“I hate the word empowerment.” These words headed an article I read a little while ago somewhere. I don’t remember where or who wrote this, but this concept was puzzling to me and stuck in my mind.
The Cambridge Dictionary gives two definitions of the verb ‘to empower’:
- to encourage and support the ability to do something
- to give someone official or legal authority, the freedom or confidence to do something
I seem to remember that it was the word ‘give’, which the author had an issue with; I am paraphrasing, but the article stated that in empowering their teams, managers thought these individuals needed their permission in order to do something. It was also pointed out that it was not for the team leader to ‘give’ authority to employees, as if the action of ‘giving’ was likened to a king bestowing a gift or praise upon one of his inferior subjects.
The author highlighted their point with a quote from American Psychologist Frederick Herzberg “It’s the job of the manager not to light the fire of motivation, but to create an environment to let each person’s personal spark of motivation blaze.”
As it happens, I completely agree with this quote, but in my opinion, it doesn’t mean that managers and team leaders cannot empower their teams to achieve this. This is just a point of semantics.
‘Empowerment’ is not a dirty word; it is indeed everything that team leaders can or rather should do to ‘create an environment to let each person’s personal spark of motivation blaze’.
When an employee is empowered, they have the ability and the confidence to accomplish anything they want. For me, employee empowerment refers to the ways in which businesses provide their employees with everything they need to succeed; far more than just giving them the tools and resources they need.
At Valentines Learning, we approach empowerment in 12 ways:
- Really knowing your teams and understanding what makes them tick and enthuse them
- Treating each one of them with respect, kindness and placidity
- Giving employees a voice, ensuring you listen effectively to their feedback, take it seriously and act upon it
- Communicating clearly your vision, yours and your team’s goals, and what expectations you have of your team
- Ensuring employees have more autonomy in their work, more decision-making opportunities to give them a sense of responsibility
- Accepting and welcoming your teams’ opposing point of views and ideas instead of shutting them down
- Encouraging your employees to bring new ideas and suggestions, and being open to them
- Giving your teams tasks that are challenging and rewarding
- Ensuring you value your teams and giving them a sense of belonging so that they thrive
- Nurture and allow them to grow, develop and progress, even if this means that they will eventually fly out of the nest
- Praising and recognising your teams regularly to increase their engagement
- Monitoring their performance consistently and providing them with corrective coaching to increase their confidence in their own abilities
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Why should you ensure you do all these things? What’s in it for you and your business? Remember, a business is only as good as its people. And investing in and empowering your teams is even more essential in the hospitality industry as you are providing a service; your people are your most precious assets.
“People want guidance, not rhetoric. They need to know what the plan of action is and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and the authority to act on it.”
Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks Coffee Company
So, empowering employees comes down to creating a company culture that teams feel totally involved in and love. When teams work in a trusting nurturing environment, they are happy and engaged and deliver better results, which in turn makes customers happy. The more you are able to empower your employees, the better your customer service and your overall customer experience will be, resulting in return business and positive word of mouth. So, it’s a win-win scenario.
We run courses, which can help you succeed in empowering your teams; if you would like to know more, contact us now.
I’ll leave you with a final quote to ponder on, from Tony Hsieh, former CEO of the online shoe and clothing company Zappos: “Businesses often forget about the culture and ultimately they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.”
