You can’t build a successful business without other people. Even if you began your business as a single-person operation, at some point or another, you’ll need to begin putting together a team of employees. But of course, simply hiring employees will not, on its own, automatically push you towards success. It’s what happens once they’re on board that counts.
All too often, employers miss out on maximizing the potential of their employees by failing to give them the tools, resources, and space they need to deliver their best work. In this post, we’ll run through a few strategies for empowering your employees to be the best they can be — and that might just make all the difference to the overall success of your business.
Let them Work
Your employees have talent. It’s up to you to let them demonstrate it. There can be a temptation for bosses, especially new bosses, to micromanage their workers, but this often leads to poor results (as well as poor employee morale).
If you’ve hired correctly, then you should have a team of employees who are capable of delivering outstanding work. The best approach is to simply sit back and let them get on with it. There may be times when you need to give constructive feedback, but you’ll be surprised at how infrequently you need to intervene.
Cut Out Annoying Tasks
The best employees want to work; they don’t want to spend their time dealing with annoying, time-consuming tasks. One effective way to empower your employees to truly deliver their best work is to, wherever possible, take those tasks off their plates.
What this looks like in practice will vary from employee to employee. If a worker is losing too much time creating reports, then look at getting report automation software — it’ll not only save the employee time, but it’ll free up space for them to work on value-adding tasks. Is another employee disliking the number of meetings they’re forced to sit through? Keep meetings to a minimum — or even get rid of meetings altogether.
Listen To Them
Your employees aren’t there to do the boss’s bidding. The best workplaces always treat everyone at the organization as members of a team — and that means giving them a voice. Having an open-door policy in which your employees can feel confident bringing any and all issues to you is a tried and tested way to make them feel empowered. After all, true power comes from knowing that you have a voice and can make a difference.
Show Trust
Finally, an underrated rate to empower your employees is to simply give them trust to work the way they want to work. Some employees will work better from the office; others will work better from home. Some excel in the mornings, others hit their stride in the afternoon. So long as the work is done, it shouldn’t make a difference how, where, or when it happens. And this approach will do more than produce work; it’ll produce excellent work.
