Empowering Employees to Make Decisions

Empowering Employees to Make DecisionsEmpowering Employees to Make DecisionsEmpowerment is a panacea for many organization illswhen empowerment is implemented with care. People in organizations say they want empowermentand often, they mean it when they say it. Managers say they want employee empowermentand often, they mean it, too. Organizations that are committed to the ongoing growth of their employeesrecognize employee empowerment as one of their most important strategic methods to motivate employees. Employee empowerment is also a key strategy to enable people who have the need, the answers, and the knowledge, to make decisions about how to best serve customers. If employee empowerment is such a great tool and strategy for accomplishing work, customer service, and employee motivation, how come employee empowerment is so rarely implemented effectively? Here are the top ten reasons why employee empowerment fails. Why Employee Empowerment Fails Managers pay lip service to employ ee empowerment, but do notlage really believe in its power. As with all management and business buzzwords, employee empowerment can seem like a good thing to do. After all, well-respected management books and consultants recommend that you empower employees. When you empower employees, they grow their skills and your organization benefits from their empowerment. Right. Employees know when you are serious about employee empowerment and when you understand and walk your talk. Half-hearted or unbelievable employee empowerment efforts will fail. Managers Dont Understand the Concept of Employee Empowerment Managers dont really understand what employee empowerment means. They have a vague notion that employee empowerment means you start a few teams that address workplace employee morale or safety issues. You ask people what they think about something at a meeting. You allow employees to help plan the company picnic. Wrong. Employee empowerment is a philosophy or strategy that enables peop le to make decisions about how to do their jobs. Managers Fail to Set Boundaries for Empowered Employees Managers fail to establish boundaries for employee empowerment. In your absence, what decisions can be made by staff members? What decisions can employees make day-by-day that they do not need to have permission or oversight to make? These boundaries must be defined or employee empowerment efforts fail. Managers Micromanage Empowered Employees Managers have defined the decision-making authority and boundaries with staff, but then micromanage the work of employees. This is usually because managers dont trust staff to make good decisions. Staff members know this and either craftily make decisions on their own and hide their results, or they come to you for everything because they dont know what they really can control. One HR manager in a small manufacturing company added ten days to the company hiring process because he required that his HR staff obtain his signature at certain mi lestones during the hiring process. The paperwork was buried on his desk for days, but staff did not proceed without his signature. His lack of trust made employee empowerment a joke. Do employees make mistakes? Certainly, and they also correct mistakes and learn from them, but fooling them about their boundaries is worse. Managers Second Guess Empowered Employee Decisions You second guess the decisions of employees you have given the authority to make a decision. You can help staff make good decisions by coaching, training, and providing necessary information. You can even model good decision making, But, what you cannot do, unless a serious complication will result, is undermine or change the decision you had empowered a staff person to make. Teach the employee to make a better decision next time. But dont undermine their faith in their personal competence and in your trust, support, and approbation. You discourage employee empowerment for the future. Managers Fail to Provide a St rategic Framework Managers need to provide growth and challenging opportunities and goals that employees can aim for and achieve. Failure to provide a strategic framework, in which decisions have a compass and success measurements, imperils the opportunity for empowered behavior. Employees need direction to know how to practice empowerment. Managers Fail to Provide Access to Needed Information If managers fail to provide the information and access to information, training, and learning opportunities needed for staff to make good decisions, dont complain when employee empowerment efforts fall short. The organization has the responsibility to create a work environment that helps foster the ability and desire of employees to act in empowered ways. Information is the key to successful employee empowerment. Managers Abdicate Responsibility for Decisions Managers abdicate all responsibility and accountability for decision making. When reporting staff is blamed or punished for failures, mi stakes, and less than optimum results, your employees will flee from employee empowerment. Or, theyll publicly identify reasons why failure was your fault, or his fault, or the other teams fault. Fail to support decisions publicly and stand behind your employees and makes staff feel deserted. You can make employee empowerment fail in sixty seconds. This is absolutely guaranteed. Managers Fail to Remove Barriers Allow barriers to impede the ability of staff members to practice empowered behavior. The work organization has the responsibility to remove barriers that limit the ability of staff to act in empowered ways. These barriers can include time, tools, training, access to meetings and teams, financial resources, support from other staff members, and effective coaching. Employees Want Praise, Recognition, and Compensation When employees feel under-compensated, under-titled for the responsibilities they take on, under-noticed, under-praised, and under-appreciated, dont expect result s from employee empowerment. Employees must feel that their basic needs are met for employees to give you their discretionary energy, the extra effort that people voluntarily invest in work. If you dole out more responsibility than their positions should require and cause employees to feel overworked or underpaid for the work expected, you need to make adjustments. People want empowerment, but they dont want you to take advantage of them, nor do they want to feel as if the organization is taking advantage of them. Ensure that the responsibilities match the job, that the person is doing the job in the job descriptionor change it. Fail to Educate Employees About What Empowerment Really Means Employees often believe that someone, usually the manager, has to bestow employee empowerment upon the people who report to him. Consequently, the reporting staff members wait for the bestowing of empowerment, and the manager asks why people wont act in empowered ways. You need to educate your emp loyees about what empowerment really means. Educate them also about these ten ways in which managers undermine employee empowerment. Youre smart to ask them to let you know if you exhibit any of these ten behaviors that impede their empowerment. Think about employee empowerment, not as something a manager bestows on employees, but rather as a philosophy and a strategy to help people develop their talents, skills, and decision-making competency. This growth helps employees feel competent, capable, and successful. Competent, capable, successful people best serve your organization. Avoid these ten employee empowerment traps. Dont let employee empowerment fail in your organization. Employee empowerment is so marvelous when it succeeds.