Are you interested in taking steps to empower your employees and ensure that they reach their full potential?  

Empowering employees is a great way to motivate, engage and retain top talent. 

Here are some of the benefits and how to achieve successful employee empowerment in your company.

What are the benefits of employee empowerment?

Empowering employees is all about giving them the tools and resources they need to succeed. It is about allowing them to do their job without feeling like they are not being trusted or that the company does not care about their success.

Some of the most effective ways to empower your employees include:

• Know what they care about.
• Providing training opportunities for personal and professional development.
• Providing a healthy work environment that supports wellness goals.
• Creating a culture of feedback and continuous learning.
• Give them the freedom to make decisions and take risks.

Understanding your employees and playing to their strengths is one of the most important factors as a manager.  Everyone is an individual and everyone requires managing in a different way.  The better you understand a person the better you can coach them to reach their own potential.  When they feel like they are growing themselves, they will feel more motivated to be their best within your organisation.

Employee appreciation gift

Help them develop skills

Firstly, if you want to ensure that you are empowering your team members, you need to make sure that they are developing the best skills overall. There are lots of skills that could be relevant and applicable here. 

For instance, you could help them develop tech-based skills to ensure that they can utilize the latest software and equipment to speed up different work processes. Or, you could help them acquire new skills that will benefit them in every aspect of their life. A great example would be CPR. You can get CPR group discounts which will make it easier and more cost-effective to train multiple members of your team. 

The most important thing you can do when empowering your employees is listen to what they need and want from you as an employer. Once you know what they want, it will be easier for you to give them what they need and make sure that they are happy working for you.

Ensure a healthy work/life balance

Next, you should think about ensuring that you are giving your employees the right work and life balance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of team members were working from home out of necessity. Researchers believe that a hybrid model involving at least some home working is the best option for the mental and physical health of employees. As such, you may want to ensure that this is at least an option for team members when you are running your business. That will often just be a matter of ensuring that you have the right system in place including a tech investment that covers options like cloud servers. 

Some employers offer flexible hours, telecommuting, part-time work, work from home, or job sharing as ways to help employees find the right balance between their personal and professional lives. Other employers provide wellness benefits or paid time off for employees who need time off for illness or a family emergency. Some employers also offer on-site child care services so that parents can still be present in the workplace while their children are cared for nearby.

Employee of the month mug

Build an office culture 

It’s important for your business to have a thriving office culture. Don’t forget that your employees will spend - on average - thirty per cent of their lives working. Without the right office culture in place, they are definitely going to feel the grind here. One of the best ways to ensure that you have a strong office culture is by encouraging employees to connect and interact socially. You can do this even if your team is largely made up of remote workers or connected to a home company. It’s just a matter of putting the right level of effort in. 

The best way to build an office culture is by making sure that your employees are happy and feel like they are part of the company. For this, you need to provide a comfortable space for them to work in, and make sure that they have the resources they need. Creating different and unique working spaces within an office environment is a great way to achieve this.  Meeting rooms, chillout areas, sofa areas, social meeting rooms and quiet space will help people find the right work environment for the tasks they are undertaking.

Social events outside of work time can also bring teams and businesses closer together.  Non-competitive sports or activities will help you identify employee strengths whilst setting a positive office culture.

Make them feel part of your success

Finally, it’s easy for employees to feel as though they have no role in the success of your business. They might believe that there’s no real benefit to them if your company thrives. This means that they will have little reason to provide the best standard of work and go the extra mile for your clients and customers. There are lots of ways to ensure that your employees feel your successes. For instance, you could consider rewarding them with shares in your company. This means that if your business rises, so too will their investment. 

Final word on the benefits of employee empowerment

Employees are the backbone of any organisation. If you want to know how to get employees to stay then it's important to provide them with the right environment and tools to be able to do their best work. This will then lead to higher productivity, higher quality, and better customer service.

We hope this helps you understand some of the key options that you should consider to empower your employees. In doing so, you can make sure that they feel more connected to your business and more likely to reach their maximum potential.