Glossary of Human Resources Management and Employee Benefit Terms
Employee empowerment is a strategic process of granting employees the authority and resources to make decisions that help to take actions that contribute to individual growth and the organization altogether.
Employee empowerment means granting employees the authority to work towards their growth and development, which also helps the organization; the employees are valuable assets and possess unique knowledge, skills, and understanding.
Employee empowerment helps the employees to build confidence and gain success through it. It is done by providing the tools, training, and authority to excel in the future.
Empowering employees means creating a supportive environment to build trust and credibility. Some steps to involve in empowering employees are as follows:
1. Open and transparent communication: Establish a culture of clear communication where employees can express their ideas, thoughts, and feedback regularly and work towards the goals and strategies and perform better.
2. Delegate decision-making: Grant employees the opportunity to make decisions for the job responsibilities, maintain a clear scope of decision-making, and ensure aligning values and objectives.
3. Resources and training: Invest in the training process and programs to enhance their skills and knowledge and provide them with necessary tools and resources that help them perform their job effectively. Workshops, seminars, and courses can help to align their job responsibilities and career aspirations.
4. Foster cultural trust: The organization should foster to build trust, respect among the employees, and recognition towards the contributions and provide constructive feedback to promote growth and development. It also helps to ensure teamwork and strong relationships.
5. Sharing innovative ideas: Establish a platform where employees share their suggestions and innovations. Also, encourage experimentation and provide resources for employees to explore and implement new ideas.
6. Reinforcement and recognition: A system related to reinforcement and recognition should be implemented for the employees for their contribution towards the team or organization, which may be in any form of incentives, promotions, or verbal appraisal.
7. Encourage work-life balance: Encourage employees to balance between work-life by promoting flexibility, remote work opportunities or taking regular breaks. This helps the employees to prioritize their well-being and be productive towards their work.
8. Quote/set examples: Managers and leaders play a crucial role in empowering employees by setting examples such as open communication or building trust.
Yes, employee empowerment can lead a positive impact on reducing absenteeism in the workplace; some employee empowerment can contribute to reducing absenteeism:
1. Increased job satisfaction: Empowering employees to have a sense of autonomy, decision-making authority and ownership towards their work. This may lead to increased job satisfaction, as they feel more in control of their tasks and freedom to make meaningful contributions.
2. Sense of engagement: Empowered employees are given the opportunity to contribute towards the organizational goals, decision-making ability, and impact towards their work. This helps the employees to build engagement and build a sense of engagement with their job responsibilities.
3. Reduced burnout and stress: Empowered employees have a great sense of control over their work and decision-making power during the process; this helps to reduce the likelihood of burnout and stress, which certainly helps in contributing towards eliminating absenteeism.
4. Trust and supportive environment: A supportive environment helps employees to build trust, respect, and support with their colleagues, and they are likely to feel comfortable discussing challenges that allow others to support and address their concerns.
Employee engagement benefits organizations with various benefits:
1. Better engagement: Empowered employees create a sense of ownership and responsibility towards their work and are highly motivated to work beyond their requirements and reach organizational goals.
2. Increased job satisfaction: Increased job satisfaction is experienced when employees feel empowered and valued in their job role, and it also improves the attention span and retention of employees, which helps to maintain a stable workforce.
3. High productivity and performance: Empowered employees take pride in their contribution towards the work and are motivated to reach their best goals with higher productivity and quality of work.
4. Adaptability to change: Empowerment allows to create a culture of confidence and skills to navigate challenges and embrace new skills and opportunities that help to build a culture of resilience and continuous improvement and learning.
5. Enhance customer service: Employees with authority can make better decisions to provide proper customer service and satisfaction towards their work. They are more responsive and are able to address customer concerns efficiently and promptly.
These are short surveys that can be sent frequently to check what your employees think about an issue quickly. The survey comprises fewer questions (not more than 10) to get the information quickly. These can be administered at regular intervals (monthly/weekly/quarterly).
Having periodic, hour-long meetings for an informal chat with every team member is an excellent way to get a true sense of what’s happening with them. Since it is a safe and private conversation, it helps you get better details about an issue.
eNPS (employee Net Promoter score) is one of the simplest yet effective ways to assess your employee's opinion of your company. It includes one intriguing question that gauges loyalty. An example of eNPS questions include: How likely are you to recommend our company to others? Employees respond to the eNPS survey on a scale of 1-10, where 10 denotes they are ‘highly likely’ to recommend the company and 1 signifies they are ‘highly unlikely’ to recommend it.