How can organizations empower their workforce?

Hi Caty - thanks for inviting answers to this interesting question.

Despite the last ten years of "fad" around the concept of engagement, there are still many managers who, while giving lip service to the concept of empowerment and engagement, do not understand what it really means, or what the payoff for achieving it would be. As a consequence, there is not a high level of empowerment in their organizations. We might say that they are trapped in a non-optimum equilibrium, in which, even if they are producing business results they regard as acceptable, they are underutilizing the potential of their workforce and not contributing to the individual growth of their employees as they might be.

So, one area where a lot of work is needed is getting management decision-makers to truly understand what these concepts mean, what is really required to achieve a high level of empowerment in an organization, and what the payoff of having an empowered organization can be. There are few organization development efforts focused on achieving this understanding among managers – this would be a fruitful area for human resource executives to consider.

• To begin with, management decision-makers need to understand that "engagement" does not mean conducting a survey, and using a pareto analysis to identify and then address the top item each year. An entire industry has been spawned in the last decade to install such programs. This has enabled management to say they have an "engagement program," which looks good in an annual report, but, unfortunately, in reality does little to truly empower a workforce.

• I would recommend that, if a management team really wants to improve empowerment in its organization, that it focus on those situations where it is very clear how empowerment can produce superior results. Once this foot gets firmly planted on the first rung of the ladder, and people start to see improved results, it will provide a foundation to spread empowerment practices more broadly.

Here’s a good area to consider: One broad category where employee empowerment is essential to producing superior results is where independent decision-making is required to deliver what the customer/situation demands. One response above points out the example of the U.S. Coast Guard, where the split-second, independently-made decision of the lowest grade seaman may be what saves the day. Another example is the difference in a customer service operation where the front-line employee is empowered to "do what it takes" to satisfy the customer, vs. the much more common situation where such matters are handled through a bureaucratic, automated response system (even if an actual human is communicating). An example of the latter is the replacement of the community banker with the FICO score.

Creating empowerment in this environment rests on TRUST - trust in the seaman, trust in the front-line employee, trust in the training, trust in the customer. Developing an organization that embodies trust in this manner takes a tremendous amount of effort - effort in selection, effort in training, effort in supporting the risk-takers who make those independent decisions - when they don't turn out as expected. Management must really make a strong commitment for this level of trust to emerge in an organization.

This is a complex subject that reaches deep into personal and interpersonal beliefs and behaviors. It is not easy to achieve a truly empowered organization. However, there is great potential upside to be unlocked for an organization that begins down this path.

This isn't a bad question - but it implies that it's all organisational - that employees cannot empower themselves.

Very early in my career I worked for an organisation that was hideously rule bound, and strictly punitive. Staff turnover was huge and the place was generally an unhappy environment.

I didn't expect the organisation to change in an instant (and it certainly didn't) - so I empowered myself. I familiarised myself with the actual profit mechanics of the business, and then began tearing a page out of the rule book every other day.

Sure I bumped heads at first, but I also got promoted 7 times in 2 years (including a double bump after going to an interview for a management role where I gave a presentation on why I didn't want the role). In the interim I managed to remove a good 80% of the stupidity that disempowered others along the way (which included - and I kid you not - rubbish like making people hold their hands up and ask to go to the toilet, and docking half a month's bonus for being a minute late).

"Empowerment" is an extremely vague concept - but great performing employees can empower themselves to deliver change that empowers others.

I agree with many that surveys are not the answer - but I suspect most management teams aren't going to change without a bit of a fight, and consultants aren't usually the people that will affect that change.

It has to come from within and that means employees who engage themselves, and empower themselves.

Get Ready to Engage
Many leading organizations are talking about improving employee engagement. We know. We’re helping them do it…every day. Simply put, employee engagement (EE) is the single most powerful strategy your organization can embrace to enhance its long-term success and resilience.

