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Want to increase engagement and productivity? Employee empowerment is the way to go.

Knowing how to empower employees is a crucial skill for business leaders and owners. Why? For one thing, research shows that empowered employees have positive attitudes toward their organization.

Empowerment increases employee commitment, job satisfaction, and performance. According to Harvard Business Review, an empowering leadership style significantly affects employee creativity. Plus, empowering leaders are more likely to gain the trust of their subordinates.

Whether you’re just starting a business, or you’ve been running one for years, here’s what you need to know about employee empowerment, along with actionable tips to cultivate a productive crew.

Why empower your employees?

Employee empowerment involves providing your workers with the necessary resources, tools, and inspiration to get the job done, while also giving them enough control over the process to make their own decisions and holding them accountable for the results. When you give employees this sense of control over their work, it builds individual and group confidence, which improves productivity. Here are just a few of the benefits:

• Increased motivation
• Renewed trust in leadership
• Faster problem solving
• Better collaboration and teamwork
• Increased productivity
• Higher employee retention
• Better customer service

In short, empowering your employees results in a more productive workforce, which can give you a competitive edge and an improved bottom line. 

How empowerment boosts engagement

Engagement is the degree to which an employee feels a connection to their work, crew, and organization. This connection often determines the amount of time and energy they devote to the tasks at hand.

While increased engagement improves productivity and performance, empowerment provides the means, structure, and environment for engagement to flourish. When you empower an employee to accomplish something, you’re telling them that you have confidence in their ability to get the job done with reasonable judgment.

If employees know you trust them in a supportive environment, they’ll be more motivated to come up with solutions and, in the process, improve their engagement. So when it comes to increasing productivity, empowerment is the fuel, and engagement is the fire.

Tips to empower your employees

Employees need to be engaged to be satisfied and stay in their jobs. Focus on empowering your workers; put control in their hands and help them build a sense of ownership over what they do. Here are eight ways to empower your employees.

1. Delegate more than tasks and responsibilities

Delegating work is inevitable, but simply dumping your work on someone else’s plate just leads to resentment – no one wants jobs that nobody wants to do. And it’s also a missed opportunity to empower your crew

Instead of just delegating work, delegate problems. Give your crew tools and resources and let them come up with a solution. A product you recently launched is receiving negative feedback? Let your employees figure out what happened and come up with ways to fix it. This will not only increase their engagement but also hone their skills.

Employees need to feel like their contribution is helping to build something meaningful. By communicating a clear vision of your organization and how their work contributes to your goals, you’re empowering them with the knowledge that they have a real impact on your business.

3. Provide necessary resources

An empowered employee without the necessary tools is like Picasso without a paintbrush. So you must make sure that your workers have the resources they need to accomplish the tasks you’ve set in front of them. This includes more than just equipment, but support, training, and even data, as well. And while most resources do have a financial cost, remember that not all problems are solved by throwing money at them.

4. Encourage and support self-development

Another great way to foster empowerment is to encourage your employees to improve themselves. Whether it’s through training that helps them learn new job skills, supporting further education outside the workplace, or promoting a healthier work-life balance, helping your employees improve themselves will also improve your business. You’ll be amazed at how giving employees an hour once a week to focus on themselves can improve their overall well-being.

5. Encourage problem-solving and involve employees in decision making

Employees who possess problem-solving skills are valuable assets who can generate new ideas and develop better ways of doing things. Fortunately, these skills can be learned and improved.

Push your employees to think critically by delegating problems, providing ample resources, and trusting your crew to come up with viable solutions. Allow them to make decisions in the areas they control, and for enterprise-level decisions, encourage them to make recommendations to help break down organizational silos.

6. Listen to employee feedback

You already know how crucial it is to listen to your customers, but listening to your employees can be just as vital to the success of your business. Actively listening to your crew’s feedback, ideas, and insights makes them feel valued, which results in a more positive workplace environment, improved morale, and increased engagement.

7. Foster open communication

Create an environment of trust and open communication where employees know they can come to you with suggestions, ideas, or problems. Make it clear that they have your attention by listening to them and consistently asking them for their input. Empower your employees to share their thoughts openly without the fear of punishment. This will give them the confidence to speak up and offer genuine constructive feedback, and consequently, you’ll improve transparency, build trust, and improve collaboration.

8. Recognize hard work

Rewarding employees for a job well done makes them feel valued and motivates them to work even harder on future tasks. So consider implementing an employee reward program to let your crew know just how much you appreciate their contributions to your organization’s success.

Rewards can be anything from gift cards to subscription memberships to dinner with executives. However you choose to do it, employee recognition improves engagement and productivity because workers know that their contributions and achievements are being valued.

So those are the basic ways to foster empowerment, which can help create an environment of trust and accountability, increase employee engagement and productivity, and ultimately improve your bottom line. Need some help getting started? The experts at Crewhu are just a mouse click away.

Empower your employees with Crewhu

Crewhu helps businesses empower their workers by providing tailored solutions for employee appreciation. We’ll help you create a culture of appreciation by making it easy for you to celebrate small daily wins daily and big goal-shattering victories. Book a Crewhu demo today and let us show you how to empower your workers, increase productivity, and take your business to the next level.