Any business owner or manager knows that in order to be successful, they have to have trust in those below them. This goes at all levels, from trusting the hired janitor to keep the premises in good condition, to believing your customer support representatives are professional enough to give your enterprise a good reputation, and even handle customer complaints correctly.
Yet it’s impossible to trust staff without giving them the tools to help accomplish their tasks and responsibilities. After all, if you scupper them at the first opportunity, how can you expect them to excel? Moreover, the more empowerment and tools you can put into their hands through delegation and good logistical planning, the better the results they provide you with will be.
In this post, then, we’ll discuss how to correctly empower the skillset of those working under you. We hope this advice can help you take some of the hard, piercing difficulty of people management and instead give your staff what they need to work autonomously. With that in mind, please consider how to empower the skillsets of those you’re responsible for managing:
Tangible, Dedicated Resources
The modern enterprise has been configured to get the most out of staff productivity while also empowering their wellbeing. The truth is that you can’t have one without the other. That’s why a HR department should function as much more than the social enforcement arm of a corporation, it should allow for your staff to raise confidential complaints, to have their needs heard, to privately manage their personal affairs if they influence their work, and to provide an open door policy any time.
But it’s not just HR. Training programs like workshops and seminars, enrolling staff in industry newsletters about your local scene, and even running mentorship or coaching programs can be a major advantage. This way, you help them continually develop and never stagnate under your watch. This might sound like a big ask, but if this process is baked into your usual processes, you’re sure to prosper.
Robust Utilities
Staff are unlikely to deliver value if the equipment and tools they’re expected to flourish with are not up to the task. For example, if running a textiles company then it’s important to equip your staff with the best and most reliable Janome HD5000 sewing machine equipment, as it’s easy to maintain, productive to use, and accessible for many.
Robust utilities like smartphones, laptops, and tablets can ensure your staff are always connected and willing to respond when they can. Utilities may be as simple as providing simple desk space instead of hot desking around the office for years and years.
Never forget the utilities that allow your staff to improve their well-being also, after all, we’ve established that you can’t enjoy the fruits of productivity without happy, engaged, and interested staff willing to work hard.
Good kitchen facilities, clean and maintained restrooms, and sometimes even rooms for privacy, like spaces where new mothers or parents with children can properly manage their affairs can be ideal. This way, you provide dignity, comfort and appropriate boundaries to staff, which automatically helps motivate them to do well in your firm.
Self-Directed Learning
It may seem as though the only training you can deliver to your staff comes through the form of direct education, seminars and workshops as we discussed above. That’s not all there should be to that arrangement.
For example, self-directed learning, be that a stipend you can allow staff to enroll on certain part-time courses, or the ability to pay for your staff to take on first aid courses, can help you inspire them to better themselves outside of work.
It’s important that this is entirely optional and it won’t interfere with promotional prospects, because after all, not all staff can dedicate hours of free time to working on more and better qualifications. But if you put the system in place for those who can use it, well, you may have invested into the very definition of a self-appreciating asset, only this time it’s evidenced in your staff capabilities.
A Culture Of Collaboration
No person is an island, so they say, and that’s important to note in organizations was well. Without a culture of collaboration, it’s easy to see your staff take on larger duties all by themselves, when the ability to remain steadfast, focused and open to feedback could have made a big difference.
To begin with, you need to provide the right social space for collaboration. That might involve an open plan office where chairs can easily be found and pulled up to one another’s terminal station, or meeting rooms can be booked throughout your building with space.
Collaboration inspires staff to work on projects together, to ask for advice from their superiors, and to do so with confidence knowing that this only empowers and doesn’t detract from their work. A culture of healthy and supportive feedback is also important here, and we can adopt that through leading by example, and asking for the kind of anonymous staff feedback that your company needs to retain its internal insight.
Placement Opportunities
Sure, it’s uncommon for a business to actl ike a university, exchanging staff members with other enterprises from abroad to give both an interesting experience.
That said, a placement opportunity can work wonders if you manage it right. It could be that a staff member has the chance to train for a month in an industry-leading corporation, or they can be trusted to help mount your new office plans abroad.
The more opportunities you offer to staff, the more they’re likely to take the bull by the horns, and there’s nothing quite as effective and productive as on-the-job training in a new environment. You may be surprised just how well this works if you trust your staff to represent you correctly.
With this advice, you’re sure to empower the skills of those working under you. We wish your employees and your management, all the luck to get this momentum going.