Clarity is the Key
We believe that employee engagement is the level of energy, focus, and emotional commitment that your managers and associates feel and demonstrate toward your organization. It is different than employee satisfaction and is, by far, the best indicator of how likely your best employees plan to stay with you. It is also an exceptionally strong predictor of overall organizational effectiveness, productivity and employee commitment.

How We’re Different
Edge Learning is one of the only companies equipped not only to measure employee engagement for your organization, but also help you improve it. Our research database already includes almost 1 million employee survey responses and our EE training has been delivered to over 500,000 leaders, managers and employees…with proven results.

Our Approach to Engaging Your People
Our research shows that the biggest factor impacting employee willingness to engage is the degree to which they feel valued. But their ability to engage requires more. It requires a “toolkit” of personal competencies that Edge Learning delivers better than anyone. Our award-winning IHE process helps your associates and managers develop the tools for increasing adaptability, personal accountability, self-efficacy and a more positive disposition.

Caty, empowering a workforce is easy to do; have all executives, managers, and supervisors do their jobs well all of the time. The hard part is getting the executives to do their jobs well, the next hardest part is getting managers to do their jobs well, followed by supervisors doing their jobs well. Employees will be doing their jobs well if everyone above them is doing their jobs well. Look out, employee engagement is about to take hold. Some employers want to skip the executives, managers and supervisor parts and go right to the employees, but that is not how employees get engaged.

Hello Rachel:

Excellent message but then again I agree with you. You make a good case for hiring people who will become engaged if they are treated well, managed effectively and rewarded fairly. We are not all fortunate enough to fit all jobs we may be hired to perform.

To truly empower them they must by into the core values and goals of the organisation. If beliefs are shared whatever they may be then people work with their blood, sweat and tears and not just for the finacial rewards.

Look at charitable orgnsaiations where they work for little or no money. A large part of their workforce may be volunteers. Maybe they are there for work experience or maybe they have bought into the concept and goals of the orgnsisation. There is a feel good factor associated in such circumstances that is difficult to quantify in monetary terms.

Tapping into the core values and visions, and ensuring you are all going in the same clear direction is the key in my view.

What do you think?

Take a look at the leadership principles of the US Coast Guard. They empower their members, whether a Seaman Apprentice or a seasoned mid-grade Officer to make decisions.

http://www.drtomlifvendahl.com/Leadershipcompetencies.pdf

Wendy, your response is one the best I have read on empowerment. Employees can be empowered but not engaged which is not as good empowered and engaged.

Empowering employees is about preparing employees to make good decisions whereas engagement is about getting the CEO, managers and supervisors to do their jobs well all of the time and under all conditions. In other words, inappropriate behaviors by the CEO, managers and supervisor must become a thing of the past.

Thanks, Bob. Many executives do not understand this distinction, and have been seduced by the "engagement survey" approach into thinking they have it covered.

As professionals interested in human potential, this area is one of the richest veins in which we can make a difference.

Nik - totally agree with you that this is something employees must embrace, if it is ever to happen at all. The only thing that management can do is create an environment that supports empowerment or blocks it - ultimately empowerment can only come from within each individual.

Leadership is something else that is not confined to "managers." The strongest organizations are ones in which everyone seems him or herself as a leader. In your case, your leadership in an unsupportive environment was able to transform it - fantastic!

Caty - the 1st step is that employers must WANT to empower their workforce and not just make it some new trend HR program.

Empowerment means giving up control in order to see amazing gains. It works great if people are given "permission" to be empowered. Too many managers struggle with this in companies that truly do want to have engaged, empowered staff.

My recommendation is that you model the behavior yourself if you want it to happen. Start within your department and show that it works. Then show Sr. Management a success story and allow them to set the trend for the company. If Sr. Management is challenged by the strength of empowered employees, it will fail.

It shouldn't !! I work for a company that looks for empowered staff and it's amazing what occurs !!

Empowered employees aren't necessarily engaged employees, although it helps. I'm a little confused reading several of the posts that suggests empowerment is engagement, that's just not the case.

Bob suggested that empowerment is about preparing employees to make good decisions, that's only partially true, it's about allowing employees to make certain decisions, we never teach anyone how to make optimal decisions, even leaders.

