Want to improve employee morale and see company results skyrocket? You must invest in empowering your employees. 

Spoiler alert: there’s no one-off magic solution for this. It’s a continuous effort — emphasis on effort. 

Keep reading if you want to learn how to implement employee empowerment strategies in your company and how to leverage device management software to ensure your team always has access to hardware and software in tip-top condition.

What is employee empowerment?

Employee empowerment is a management practice that ensures an independent and thriving workforce. It involves giving people options and ownership over how they structure their jobs and achieve their goals. 

Five benefits of employee empowerment for SMBs

It’s no coincidence that the world’s most successful companies also have the highest levels of employee satisfaction. But empowered employees won’t appear out of the blue. 

Putting in the work to increase employee satisfaction can reap many benefits, such as:

• Higher retention: Employees who feel valued and respected are likelier to remain in the company.
• Increased productivity: Employees who understand what’s expected of them and are provided with the necessary means to achieve their goals will be more productive and deliver better results.
• Enhanced team morale: Listening to your employees and meeting their needs will enhance team morale while improving motivation.
• Increased trust: Showing up for your team, considering them every step of the way, and listening to their feedback will increase confidence, leading to higher satisfaction.
• Enhanced innovation and creativity: Enabling teams to focus on their jobs and not worry about anything else can foster creative ideas and novel approaches, bringing innovation to the company. 

Eight strategies to empower employees in the workplace

Now that you understand the importance of boosting employee satisfaction, let’s discuss how to empower employees with these ten strategies you could start executing ASAP.

Always communicate expectations clearly

Your company has a mission and specific goals it wants to achieve.

To have a clear waterfall effect where everyone knows what’s expected of them, make OKR planning a company-wide event. 

How can you achieve this?

• Set specific dates when leadership shares company goals with all teams.
• Communicate during this time the company’s expectations for each team to help them reach those goals. 
• Give each department a timeline to set its objectives. Encourage each team member to set their own goals. 
• Managers then review the OKRs and provide guidance to align the bottom-up proposal with the company-wide objectives. 
• Leadership reviews and signs off all department goals. 

How is this empowering?

• You give employees decision-making power on the projects they tackle.
• All expectations are clear, which mitigates confusion and boosts motivation.

Build a feedback and recognition culture

To foster a work environment conducive to growth, you must build a respectful and constant feedback culture. 

Feedback shouldn’t only be shared when someone is slacking off or doing poorly. Employees also deserve to be recognized when they do something well. 

How can you achieve this? 

• Open a Slack/Teams channel dedicated to “employee shout-outs.” Whenever someone reaches a milestone or is doing a great job, peers or managers can go to the channel and publicly show their appreciation.
• Implement an anonymous suggestion box where team members can provide feedback on company direction, goals, leadership, general operating procedures, tech use, etc. You could use a tool like Leapsome for this. 
• Make it a point to continuously promote these feedback spaces during all-hands meetings or company-wide Slack/Teams channels, and be sure to listen to the feedback. 
• Ask managers to book bi-weekly sessions with their team members to check in on the OKR progress and exchange any constructive feedback (or praise).
• Implement company-wide performance feedback cycles. These could be conducted every quarter or every half-year, during which managers and peers evaluate each other’s performance and share tips for improvement.

How is this empowering?

• You give employees a voice and make them feel heard and valued for their work.
• You foster a self-aware workforce that prioritizes continuous improvement to deliver better results.
• You make employees feel valued and respected through constant recognition.

Offer flexible working hours

Employees value a job that adapts to their lifestyle, and that is where flexible working hours come in. 

In fact, according to a worker experience survey by Gartner, 43% of respondents attributed flexible hours to increased productivity. So, it’s about time to start loosening up the tight schedules.

How can you achieve this?

• Give employees the option to choose their schedule. But set up your non-negotiables first, i.e., when employees must be online — for specific company meetings, regular client check-ins, etc.
• You can offer different formats of flexibility, like a four-day workweek or allowing employees to work in the mornings and evenings while taking some hours off in the afternoon. 
• Encourage asynchronous collaboration through Slack/Teams and reduce the number of calls in the calendar to accommodate flexible working hours.

How is this empowering?

• You give employees ownership over their time management.
• Employees can juggle personal life matters and work tasks without having to struggle. 

Offer hybrid or remote work

Remote work has changed how people structure their lives, so not offering this flexibility can risk employee satisfaction.

Research by Gartner has shown that 16% of high-performing employees are less likely to remain in a company if forced back into the office. This research has also found that poor work-life balance is among the five highest reasons for employee turnover. 

How can you achieve this?

