Motivating Employees Through Empowerment in Their Jobs

By Lois Moncrief

Is it “What”?

I have read many articles written for managers that urge you, the manager, not to tell your employees “what” to do. I don’t agree! That is abdicating your responsibility as a manager to set goals and standards for each employee’s job.

Many employees need to be told “what” to do. They want to know “what” are their responsibilities. They need you to make it clear “what” is expected of them. How can you expect them to do the job if they do not know “what” they are supposed to do?

You are the manager. It is your right and responsibility to assign work – to tell each employee what his job is and what you need him to accomplish. You have the right to set standards for the accomplishment of that work – quantity, quality, timeliness, etc. It is your responsibility to be realistic in setting these standards. You may have data on what has been accomplished last year to use in setting your standards and making them realistic.

Empowering and Motivating Employees Through the “How”

First, you have to assign the work you need each employee to do and give each employee the standards for the job in terms of quantity, quality, and timeliness, and any other factors you deem essential. Next, you can empower your employees to decide “how” to accomplish the task within the parameters you have set on quantity, quality, and timeliness, etc.
This freedom to be creative and to find better ways of doing the job can be very empowering and motivating to your employees.

Pride and Ownership

When you allow your employees to determine the “how” to do their job, you are encouraging them to have “pride” in their work.
You are encouraging them to have “ownership” in “their part” of the company if you allow them to decide the best way or the “how” to do their jobs.

You can allow this as long as they do their jobs and meet your criteria for productivity, quality, and timeliness of the product and/or service.

Many employees will find the challenge of determining how to do their jobs faster and/or better very motivating. Many will like the chance to be creative in their approach to this. Many will develop more pride and ownership of their part of the product and/or service.

Win – Win

What may amaze you is that by motivating them to determine the “how” and developing pride and ownership in their part of the company, they may find ways to do their jobs better and exceed some or all or the standards you have set.

Now you have created a “win-win”. The company has won with the employee exceeding the standards (better productivity, or better quality, or faster service or product) and so has the employee who may now receive a bonus or higher pay for exceeding the standards.

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”     General George S. Patton

Copyright (c) 2009    Lois Moncrief    Globebic LLC    All Rights Reserved