Thushara suggests that you have to buy into the organizationals core values to be empowered, I've seen it happen both ways, so I don't necessarily believe that this has to be the case, but I would agree that it helps immenseley. Bob also suggested that empowerment is easy to do, I beg to differ. The process requires a great deal of investment in time, commitment, communication and training. Only a very small percentage of organizations empower their employees, so if it was easy to do, wouldn't we all be doing it.

Paul Meshanko suggests that empowerment is about engagement, again, it's only one small part of the engagement process, you have to have people and operational excellence existing within your organization before you can move toward engagement and several other processes in place.

Nik indicated that empowerment is a vague concept, I beg to differ, there is nothing vague about it, however, the parameters for engagement must be clearly defined or else there will be chaos. The Ritz Carlton is one of several organizations that have been very successful with empowering their employees.

Steve Brown suggested that empowerment is giving up control, I don't believe that's the case at all.

I'm assuming that everyone is defining empowerment the same way, no one has attempted a definition so I'll give it a shot. When people refer to "empowerment" in the workplace, they generally mean the concept of arming workers with the knowledge and resources to take control of their own life and make decisions for customers without having to involve a supervisor or manager.

Empowerment is one of the many customer system improvement systems. as is problem solving, communication, team work and customer focus.

Hi John - the premise of Caty's question was that empowerment leads to engagement leads to business results. That’s why the two are being discussed together in this forum. The concepts of empowerment and engagement are very intertwined in current U.S. organizational thinking, but, as you point out, they are not the same thing. You raise the excellent question of whether empowerment is a requisite for engagement – that’s another very interesting question.

An empowered workforce will tend to become disengaged if the climate in the organization no longer supports empowered behaviors – or worse – punishes them. This has happened in organizations when senior executive changes are made; in fact, it is not uncommon. We are all familiar with companies where this pendulum has swung in both directions. If unchecked, this cycle away from supporting empowerment will either lead to the empowered workers exiting (often the best leave first), or, if no good exit paths exist (such as in the current jobless recovery) staying, but going underground. It is less likely that they would change to un-empowered behaviors, at least not easily. We might debate how this sequence would work out over time. Normally, though, quite a few become disgruntled, and ultimately may be forced out by the new management (unless it’s been already replaced!). Others become alienated. Generally the performance of the organization declines (much to the surprise of the new management, who generally think they are just “tightening things up” to improve performance).

Do people think you can have, in today’s U.S. private sector business climate (important to be specific), a truly engaged workforce that is not empowered? What do others think?

Wendi,
Thank you for your reply, I should have made an initial comment in response to Caty's post about differentiating between empowerment and engagement.

You indicated in your response that "an empowered workforce will tend to becomes disengaged if the climate in the organization no longer supports empowered behaviors."
As an idea or a general statement, that may be true, however, you are isolating one process that is intertwined with several to drive engagement, so I"m not certain that your statement is true, but I'm not suggesting that it isn't, we would need to see data to support this type of thinking.

On the reverse side, you can have an engaged organization without empowerment, there are many examples of this in the USA across all industries. The issue I have is the weight that you've placed on the importance of empowerment, it's unsubstantiated. I've studied hundreds of climate surveys over the years, empowerment was never on the radar screen, but communication, work life balance and trust were in the top percentile.
This concept of empowerment has never really been embraced in this country, why, it requires a great deal of effort and only a few are willing to invest the time and energy.

I live in Las Vegas, home of Zappos. Everyone wants to have a Zappo's culture but only a handful are willing to do what is required.

Hi John -

Perhaps the real issue here is how the concept of "engagement" is defined. It is very clear, as you point out, that there are many companies where engagement is rated high in climate surveys, and the workforce would not be considered "empowered" in the sense we are both describing. Could not agree more. If you look at the "engagement" metric in these surveys, you will often not see a strong focus on empowerment-related questions - surveys report the data you ask about.

In any event, we seem to agree that empowerment and engagement are not the same thing, as understood in the U.S. today.

