13 Examples Of Empowered Employees

MAY 1, 2019 BY PATRICIA LOTICH

Empowerment is a buzz term that we hear a lot about in leadership. A

culture that embraces employee empowerment, understands the role
workers have by taking care of the needs of the customers they serve.

Empowerment is defined as “the giving or delegation of power or

authority; authorization; the giving of an ability; enablement or
permission.”

Empowerment is based on the belief that employees have the ability –

and want to take on more responsibility. 

Empowerment is a way to give employees greater authority and

responsibility to take care of the needs of the customer and to provide
employees with the means for making influential decisions.

Everyone within an organization should be involved in managing

customer expectations and improving quality. 

Empowered employees understand their role in supporting the vision

by taking care of the needs of the customers they serve.

Joseph Juran (one of the early quality gurus) defined empowerment

as “conferring the right to make decisions and take action.”

13 Examples Of Employee
Empowerment
1. Management Support
As with anything that is successful in business, management support
of empowerment is critical to its success.

Top management needs to be committed to supporting an employee

empowered culture. 

This includes developing an organizational definition of empowerment

that may include well defined boundaries and management training on
how to coach empowered employees.

For instance, first-time supervisors may need to be trained on how

to support and empower employees to respond to customers.
2. Focus On The Customer
Successful organizations understand that it is the customer who pays
the bills.

A focus on this important group is what makes great organizations.

Employee empowerment should be centered on the needs of the

customer.  

When employees are empowered to make decisions that help the

customer, they are contributing to the strategy and business
objectives of the organization.

For instance, if an employee is dealing with an angry customer,

they should have the tools and authority to make things right.

3. Front line Decision Making

Front-line employees get it. They deal with the day-to-day issues and
know what customers want.

Eliminate the “let me ask my boss” barrier by handing over a level of

the decision making power to front-line employees.  

This act of delegation may be something as simple as allowing an

employee to make service recovery decisions.

For instance, the Ritz Carlton is a classic model for service recovery in
that front desk employees are authorized to make things right with a
customer up to a certain dollar amount. No questions asked.

4. Ongoing Training
A culture of empowerment requires ongoing training.

Employees need to be trained to take on these new customer focused

responsibilities.

Empowered employees may be trained in the areas of customer

service, problem-solving, negotiation, and conflict resolution skills.

The more tools you give employees the more confident they will be
with making those off the cuff decisions that impact customers.

5. Access To Data
Data is king and employees who understand company data are more
equipped to influence those critical success factors.

Empower employees by giving them access to information and data

that can be used in their decision making process.  

This information might include feedback from customer satisfaction

surveys or customer comment cards that can help make informed
customer-focused decisions.

For instance, if the comment cards share a consistent message that

customers perceive employees as being rude, sharing this information
will result in employees being more aware of how customers perceive
their interactions.

6. Managers Trust Employees

Delegating decision making can be difficult, particularly for new
managers.
However, managers need to have trust and confidence that their
employees will make the right decision. 

A manager that second-guesses an employee’s decisions can impact

an employee’s confidence in their decision making ability.

The fact is employees won’t make the right call all of the time.

When they miss the mark, take the opportunity to coach and mentor
them on a more appropriate response.

7. Boundaries Are Clearly Defined

Employees need to understand expectation and boundaries for
decision making.

They should understand what that means in terms of their authority in

any given situation.

For example, an employee may be given the authority and be

empowered to correct a customer issue up to a certain dollar amount.

8. Employees Have Mentors

Mentors benefit everyone! Employees should be assigned a mentor to
ask questions or give direction. 

Mentors should be someone who has successfully done something

that the employee is learning to do. 

For example, if an employee is learning to be empowered to perform

service recovery, their mentor should be someone who has learned
the critical thinking skills to assess different situations and come to
reasonable conclusions.
9. Employees Receive Positive Reinforcement
We all make mistakes when we first begin making decisions so it is
important to provide good coaching and positive reinforcement.

We have all been there and can relate to an employee who hesitates
to make a decision for the first time.

As employees develop their decision making skills, coach with positive

reinforcement as they maneuver the varying real life scenarios. 

10. Align Compensation With Customer Needs

It is important for employees to understand how what they do is tied to
their compensation.

Align performance expectations around customer requirements and

use the performance appraisal process to tie it to employee
compensation.

This reinforces an employee’s motivation to make the right decisions.

11. Consider Social Style

There are people who are good with people, and there are people who
are better behind the scenes.

Use social style testing and make sure you have the right personalities
doing the right jobs.

Assess social styles to match natural employee strengths with job

responsibilities.
Use the DISC or Myers Briggs assessment tool to help identify
employee strengths.

Then, put employees in roles that compliment their strengths!

12. Give Employees The Tools They Need

It is difficult for an employee to write on a piece of paper without a pen
and it is difficule for employees to do data input if their computer is
broken.

Some employees are very vocal about their needs but others will work
with aging or broken equipment and never speak up. 

Give employees the tools and equipment they need to do their job. Fix
broken equipment as soon as possible and look for ways to improve
what the employee has to work with.

A commitment to assessing changing technology and equipment

should be part of an organization’s strategy to support empowered
employees.

13. Plan For Empowerment

As they say, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Creating an environment to empower employees requires focus and

planning.

Create a plan to foster a culture of empowered employees.

Implementation should have a timeline and all aspects of the plan

should be written so everyone understands the timing and process of
implementation.