Part four in my multi-part series on employee relations.
When it comes to running a company or even managing one, it’s easy to see yourself as the head of a complicated body of workers, all of whom look to you for guidance because clearly you’re the only one who has the vision for how to make the company work. However, this is really little more than an ego problem, and one that continues to bring down otherwise good corporations.
Companies that empower their employees to make decisions, take a stake in the company, and be a part of the events going on around them find that costs are lower, efficiency is up, turnover is down, and they can do a lot more with a lot less. The reason is that employees feel that their work actually matters and they aren’t little more than a face to some otherwise mechanical entity. Here are a few methods for empowering your employees that other large businesses have used successfully.
1. Teach even entry-level employees the basics of management practices and give them the authority to do things often reserved for management, like closing a location or implementing ideas that might increase efficiency. Maybe even let them have a say in hiring, or design a role for some of your employees in the hiring process. Most importantly, pay them more when you give them more responsibilities. Let them associate increased work with increased wages.
2. Have an open-book policy regarding your financial records, especially expense accounts. Let your employees see where money was coming in and going out, who it was being spent on, what sorts of discounts people were getting, etc. Dorian Drake International implemented this plan in 2002 and some of the immediate benefits were that employees noticed that some departments were getting vendor discounts others weren’t and pressured the company to negotiate for everybody. Also, travel expenses were severely cut, at least partially because everybody in the company would see how much you spent on business trips.
3. Give your employees the authority to spend money. If there’s a customer problem, let them solve it up to a certain amount without having to go through management for authorization or, worse, higher levels of bureaucracy. It doesn’t have to be a large amount, but the ability to give away something free or correct an issue caused by your company without adding a wait for approval on top of it ensures better customer satisfaction and will help retain clients, if not also garner referrals.
4. While this isn’t a solution for all businesses, some places might benefit from de-structuring the workday. Allowing employees to work hours that they are comfortable with and setting concrete goals with deadlines that they have to meet is a good way to relaxing the pressure on them and allowing them to produce most efficiently. If it isn’t necessary that they work along a set schedule, focus on a more results-oriented approach to scheduling and let them work out how to get it all done.
5. Skyline Construction has an innovative idea: let their employees choose their salary. They could pick a salary from within a specific range. The advantage to taking a lower one was that it gave them the opportunity to earn a higher year-end bonus if the company met certain goals. Many employees took lower salaries throughout the year, but worked harder to meet and exceed those company goals, many earning more as a result of their bonuses than they would have if they had taken the maximum allowed wage.
These are only some ideas of what you can do to make your employees feel as if they are a real part of your company. You can’t do everything yourself, nor should you try to. Give your employees a little extra responsibility and they might just surprise you with how they run with it.