I believe that, despite the difficulties of creating an empowered organization, there is more cheese down this tunnel to help improve bottom line business results than is generally understood - or at least acted on - in the U.S. private sector business community.

Hey Wendy,

Thanks for keeping the conversation going, I very much enjoy the sharing. I agree with you about more cheese down this tunnel to help improve bottom line results.

In most cases it is not the company that empowers their employees it is managers who empower the people who work for them.

For me it comes down to three things: (1) clear expectations, (2) tools needed to be successful, and (3) ample resources. If an employee has an understanding of what is expected of them and the tools and resources... turns out, they generally hit the goal.

Hi Mel, I agree that it is the managers responsibility to empower their employees; however, often times you run into managers that just do not practice this. The few times that you see a manager empower their employee seems to be during yearly evaluations or when it's their turn to be evaluated as a manager, and usually he/she want a good review, as most would. I believe that there are managers who just don't know how to embrace empowerment. They can lead and delegate very effectively; however empowerment I feel is driven from within and a person's own individual belief system. You either have it or you don't. Often times, employees lose their drive to perform at their fullest potential if there is little or no empowerment coming from the powers that be. This leads to underutilization for employees that have skills that are not being recognized, which could later lower employee morale in some areas of the company. I think sometimes a company can even foster a culture where the perception demonstrates there is little or no empowerment for their employees. At the start of employment the vision is sold as "we empower" but once a person has been there for awhile, he/she see's the organization in a different light. Perception is huge but what an individual perceives becomes their own personal reality.

Hi Mel, I agree that it is the managers responsibility to empower their employees; however, often times you run into managers that just do not practice this. The few times that you see a manager empower their employee seems to be during yearly evaluations or when it's their turn to be evaluated as a manager, and usually he/she want a good review, as most would. I believe that there are managers who just don't know how to embrace empowerment. They can lead and delegate very effectively; however empowerment I feel is driven from within and a person's own individual belief system. You either have it or you don't. Often times, employees lose their drive to perform at their fullest potential if there is little or no empowerment coming from the powers that be. This leads to underutilization for employees that have skills that are not being recognized, which could later lower employee morale in some areas of the company. I think sometimes a company can even foster a culture where the perception demonstrates there is little or no empowerment for their employees. At the start of employment the vision is sold as "we empower" but once a person has been there for awhile, he/she see's the organization in a different light. Perception is huge but what an individual perceives becomes their own personal reality.

@ Marlene
Empowerment is a process, one that's driven by the organization and typically a part of the culture. I can't agree with your statement about either having it or not having it, it's not a talent, it's a learned skill and more importantly a process, a systematic way of doing business.
I don't believe that there is necessarily a relationship between drive and empowerment, many individuals who have passion and drive aren't affected by their ability to be empowered, they learn to navigate around the culture.
I would agree with you that some organizations aren't clear about what they intend or mean when they tell their employees that they are empowered, typically those organizations see empowerment as the flavor of the month.

One issue is how an individual sees him/herself - am I empowered? Different individuals are going to be more or less influenced in self-perception by the organization environment.

It seems that the main point of this discussion is - what can management do to enhance the "empowerment quotient" of an organization.

The behavior of management can make a significant difference; structures, processes, evaluation and reward systems - all these do, or do not, contribute to making the environment in an organization more encouraging and supportive to empowered behaviors in organization members.

Thanks John and Wendy for both your insights. I am certainly a person who likes to look at the glass half full. I certainly agree that a person who has passion should not be moved by whether or not they are empowered; however as Wendy mentioned the behavior of management can make a difference. There just seems to be a disconnect of how empowerment is viewed and defined these days. I must say the dialogue in this forum has been rather interesting.

Hello again John, "Bob suggested that empowerment is about preparing employees to make good decisions, that's only partially true, it's about allowing employees to make certain decisions, we never teach anyone how to make optimal decisions, even leaders." Good decisions does not mean optimal decisions but is does mean not making bad decisions.

