Employee empowerment is the secret sauce of highly successful businesses. Take Netflix, a giant in the entertainment industry, which centers its company culture on two things: freedom and responsibility. In other words, employees are free to make “best judgment” decisions, provided they accept responsibility for them.
It might sound scary; what if employees take advantage? But when it’s done right, empowering employees just works. Let’s roll up our sleeves to explore why—and how to pull it off in your workplace.
What Is Employee Empowerment?
Employee empowerment is when employees are free to make independent decisions in the workplace and are provided with the resources to carry them out. As a step beyond employee engagement, empowerment is not only about employees being happy in their jobs (though this is important); it’s when they are excited to grow in their roles. The key aspects of an empowered organization are:
- Autonomy: Employees take initiative and have flexibility in how tasks are completed.
- Authority: Employees feel confident leading projects.
- Resources: Employees know how to access information and resources.
- Accountability: Employees take on ownership and responsibility for tasks.
What Employee Empowerment Is NOT
We have just zoomed in on the basics of what employee empowerment is; to understand the full picture, let’s now address what it isn’t.
Employee empowerment is NOT under management.
Micromanagement is stifling, there’s no doubt about that. However, in trying to push employees to take initiative, some managers go too far in the other direction. They become under-managers, expecting their team members to act without any input or support.
This creates unnecessary pressure for employees, causes work to go undone, and is detrimental to cultivating a supportive work environment.
Employee empowerment is NOT withholding resources.
Can creative solutions be born out of limited resources? Maybe employees have to make do with limes when they would rather have lemons. But does this mean you should withhold resources to try and manufacture employee creativity? Absolutely not!
Employees need to be given the time, budget, and training required to feel equipped for the task at hand. With nothing but water, you can’t make anything even close to lemonade.
Employee empowerment is DIFFERENT from employee engagement.
Employee engagement is related to the level of emotional commitment employees have to their organization. Employee empowerment, on the flip side, is about the level of autonomy and freedom employees have. Though different, it’s worth noting that they are two sides of the same coin.
Empowered employees, feeling trusted and valued, become more engaged. At the same time, engaged employees are more likely to seek out empowering growth opportunities.
7 Benefits of Employee Empowerment
Empowering your employees isn’t just a feel-good strategy, it’s a transformative one. Here’s why.
1. Employee Retention
According to a 2023 ResumeLab survey, 83% of Gen Z workers consider themselves “job hoppers.” This isn’t only about money; one of the main reasons cited for leaving jobs is a lack of career development. Translation? When employees don’t feel empowered, they are running out the door. If you can invest in them instead, though, you could increase retention by up to 50%.
2. Boosted Employee Engagement
With employee empowerment at the heart of your organization’s culture, employees feel they can strut their stuff. You see, empowerment is exciting. Who could be bored and demotivated when working on fun projects or meeting interesting clients? What follows naturally is an increased sense of freedom and, of course, increased levels of engagement.
3. Higher Job Satisfaction
No employee wants to be purposeless. But if they are hemmed in by micromanaging and suffocated by resource limitations, they may well start wondering why they are there. If you remove these constraints and help employees feel connected to their work, you will see job satisfaction shoot up across the entire organization.
4. Enhanced Leadership Development
When employees feel empowered, they feel confident. And when they feel confident, they are more willing to step up for new responsibilities. Gone are the days of searching for a project lead. No longer will you despair at the lack of experienced leaders. They will be right there on your doorstep, waiting eagerly for the next opportunity.
5. Greater Innovation
An empowered workforce is a creative workforce. If employee feedback and ideas are consistently welcomed and listened to (for example, through employee resource groups), workers are more likely to experiment, suggest improvements, and innovate.
6. Increased Revenue
So, empowerment leads to innovation. And what is the natural consequence of innovation? Increased financial performance, of course. Don’t just take our word for it. A 2020 research paper found that, “The link between innovative work behavior and organizational financial performance is supported when it includes psychological empowerment.”
7. Stronger Organizational Culture
A culture of empowerment signals trust, respect, and mutual support. Over time, this builds a workplace where people thrive and want to stay. Bonus: it also helps you attract top talent who are seeking more than just a paycheck.
How to Empower Employees
Everyone wants to be a hero, but how many are confident enough to don the suit? As the employer, it’s your job to help your employees do so.
Take Edna Mode, a super-costume designer, as your model. Study employee skills and design roles that accommodate and stretch to pre-existing strengths. Here’s the blueprint:
1. Provide Guidance and Resources
Independent work is a hallmark of empowered employees, but it should never be confused with lone work. While you can encourage employees to be proactive, you must also ensure they have the guidance and resources they need for their work.
- Clear job description: Equip employees with clear job descriptions from the get-go. This helps them understand their responsibilities and where they have the freedom to take initiative.
