perform, it is time to stop controlling and micromanaging their performance and allow them to deliver their best. In fact, according to the 2016 “ SHRM Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement” report, based on a survey of 600 employees, “70% of employees ranked being empowered to take action at work when a problem or opportunity arose as an important element of their engagement.”
A leader must enable and empower an employee’s performance by giving them these four things:
The Right Information
Keeping your employees up to date with what is happening in the organization, operation and with customers is key to them feeling able to do their best. Leaders ensure that important information is delivered consistently and in a way that all their employees will understand.
Having worked with organizations all around the world to improve their culture and communication with employees, we still believe a quick daily meeting or pre-shift meeting is the best way to share the information that your people need to complete their tasks. We are also seeing the use of technology to help ensure employees have easy access to the right information to help them perform and do their jobs well.
Leaders should make time to communicate important information each day so that their employees are always well informed.
The Right Tools And Equipment
I find that nothing frustrates employees more than not having the right tools and equipment to do their job. For the most part, employees do not come into work to do a poor job, yet that may be what they deliver when they are limited by a lack of tools and equipment.
Leaders must ensure their systems and ordering processes are in place so that their team members always have the right things at the right moment. It seems simple, but this is one of the biggest sources of frustration among employees in organizations that we work with. And yet, so many managers give excuses or fail to follow through on getting the proper tools for their team.
Leaders should be relentless about getting their people the tools to do their jobs -- something any decent financial or procurement manager will likely appreciate and respond to.
The Right Amount Of Support
No matter how good your employees are, there are always moments when they could use your help. The question is not if they need your support, but where it is when they need it most.
The inability to locate managerial support in times of need is another major frustration of employees in organizations that we work with, and it leads to poor morale and poor performance. Leaders must turn up to support their employees when things are at their busiest, most chaotic or most critical. Unfortunately, many managers spend too much time behind their desks or in their offices -- missing in action when they are needed most.
Leaders need to work to find the right balance between working on their operation and in their operation next to their employees, providing encouragement, giving feedback and recognizing effort and results. All managers should remember this quote by spy novelist John le Carré: “The desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.”
The Ability To Have Control And Make Decisions
Your employees will be able to be their best when they feel they have your support and trust, allowing them some control over their own work. They are able to make decisions and respond in the moment because that is what they have been trained to do. Unfortunately, in many companies, I find that employees are never trusted with this responsibility, having to turn constantly to their managers for approval.
By teaching and fostering confidence in their people, leaders can teach their employees how to make decisions and act as they should. Leaders should not be quick to provide answers, but rather allow their employees to come up with solutions to the challenges they face. While it may be quicker to answer for your employees’ questions, it is more impactful to their development when you let your employees find their own solutions, even if their solutions are not exactly what you would have done -- this is how you empower your people.
It is also important for managers to remember that to truly empower their people, they cannot get upset when mistakes or poor decisions are made. This is an important test for leaders: how they respond when employees make a mistake.
Mistakes create the best learning opportunity; however, many managers get caught up in voicing their frustrations instead of using such moments to teach. Leaders should give their employees regular feedback and coach them on their thinking so they can continue to develop better decision making skills.
When you enable and empower your people, you create the best opportunity for them to be successful. Remember, great leaders make themselves truly indispensable by becoming dispensable to their team.
