Why You Need To Empower Your Employees - By Lisa Ballinger

Empowering your employees can seem like a very risky venture - will they misuse this power? What will they do? Will the consequences be disastrous? Remember, your people are the most important asset you have and giving them the initiative can far outweigh the negative.

The risk of not empowering your employees is this: failure to satisfy customers. This is a huge risk and letting your employees take initiative so they can satisfy their customers is well worth the effort.

I had an example of this the other day where the employee wasn't able to meet my request, which was simple really, I wanted a shake instead of a coke but he said he wasn't allowed to do it. Now if this was purely a pricing problem or the shake maker wasn't working I would be ok with that but I offered to pay the difference and there wouldn't have been a problem getting it on its own. The point of all this was rules had been set in place for him that were so restricting that he wasn't able to fully satisfy his customers.

So how do you let your employees show initiative without having disastrous consequences? Use clearly defined KPI's to link their performance to customer service as well as costs of the department. This way they are clearly aware that they can take initiative but that there performance is also linked to keeping costs down as well. This is the most efficient method. Combine this with regular discussions with employees and regular reviews of problems and ideas that can be solved together can assist in this process as well.

Even though the process of empowering your employees can be scary it is well worth the risk. They are, afterall, the face of your organisation and deserve to be given the power to represent you in the best way they know how, keeping them in check by tying their performance to the indicators that you require of them

About Author:

Lisa has worked as an accountant in both large and small businesses for many years and as such has a unique perspective on what makes businesses work and what doesn't. She knows why businesses fail and how to be successful in business . Check out her Small Business Course for more information on small business management and how to be better equipped in small business.