- Onboarding: New hires who receive high-quality onboarding integrate better and stay longer.
- Mentoring: Avoid micromanagement while still offering support. Use tools like mentoring software (e.g., MentorcliQ) to connect employees with experienced guides.
- Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): Increase employee satisfaction by providing equal opportunities for networking through relevant ERGs.
2. Set Meaningful Goals
What are you empowering your employees towards? When employees set goals, it motivates them towards professional aims that they care about. When they reach their goals, it increases confidence and motivation.
The SMART goal framework is a great place to start, in which goals are:
- Specific: Precise detail about what is to be achieved.
- Measurable: How progress will be tracked.
- Achievable: Do time and resources allow for goal completion?
- Relevant: How the goal aligns with the company’s aims.
- Time-bound: The time by which the goal will be completed.
3. Encourage Self-Directed Learning
Google’s “20% time” allows employees to use 20% of their work time to focus on self-directed passion projects, an initiative that created Google products like Gmail and Google AdSense. If this isn’t evidence of the power of self-directed learning, we don’t know what is!
Where Google’s “20% time” fell short is that it wasn’t formalized in company policy until recently, meaning that not all employees took advantage of the initiative. Embedding self-directed learning into company culture doesn’t have to be so difficult, though.
Mentoring and ERG software includes features like goal tracking, resource libraries, progress check-ins, and feedback loops. These keep learners engaged and accountable, while giving them autonomy to learn at their own pace.
4. Listen to Their Ideas
While not every idea is a winner, some managers brush off employee ideas too quickly—or worse, ignore them entirely.
On the flipside, there are few things more empowering to employees than receiving recognition for their ideas. Build on that by giving them the freedom to implement them, and you will have employee growth locked in.
5. Involve Employees in Decision-Making
Don’t just give your employees a seat at the table. Let them have a hand in the kitchen, and maybe even choose the recipe from time to time.
According to McKinsey, C-suite executives spend 70% of their time in decision-making processes. Wouldn’t it be nice if employees could take some of the load? It makes sense to take on employee input: for example, front-line workers are, more often than not, most familiar with the service/product and what customers really, really look for. As a bonus, employees being part of the decision-making process reduces the likelihood that they will feel like cogs in a machine.
6. Facilitate Flexibility
Though most knowledge workers can do their jobs from anywhere with an internet connection, many corporations are continuing to drag their employees back to the office. Unfortunately, this could backfire, leading employees to seek out work elsewhere. Why? Flexible work arrangements show that you trust your employees, and when they feel trusted, guess what? They feel empowered.
7. Allow Autonomy
There is always a moment in coming-of-age stories where the “mentor” figure disappears from the scene, leaving their mentee to work things out alone. Think Gandalf and Frodo, Yoda and Luke Skywalker, or Dumbledore and Harry Potter.
At first, the task seems impossible (typically revolving around saving the world in some capacity or other), but inevitably, the mentee is always able to rise to the occasion. They get to put into practice what they have learned, without their mentor looking over their shoulder. This is always a turning point for their character development.
If you have trained employees and provided them with the resources they need, it’s time to trust them to fly the nest. They might make a few mistakes along the way, but that’s okay. Some of the greatest long-term successes are born of short-term failures.
Examples of Employee Empowerment
The heart of employee empowerment is relationships. Sometimes, employees just need someone to come alongside them, remind them of their potential, and encourage them to reach their goals. These companies exemplify this, using mentoring to instill confidence in their teams.
Advocate Aurora Health
Advocate Aurora Health is a healthcare organization that decided to empower its healthcare professionals by implementing mentoring programs. One of these is for emerging leaders, which has supported their nurses to grow in confidence.
“We are really proud that the Navigate program has done some amazing things. Adding that mentoring component has really helped with that goal of retaining folks and also being able to promote folks.”
— Jennifer Pecor, Learning Program Manager at Advocate Aurora Health
Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis (CBRE)
CBRE, a real estate and investment firm, initiated EMPOWER as one of twelve mentorship programs. Their aim? You guessed it— to empower new and aspiring leaders. With a 91% satisfaction rate from participants, it’s safe to say that the program is an empowerment success story.
Empowered employees empower employees.
It can be challenging to know where to begin with implementing employee empowerment and even harder to track progress. Call us biased, but as a mentoring software platform, we believe mentoring is one of the most powerful first steps you can take. Why? Because being forced to watch a slide deck never empowered anyone. People are empowered by people.
We have seen time and again the transformative power of mentoring in bringing empowerment to the workplace. However, we know that, particularly in large organizations, it can be a pain to try and accurately match up mentors with mentees. Get it wrong and your empowerment efforts will go to waste. Get it right, and your employees will flourish like never before.
