The Truth About Employee Empowerment

Employee empowerment is a critical part of running an organization and it has been a popular subject for several years. It is often confused or used interchangeably with employee engagement, but they’re very different topics, if somewhat related. Employee engagement is a way to measure if or how much your employees are engaged in their work, how much they enjoy it, take pride in it, and how much joy they get from their work.

I have heard people say that taking your pets to work, letting your employees wear whatever they want, or providing free snacks is what empowerment means. It’s not. Organizations across the globe want to empower their employees, and for good reason - organizations that have successfully empowered their employees will be more innovative, make better decisions, be more agile and quicker to respond to changes in the market, and ultimately be more profitable. However, I’m convinced that most organizations don’t have a true or complete understanding of what empowerment means, or what it truly is.

Empowerment is the giving of power. Specifically, the power to make choices. I’m not talking about letting them decide when to take their meal breaks, or letting them choose their uniform, or if they want to take their animals to work. Those are superficial and generally unimportant choices and they are not really what empowerment is. That’s the illusion of empowerment.

If you want to truly empower your employees then you need to enable them to make real and significant choices. Choices that you may not have made. Choices that you may disagree with. Choices that may end up being wrong. Empowerment is giving the freedom and power to choose to your employees. Both the freedom to choose regardless of what you would have done and the freedom from your condemnation and judgment if it ends up not working as intended or hoped.

Handing over that power and freedom to your employees is absolutely risky and should not be done flippantly. The risk could potentially sink your team or organization but the rewards far outweigh the risk and there is one simple, though not easy, way to diminish or even eliminate the risk.

A friend of mine gave an analogy recently on freedom that I thought was extremely applicable to the conversation on empowerment (I am paraphrasing her here).

Imagine two families.

The first has no fence around their backyard, and so whenever the kids go outside to play their parents say ‘Stay close to the house, don’t go too far!.’ The children, obedient, listen to their parents, and stay close to the house. Unfortunately, they never make complete use of the huge yard that their parents have. They’re wary of going too far and the consequences that may come as a result. Because of that, they never truly are able to enjoy their yard.

The second family does have a fence around their backyard and their parents say ‘Make sure that you stay inside the fence!’. Those children can fearlessly take full advantage of their backyard, exploring every inch, nook, and cranny.

Which set of kids would feel more free and comfortable playing in their yard? Which set of kids is able to take full advantage of what their parents own? Which set of kids will feel safer? I think it is self-evident that the second family and set of children would feel more free and comfortable. Why? Because of the fences that surround their property.

So we find that boundaries and guidelines actually give us the freedom that we need to be properly and fully empowered. Instead of restricting our freedom, boundaries and guidelines actually enhance it. Without those boundaries, we will be unsure of the limits we’re allowed to take and we won’t be effectively empowered. In the story above the children were empowered to use the whole backyard without fear. For us, in our organizations, it is our employees who will be given the freedom and empowerment to make daring, brave decisions free of the fear of condemnation if those decisions end up being ‘wrong’.

Clearly communicated boundaries and guidelines are what give employees the willingness to step out and embrace the empowerment that you are giving them. You need to unequivocally tell them what the boundaries of the particular yard that they are playing in are so that they can ‘play’ safely and without concern in the width and breadth of the ‘safe-zone’.

Our boundaries give us freedom, not constraints.

So if you want to truly empower your employees then you need to first make sure that they have a clear understanding of what your expectations and standards are. If they do, if they know what their boundaries, or fences, are and where they’re allowed to play that will set them free to make their own decisions and choices within the specified boundaries.

When you have internally clearly established your expectations then you need to find the right people. Hire people that are smarter than you are, that will challenge you with unique and out-of-the-box ideas, that want to grow and be better. People that want to break the status quo, push the boundaries, challenge what is assumed to be true, and find new and better ways of accomplishing your (and their) goals and getting results. Find those people, hire them, and set them free in their clearly defined boundaries and they’ll increase productivity, customer satisfaction, and ultimately greater profit.

Having said that, how do you quantify empowerment? In many ways it’s unquantifiable and that’s okay. It’s difficult if not impossible to measure empowerment. What matters is that it works and that you and your employees will be better off because of it. It will take time, and there will be mistakes made along the way, but the end result will be more than worthwhile.