How to best empower your employees

Every employee is a spokesperson and representation of your company. To create a company culture that both empowers existing employees and attracts the best candidates to your business, it’s no surprise that you need to value and appreciate your employees. 

Beyond pool tables and Friday drinks in the office, now more than ever employees want to feel like they’re actively contributing to the wider company and community. By empowering your employees you can not only create better productivity and culture, but help grow your team to their fullest potential. 

At Discovered People we speak to a large range of diverse candidates from multiple industries daily. What we’ve found is that the common recurring drivers amongst most of these employees, is their search for an employer that values and empowers them. 

If you’re looking to empower your employees, here’s our top tips. 

  • Help them create their path in the company

Starting from the top down, employees want to know the vision for the company they work for.  More importantly, they want to know how they can be a part of that vision. Employees don’t want to feel like another cog in the wheel and want to know exactly how they can individually contribute to a company’s wider goals. 

The most important part of achieving this is through proactive communication. As a leader it’s your responsibility to explain how each of your team can contribute to company goals, as well as helping them set a clear path to achieve this. 

  • Create Achievable Goals

Most roles have set KPIs and goals for employees to work towards, that are often set by upper management. While any good employee will obviously try and meet these, if you want to get the best out of your team be sure to create these objectives collaboratively with them. 

By involving employees in creating their own goals and KPIs, it creates a shared sense of accountability and ensures that the goals they have been given are actually achievable. Engaging that part of your employees helps them explore what their future career with your company will look like and help retain them to stay with your business for longer. 

  • Encourage Communication

More than anything, employees want to know that their opinions are heard. By creating an environment with open communication and a space where they’re not judged or criticised, it will allow them a safe space to share ideas to make them feel valued.

By doing this in a team setting it also opens the potential for team bonding and the ability for potentially amazing new ideas to be implemented within your business. By encouraging your teams to work together and communicate ideas, you’ll be empowering them to continue doing their best work. If an idea is not implemented or taken onboard it’s also important to be honest and communicate the exact reasons why so they can continue to learn and grow. 

  • Recognise Effort & Achievements

It feels really good to know that other people appreciate the effort you’re putting in at work. Acknowledging and recognising not only your employees results, but the effort they put in prior is an easy way to boost morale and encourage innovation. This doesn’t even have to be through bonuses or perks (while it can definitely help!), just being honest and open with your staff can help motivate them. 

By showing you appreciate their effort, it also makes it more likely that they’ll do it again, which can only be a good thing! 

  • Remember They’re human

Nobody is perfect, and mistakes happen. Sometimes life gets in the way and that’s completely normal! When an employee feels trusted and supported, they are more likely to put in their best efforts for the company that’s treated them well. 

While not all companies can have remote or flexible working hours, being understanding of each individual’s life circumstances and accommodating to their needs will assist them in becoming productive. It’s important to remember why you hired the person, that they are competent and trusting them without micromanaging them every second. 

 

Written by Ebony McCabe for Discovered People