• Implement a remote work policy. 
• To ensure frictionless remote work, introduce cybersecurity measures and train your workforce to navigate the web safely. 
• If you are concerned about employees losing their devices and putting sensitive data at risk, look for a solution to wipe sensitive data remotely. 
• If you’re paying for an office and would still like people to show up, encourage, not demand, employee attendance once a week or for specific events or meetings.
• Conduct a survey to understand how your employees work best. Craft company policies around the results of your survey.

How is this empowering?

• You boost employee retention by allowing them to work in a way that suits their lifestyle and needs. 
• You increase employee trust by getting them involved in company policy-making.

Encourage digital independence 

Employees who don’t know who to ask for help when facing an issue or how to access the tools needed to carry out their work waste a lot of time trying to find these answers.

If you’re not getting ahead of employee FAQs, you’re promoting this time waste.

How can you achieve this?

• Pin on Slack/Teams company channels essential documents that guide employees on installing or requesting apps, navigating a self-service app kiosk, requesting remote IT support when a laptop has issues, etc. 
• Use password management software to make access to tools self-service.

How is this empowering?

• You give employees all the means necessary to problem-solve independently. 

Minimize digital friction

Digital friction occurs when team members don’t know how to access or use a tool. 

For example, if you want everyone to use ClickUp for task management and Notion for documentation, but most employees don’t know how to use these apps, they won’t, so it’s time to start educating them. 

How can you achieve this?

• Offer monthly learning sessions so employees are up to speed using the latest company software.  
• Open a Slack/Teams channel where peers can ask questions, help each other, and share tips on using company apps more effectively.

How is this empowering?

• You boost productivity by keeping employees updated on using company software and relevant apps.

Improve employee onboarding

New employees will only achieve good results if they have proper guidance. You must offer them a smooth onboarding if you want them to succeed in their first few weeks. 

How can you achieve this?

• Make the onboarding process as automated as possible. Implement solutions like Notion, which allows you to bundle all the information every new hire needs to know and share it with them the second they join. 
• Save up precious IT time by implementing device management software that allows you to remotely provision and deploy all the devices for new joiners. That way, neither newbies need to struggle with figuring out the necessary configurations for their laptops, nor do IT teams need to deal with tons of devices by hand at the beginning of every month.

How is this empowering?

• By providing new joiners with everything they need to kickstart their jobs in a hassle-free way, you set them up for success.

Improve employee productivity by future-proofing their skillset

Technology is constantly changing and upgrading itself. Look at the AI boom happening right now. But how many of your teammates even know how to use ChatGPT?

If you want a future-proof and competitive workforce with improved productivity, you must invest in keeping their skills current. Such skills include automating tasks and processes, properly using AI, and leveraging data to improve their output. According to Gartner, employees with AI skills will outperform those without AI proficiency.

How can you achieve this?

• Offer access to learning platforms (Coursera, Udemy, Skillshare, Domestika, etc.) as a company benefit. 
• Create learning cohorts that take the same course together over a determined time frame to encourage course completion and the implementation of new skills.
• Create accountability groups on Slack/Teams and recurring check-ins to see how team members implement what they have learned in their daily work lives.
• You could set up a rewards system for every completed and implemented course to further motivate your employees. 

How is this empowering?

• You boost employee morale by making their skills future-proof and valuable beyond their current job.
• You enable employees to take ownership of their professional development by equipping them with the necessary knowledge to expand their skills. 

How can you effectively implement employee empowerment strategies?

To summarize, here are a few things you can do this week to start enforcing employee empowerment strategies in your company.

• Collect employee feedback to create company policies or improve existing processes.
• Assess your workforce’s skillset through surveys to identify any glaring gaps. Prepare workshops or learning cohorts to fill these knowledge gaps.
• Provide your team with clear goals and expectations to avoid micromanaging and confusion. Trust that your employees will do well with the right guidance.
• Share new policies or software during company-wide meetings. If you notice policies are not followed, or software goes unused, make it a point to remind people of it through company meetings and communication channels.  
• Set up your employees for success with the proper equipment and guidelines, and set up your IT team for success with a clear overview of all company devices and software.

Empowering employees through technology with FileWave

Remember that a key determining factor to the success of your employees is functioning devices, access to software, and responsive IT support.

Using device management software like FileWave could grant your employees digital independence while ensuring security and keeping an overview of hardware and software usage.

Some of the benefits you can enjoy with FileWave include:

• Device inventory
• Remote desktop support
• Remote data wipe
• Remote device provision and deployment 
• Patch management
• Self-service kiosk

Are you ready to empower your employees through fail-proof technology? Try out FileWave for free.