In this video, I explore the characteristics that make a team successful and high-performing and discuss how your team can build one.
Who are empowered employees?
Empowered employees are your employees who know what they are supposed to do and what they are accountable for. More importantly, they are the ones who take the time to understand problems and their root causes, find solutions to these problems, and find ways to improve processes to make things work easier and more seamlessly. The best part about empowered employees is that they do all of these things without needing to be told—they work on developing solutions almost instinctively.
Empowered employees are motivated to go to work every day. They do not just do what is expected of them, but also the things that are needed to be done for the good of your business and your organisation in the long run.
Why do we want empowered employees?
Having empowered employees mean that you have your entire team making it their business to delight your customers and to improve business. Working with them means working with a team who cares about your customers and your business. They work together, carry out their responsibilities, resolve problems for the greater good of your business, and, most importantly, without needing your intervention.
This sounds like a very ideal situation—but it can be done!
How do you empower employees?
To understand what motivates and empowers an employee is to understand the importance of trust. An empowered employee trusts in the belief that what he or she does is important and meaningful—that it is important to him/herself, to the people he/she is working with, and to the organisation he/she is working for.
An empowered employee also trusts that his/her team and organisation as a whole is looking out for him/her—just as he/she is looking after the team and the organisation. An empowered employee is equipped with the necessary skills and tools to carry out what is expected of him to do, and that the team and the organisation trusts him well enough to know how to use these skills and tools to deliver exceptional service.
The goal then is to build trust. How do you do this?
- Hire the right people with the right attitude. Depending on the kind of industry you work in, you hire people who have the right disposition for the job. If your business requires that your team provide technical support to your clients, then you probably want team members who are patient and can remain calm to address problems and provide quick solutions.
- Train for the skills and the tasks at hand—this includes formal training, mentoring, or even shadowing.
In a previous video, I shared a simple guide on how small businesses can train employees.
- Make sure that everyone is clear about and understands the organisation’s goals, what their roles are, and what they need to do to achieve these goals.
In Disney, for example, Cast Members (that’s Disney language to mean Disney employees) go through rigorous training to ensure that everyone understands Disney’s main goal and know how each Cast Member can do to achieve this.
- Nothing proves that you trust your employees more than allowing them to take over their roles and own it. That means cutting micro-managing tendencies and allowing them leeway to solve problems and achieve goals the way they see fit—of course, within reason.
The main challenge is allowing them to make mistakes on your time. But this leads to learning from their mistakes and learning how to make things better.
Do you think that you have empowered employees in your small business? Would you like to share how you empower them? If you have a story to tell, please send me an email and let’s chat.
If you are interested to know more about what a business has to go through when facing exponential growth, you can download the first chapter of the book, ”$20K to $20 Million in 2 Years” absolutely free here. The chapter talks about the differences between a good and a great business and puts out questions that make you consider how you can turn your business from good to great.
