Companies that value their employees allow them to make independent decisions and act on them. For employees to feel answerable for the decisions they make, they need to have a sense of feeling that their decisions matter to the organisation. There is nothing as demotivating as an employee with knowledge and ability to execute a task but lacks the resources or means to. With employee empowerment, organisations ought to equip workers with tools necessary to succeed. Amina Umuhoza, an entrepreneur, says that managers should delegate some of their tasks to employees, with the aim of developing and growing their abilities, but not just for the sake of reducing their workload. She also notes that employees deserve to be given well explained feedback to do better. Constructive feedback assists employees to know what they must do to reach their target and improve in the future. Umuhoza stresses that employees should also be appreciated for their hard work, with a ‘thank you’ or with prizes, this will hearten them to even do better and hence also see how much they are valued by the company. Such employees are more likely to be connected to their work, and may not leave the company soon. She also notes that managers have to believe in their employees and not doubt them. Study your team and know each of the members can do best and give them tasks that align with their abilities and experience. That’s how you can get positive results. Umuhoza states that you should give employees as much time as possible, time to make mistakes, learn from them, experiment and be better. Experts say that everything in life-including people , changes. If you don’t give people room to grow, you will force them to either leave your business or grow stagnant. Even if it is inconvenient for you or your business, you must provide robust ways for your employees to grow. Claire Mutesi, an employee in a procurement firm says that employees deserve to be trusted and given the right opportunities, a thing that even motivates them to like their jobs and work for the betterment of the company. She also highlights that employers need to give employees the benefit of the doubt by allowing them to be responsible for their problems and allow them to find solutions to them, although it may be hard in the start, eventually, they get used and feel part of the company. To her disappointment, some employees have certain skills but are never given any chance to exercise them. With time, they feel bored working with a company that doesn’t let them be the best of themselves, hence resigning from their jobs to find their luck somewhere else. Mutesi says that proper communication is key, not giving instructions on how to do things but also providing a listening ear, basically having a dialogue. Research shows that workers whose managers are approachable are more engaged which, in turn, cultivates a team environment wherein members are comfortable sharing ideas and challenging one another. According to Forbes, create all the conditions to help your employees be extraordinary. This can cover everything from ensuring they have the right skill sets to do the job and having the right equipment to be productive to having access to internal resources (team, financial, and so forth) to support them along the way. Also, build a culture that embraces risk-taking and curiosity to fuel people’s desire to enjoy greater empowerment.
