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11 Tips for a More Empowered Workforce

Empowerment is one of the most valuable tools a manager has in achieving positive results and maintaining a motivated workforce. Experiment with these ten tips to discover their effectiveness with your employees.

1. Discover where your employees’ interests and passions lie. Look for ways to allow them to further their skills in these areas while benefiting the company.

2. Trust people. The tap root of empowerment is trust. If you do not trust employees, it is impossible to empower them. Demonstrate confidence in people’s abilities and watch them rise to meet your expectations.

3. Clearly communicate to employees what the standards and expectations are that pertain to their jobs. Ask for their input and listen to their responses. Get their commitment to meet your expectations.

4. Ask employees what support they need from you to be fully successful in their job. Make it a habit to frequently check in with them to determine what support they need from you.

5. Give your employees authority that is equal to their responsibilities.

6. Ask employees what training they need to successfully perform their job responsibilities. Provide training to enable them to gain the skills needed to meet expectations.

7. Provide ongoing feedback. Empowerment can fail when there’s a lack of communication. Make a daily practice of telling people what is going right, as well as your areas of concern.

8. When you feel you need to be the only one making the decision, ask yourself if any of your employees could be trained to make that decision.

9. Communicate almost everything. The more you communicate, the more you indirectly tell people you trust them.

10. Recognize success daily. When employees take empowered actions, tell them how much you value their contributions.

11. When failure occurs, stay in the aim frame. The fastest way to kill an empowerment initiative is to blame someone for failing. Next time this issue or circumstance arises, instead of blaming, ask team members to address these two questions: “Where do we want to be?” and, “What actions do you propose will move us in that direction?”

As you follow these eleven tips, we are confident you will experience even greater team results and raise the level of motivation.

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