Empowerment in the field of people management means developing employees' confidence in their own abilities, along with responsibility for themselves and their environment. However, a systematic transfer of decision-making to employees cannot be applied without committed employees able to accept this shift. Beware, therefore, of the most common causes of empowerment failures.
1. Lack of leadership
If a company lacks a clear vision of customer orientation and organisational values, its employees lack a foundation upon which to base their activities.
2. Neglecting the connection between employee and customer
A company wanting to benefit from empowerment must be certain its employees understand the direct and indirect effect of their actions on customers or colleagues who deal with customers.
3. Poor communication
Empowerment requires systematic internal marketing in order to communicate the corporate vision and values to employees.
4. Ineffective or non-existent training
Knowledge of corporate vision and values is not enough: it must be applied in practice. Starting empowerment without training managers and employees will probably not succeed.
5. Insufficient recognition
If an organisation cannot reward the efforts of its staff, great achievements in the long run cannot be expected.
6. Ignoring measurement
Empowerment must stand on measurable objectives, such as achieving a certain amount of positive feedback from customers, identifying a certain number of ideas that will bring savings, a number of returning customers, etc. The same should apply to employee-related data: turnover, recruitment costs, length of stay at the company, staff costs in relation to sales, etc.
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