Employee empowerment is the basis for building engagement across the organization, and sustainability can become the perfect pairing for such endeavor.
Table of Contents
The highly competitive market in which companies and people operate today make the perfect case for how important and valuable it is for organizations to build a strong and healthy workplace culture.
It is employee empowerment that will allow for engagement to not only be present but actually become embedded in how everyday practices and activities operate throughout the company.
Furthermore, research has shown over and over again how empowered and engaged employees bring in more productivity and creativity, and therefore better overall job performances.
What is employee empowerment?
Empowering employees is ultimately about trust, as it involves granting employees greater authority, independence and responsibility.
In a nut-shell, it is about allowing employees more autonomy in decision-making and problem solving, as well as in their contribution to company goals without relying on too much micromanagement.
But, employee empowerment is not just about delegating more tasks, it also requires granting them enough support and resources so they feel equipped to make the best decisions and achieve the most innovative outcomes.
Engage employees in the sustianability strategy
Another crucial aspect of employee empowerment and engagement is having empowering leaders. It feels like it should be a no-brainer, but the role leaders and managers play for building a positive and engaging workplace culture is often overlooked.
Employees who deem their direct leaders or managers as empowering, are more likely to make more creative and autonomous decisions and feel encouraged to take on responsibilities and have initiative.
Empowering leaders help employees feel that their work has a meaning and purpose, and that they are competent and valuable to the organization. Similarly, they are also more likely to trust their leaders, as empowerment often comes in the form of support and mentoring.
How is employee empowerment relevant to business performance?
We cannot stress this enough, but managing a company is about managing people, and in this sense, employee empowerment is central to business performance. Here are a few reasons why it is so relevant:
- Motivation harvests productivity: Basic psychology tells us that when people are motivated to do and be part of something they are more likely to put in the effort, time and mind it requires. Empowered employees feel motivated and valued, they see a purpose in what they do and naturally bring in the productivity. (It is important however to remember that empowering employees is not just about job performance, but also about making sure they are empowered as individuals who have needs outside the workplace).
- Confident and creative decision making: As we said before, empowering employees is about putting trust upon their autonomy to take initiative, which in turn helps build up their confidence in their independence so they can bring novel ideas and problem solving techniques.
- Reduced employee turnover: Perhaps one of the most pressing challenges businesses face is that of retaining talent. Often time this comes as a result of employees who do not feel valued or important to the company, otherwise known as not feeling empowered by their corporate peers. Supporting and empowering the company’s talent is key to understand what they want and need.
- Strong and supportive company culture: Another main factor in talent retention and recruitment is company culture. Empowered employees help strengthen and build a culture of support and proactivity that allow all people to find their place and value in the organization. DEI policies are also a key aspect of this supportive corporate channels.
How can sustainability promote employee empowerment?
As companies struggle to make ends meet when it comes to their sustainability legal and regulatory requirements, employees barely know what such sustainability strategies look like or imply upon their job and the company.
And in this context one might think that transparency inside the organization regarding ESG matters would be enough of a solution, but we believe that this is, in fact, a missed opportunity to engage and empower employees through sustainability.
Transform sustainability into an employee benefit
The reality is, even as a company becomes more transparent regarding their sustainability efforts, employees don’t always know or understand what all that jargon means, which only contributes to taking them further away from the matter.
And as we have stated before, empowering employees is about supporting them; in this particular case, that could mean supporting their knowledge on sustainable and ESG related matters.
But what we are really trying to convey here is that leaders could leverage their sustainability responsibilities and transform them into knowledge and purpose for engaging and empowering employees in their job, whilst at the same time allowing the workforce to be an active part of the sustainability strategy.
Empowering employees to become an active part of the corporate sustainability strategy
In DoGood, we aim to simplify the complex web of sustainability objectives for companies by offering a platform that translates the high-level ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) objectives into actionable tasks for every single employee.
Then, each employee not only knows how to make an impact but also feels empowered to contribute meaningfully to the greater sustainable strategy.
No more vague directives. No confusion. DoGood automates the process, making it seamless for the workforce to know precisely what steps to take.