Employers that do not train their employees to make good decisions have no one but themselves to blame when employees make bad decisions thus proving the concept unworkable. Too many managers take the easy way out--they do not bother to learn how to correctly implement a management concept such as employee empowerment. Telling an employee to make decisions is silly unless the employee knows what decisions to make and what decisions not to make and if he does make a decision he needs to know how to make a good decision. This wisdom does not come easy or cheap.

Bob,
Here's the problem, they don't know how to teach employees to make good decisions because no one has taught them. We teach people how to solve problems, but not make decisions. It's real one of the few if not only competency that hasn't been addressed. For most of us it;s trial and error or gut feel, neither of which is effective.

John, I spent six years in undergraduate and graduate school to learn how to make good engineering decisions. I spent 18 months in an Executive MBA program to learn how to make good management and business decisions. The problem as you describe it is that management has the wrong people in management. Employers that rely on trial and error get what they deserve.

One of my favorite topics - decision-making. Solving problems EFFECTIVELY requires excellent decision-making skills, so they are highly related in developing organization effectiveness.

The main issue I see that degrades effective decision-making in contemporary U.S. business life is that the priority is usually on taking quick action; this has become equated, in the minds of many, with "decisiveness." Decisiveness is an attribute usually heavily weighted in assessing leadership effectiveness, at least in the U.S., so we have trained an entire generation of U.S. business leaders in this way, by rewarding this particular behavior.

What many do not realize is what level of preparation is required to be able to effectively respond to complex decision scenarios quickly - and, they and their organizations have not done this preparation. The focus is on the surface behavior, instead of a long-term, sustainable decision-making capability and process that makes effective quick response work. This goes back to something brought up earlier in this discussion, regarding the extensive training in the military - designed to enable effective - and quick - decision-making. The "quick fix it" approach that is not backed up by such a capability often does produce a high level of immediate reward for the "problem-solver" - as misguided, and later proved wrong - as the decisions may be. By the time the consequences are realized the organization has usually changed; there is usually no accountability for - or learning from - the mistakes, since there is someone new in place to deal with it. And, the cycle then repeats itself.

This is a rich area for discussion. It is really a different topic than the original empowerment/engagement question initially asked, although highly related, I agree.

Wendy,
Just so that we are clear and I believe we are, problem solving and decision making are two separate processes. Problem solving is unique to the problem, decision making is unique to the person, it's about judgment. My company has partnered with Dr. Errol Wirshingle, author of, "The Art Of Decision Making". The real issue at hand is that most individuals don't have a process. When you study decision making there are two fields of thought, on one side you have mathematicians who talk about neural networks and fuzzy logic, on the other side your have neurobiologists and behavioral scientists who focus on the brain and human behavior. These approaches are beyond the reach of industry professionals.
One of the challenges in the process has to do with the amount of information that people have to deal with when they make decisions.
Business objects magazine conducted a decision making survey in 2004, here are the results:
*88% confessed – to using gut-feelings
*91% admitted – not enough thinking time
*62% said – not enough information
*93% said – no formal training
The other common mistake that is made is that often times leaders will defer to experts in a field to make decisions. Experts are great in helping solve problems, not in making decisions. We have hundreds of examples of this and the best example of this is of course our own government. The President may ask his team of advisors for solutions but at the end of the day, he makes the decision.

When making a decision you begin with an objective and if the objective isn't right, the decision will be wrong. Let me give you an example. During the Vietnam War, the army decided that their objective was to teach their military to be marksmen. The result was that the military's rate of kill was very poor When they changed their objective from training marksman to killing the enemy, their kill rate rose signficantly(sorry for the example, I'm not advocating killing anyone). If you don't have the right objective. you won't get the optimal result. Secondly you have to deal with criteria or candidates. When making a decision we always recommend at least 8 but not more than 12 criteria, and the criteria is weighted. For examples if you were going to buy a car, you would ask yourself, what is most important to me in the car purchase, you might say:
*Cost
*Safety
*Fuel Savings
*Reliability
*Repair Cost
You would then apply a weight to each criteria. You then need a process that will help you compare one car against another, we use the AHP(Analytic Heirarchy Process) and the pairwise technique. You only compare two cars at a time.
You need a process to help you make the final decision and we have a seven step approach that is very effective:

Clearly define your objective…
Identify all relevant criteria…
Conduct criteria segregation…
Identify all available candidates/options..
Gather information (Judgment table)…
Assign weights to obligatory criteria…
Rank candidates

On a final note, let me ask you this: Let's say we were to flip a coin. If it's heads, I pay you a thousand dollars, if it's tales, you pay me $500. How many times would you flip the coin with me, once, twice,or three times.

Empowerment is an interesting and often overused word. Like motivation, I believe that we can neither empower or motivate anyone. These are both internal choices for the individual. What we can do is create an environment in which people can choose to be empowered and motivated. Trying to motivate the unmotivated or empower someone who simply is not interested in taking personal responsibility will break the back of any manager or executive.

For more information on this subject, see our "Creating The Best Place To Work" at:

http://www.glowan.com/learning_programs/best_place_to_work.php

@ John

I have to disagree with you John, I've seen people being motivated and empowered my entire life. I have hundreds of personal examples of where I've been able to motivate individuals based on my understanding of what is or was important to them.
I agree that they are internal choices, but we can effect the choices that they make. It's very rare for a person not to want to be empowered and have control over their own life.

Hi John, does "I've seen people being motivated and empowered my entire life" mean that everyone gets motivated and empowered by the same things or does it mean you have seen some people become motivated and empowered by different things?

Perhaps you are seeing the benefit of not demotivating employees so that some people can be motivated by their jobs? In other words, some people get motivated and empowered when their employers remove the needless roadblocks to self-motivation.

Hey Bob, I was responding to John Anderson who suggested that we can't empower or motivate people, they have to do it themselves.
I'm suggesting that's not true or the case.

Hello John, unless an employer can motivate and empower all their employees by fiat there is something else going on and that something else is extremely important. Saying that you have seen motivated and empowered people all you life is not the same as saying all employees can be motivated and empowered by their employer. Why can't all employers motivate and empower all their employees?

We've discussed so many interesting aspects of this question. It seems to me that the basic thread of the discussion is different views of what part of a creating an empowered workforce lies is in the hands of employees and what part of creating an empowered workforce lies in the hands of management.

What seems in agreement is that both employees and management play a critical role in achieving the result of an empowered workforce. Without employees who choose to engage in an empowered manner, management will find it difficult to establish such an environment, which will limit the effectiveness of their attempts. Without management that supports empowered behaviors, employees will find the environment unsupportive of their desire to behave in an empowered manner, which will limit the effectiveness of these behaviors.

As many of us have already commented, management must make a major commitment of time and effort to establish an environment that is conducive to both encouraging and supporting empowered behaviors by employees.

John P, you have mentioned your many experiences where this type of result has been achieved. I am curious - are there some common denominators that characterize orgranizations where you have seen these efforts by management be highly successful?

I worked for a casual dining organization that was very progressive. They leadership team made a commitment to embrace empowerment and discussed what it was important, and more importantly understood that the process would take time. They also recognized that empowerment was not only a process but now going to be infused into the culture, it was to become part of their DNA. To me this was one of the most critical steps in the process,it gave clarity to the why.

They then proceeded to create a communication strategy that was filtered throughout the organization, but not all at the same time. They took the time to have detailed discussions with each level of management, focusing on the why and the what's in it for me, the goal was buy in at every level.

Once the communication was complete, the training began, again, one level at a time. They also allowed for some practice time providing each level to understand their role in empowerment, practice empowerment and then finally experience the benefits, this again solidified the why.

When the training was released to the employees, a great deal of time, care and patience was taken. Employees were assigned a maximum dollar spend and were provide with some parameters with respect to the process.

The program took several months, one step at a time. I've seen the same program fail miserably on several occasions, for one reason only, lack of commitment.