Quality Glossary Definition: Employee empowerment
Employee empowerment is defined as the ways in which organizations provide their employees with a certain degree of autonomy and control in their day-to-day activities. This can include having a voice in process improvement, helping to create and manage new systems and tactics, and running smaller departments with less oversight from higher-level management.
A key principle of employee empowerment is providing employees the means for making important decisions and helping ensure those decisions are correct. When deployed properly, this should result in heightened productivity and a better quality of employee work and work life.
How Does Employee Empowerment Work?
Employee empowerment varies based on an organization's culture and work design. However, empowerment is based on the concepts of job enlargement and job enrichment. Job enlargement differs from job enrichment in that job enlargement is horizontal expansion and job enrichment is considered vertical.
- Job enlargement: Changing the scope of the job to include a greater portion of the horizontal process.
- Example: A bank teller not only handles deposits and disbursement, but also distributes traveler's checks and sells certificates of deposit.
- Job enrichment: Increasing the depth of the job to include responsibilities that have traditionally been carried out at higher levels of the organization.
- Example: The teller also has the authority to help a client fill out a loan application, and to determine whether or not to approve the loan.
As these examples show, employee empowerment requires:
- Training in the skills necessary to carry out the additional responsibilities
- Access to information on which decisions can be made
- Initiative and confidence on the part of the employee to take on greater responsibility
Employee empowerment also means giving up some of the power traditionally held by management, which means managers also must take on new roles, knowledge, and responsibilities. However, this does not mean that management relinquishes all authority, delegates all decision-making, and allows operations to run without accountability. It requires a significant investment of time and effort, especially from management, to develop mutual trust, assess and add to individuals' capabilities, and develop clear agreements about roles, responsibilities, risk taking, and boundaries.
What Does an Empowered Organizational Structure Look Like?
Employee empowerment often also calls for restructuring the organization to reduce levels of the hierarchy or to provide a more customer- and process-focused organization.
Employee empowerment is often viewed as an inverted triangle of organizational power. In the traditional view, management is at the top while customers are on the bottom; in an empowered environment, customers are at the top while management is in a support role at the bottom.
Employee Empowerment Diagram
Employee Empowerment resources
Driving Higher Workplace Performance: Using Analytics, Dashboard Metrics, and Soft Skills to Improve Results When assigned the task of improving warehouse performance for a Western Canadian industrial distribution center, a lean Six Sigma Black Belt discovered the differences between "human" and "automated" business processes.
Get Staff Involved in Quality Initiatives [Quality Progress] By challenging employees to solve quality problems, a company saved more than $3.5 million the first year.
If You Give Your Employees a Voice, Do You Listen? [Journal for Quality and Participation] Making it easy for your employees to share their feedback is the first step. Being willing to respond quickly to their input builds commitment.
Empowerment in Total Quality: Designing and Implementing Effective Employee Decision-Making Strategies [Quality Management Journal] This paper provides a conceptual definition of empowerment and offers an implementation strategy for total quality management managers.
Adapted from The Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Handbook, ASQ Quality Press.
In order to achieve great results, you should be constantly thinking about how you can motivate and inspire your team.
Matt Dodson, manager of Organizational Development, Chevron, shares why motivating and leading people is critical to an organization's success. And it starts with a coaching culture.
Here are some ways you can steer your employees in the right direction and achieve your goals together.
1. Share your vision and set clear goals
You can only motivate and inspire your team if they know what they are working towards. Make sure your employees are aware of your vision and what your ultimate goals are for the business.
This encourages everyone to work together to achieve better results. As well as this, regularly set clear and measurable goals that are framed by this vision so that you and your teams can track progress and they are able to see their success in a tangible way.
Supporting alignment within and across teams cultivates increased productivity and can help employees to feel valued and motivated.
2. Communicate with your staff
Part of clear goal-setting relies on effective communication with your team. Communication is a two-way street and you should make sure that there is a constant flow of communication between you and your employees.
This way you can not only keep them up-to-date with what needs to be done but you can also listen to their ideas, opinions, and feedback. This will ultimately have a positive impact on your business as they may approach dilemmas in a different way to you.
Check-in regularly with your team and give them the opportunity to come and talk to you. Make sure you are available to contact and be open and approachable in your attitude to communication. This will make your staff feel involved in the business and its operations which will further motivate them to achieve better results.
3. Encourage teamwork
The best kind of companies are those where everyone works together cohesively. First, make sure your team alignment is on point.
Encouraging and promoting teamwork boosts productivity because it makes employees feel less isolated and helps them to feel more engaged with their tasks. You can do this by regularly holding team-building activities and opportunities for your team members to bond and get to know one another.
Think about this when hiring new staff by considering how they will add to the team and the company culture. Even if someone is experienced in a role, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will work well with the rest of your employees.
4. A healthy office environment
Our environment has a significant impact on our productivity, contentment, and creativity. Healthy and happy employees are more likely to feel motivated and engaged.
Create a space that is enjoyable to work in and an office where your employees want to spend their time. Be conscious of privacy, noise, air quality, natural light, areas to relax, and the ambiance. Encourage healthy attitudes by offering healthy snacks and access to exercise, whether this is in the form of a gym membership or participating in team exercise classes.
By promoting healthy habits you can help your staff to maintain their energy levels and reduce their stress. Office perks such as these will also make your team feel appreciated and further encourage them to do their best work.
And don't forget about your remote employees. They need just as much attention and support from your side to create a healthy work environment for them, too [even if their office is at home].
Keep in mind that employees that work from home [regardless if it's just a few days per week or on a constant basis] will have different struggles than the employees you see daily at the office.
Make sure to run regular employee engagement surveys for remote employees to find out what they are struggling with so you can support them better and help them create a positive and productive work environment, regardless of where they're located.
5. Give positive feedback and reward your team
The power of positive feedback is sometimes overlooked but recognizing and applauding achievement inspires team members as they can see themselves progressing towards the goals of the company.
When employees achieve results, put in extra effort, or do outstanding work make sure to tell them that you’re grateful and be specific in your praise.
For example, don’t just say "good job." Explain why it was a good job and how it helped to benefit the business. This will not only motivate your employee but help them succeed with future work.
Reward your team for hard work, whether this is in the form of monetary rewards, gifts, perks, or more responsibility and independence.
6. Provide opportunities for development
Team members feel more valuable when they are learning and upskilling. To motivate and inspire your team to achieve great results you should provide your employees with opportunities for growth and development.
These opportunities should be tailored specifically to suit the individual employee and can be in the form of further training, setting challenging targets, inviting an employee to shadow you, or spending your own time teaching and mentoring somebody.
Focus on teaching your team transferable skills they could use in different positions and encourage them to set themselves learning goals.
7. Give employees the space they need to thrive
A micromanaging boss can quickly stifle creativity. By giving your employees space and autonomy, you clearly show that you trust them the get the work done in their own way. This can inspire individuals to find more efficient or streamlined ways of completing tasks or to discover gaps in their skillset or the department as they work.
Giving your employees space goes hand-in-hand with reducing meetings and checking in asynchronously when possible. By clearing the calendar, you can give valuable time back to employees so they can get in their flow zone and do their best work.
Motivation is an essential part of any workplace and you should be constantly striving to make your employees feel motivated and inspired. If you do this, you’re sure to achieve the results that you need. In the end, your workforce can reach operational excellence.
If you're struggling with motivating your team and team management, BetterUp can help. With access to personalized coaching, you can tap into your team's full potential.
Published August 26, 2022