Empower Your Trainees
It’s amazing how much power we give away by saying “I don’t know how to do that.” When you empower your trainees, they feel more confident and in return, they are more successful. It doesn’t take a lot of effort or time to empower those around us; it just requires a little sensitivity.
In this post we will dive into six ways you can empower the people who work for you:
- Listen to feedback and make changes when appropriate
- Provide instruction on what needs improvement
- Give credit where it's deserved
- Recognize progress
- Celebrate success with an incentive or small gift
- Listen without judging.
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1. Listen to feedback and make changes when appropriate.
This is probably the most responsible thing you can do for your employees...
You can feel bad about yourself when you are stressed and overwhelmed, so listen to what your employees have to say about the work that they are doing. When employees speak up and give you feedback, they want to help you. If they don't feel comfortable speaking up, they may be waiting for the right time...or someone else might speak up, so there's always that possibility that it could happen again sometime in the future.
You may think that everyone knows what is best for you and your business; but, in reality, your employees have a much better idea of what you should do to be more successful. We have all experienced that feeling when we know what someone else needs to do, but we don't know how to tell them. It's the same with employees. Many times we don't want to feel like there's a "burden" on our shoulders...so we would rather let someone else help us. That behavior comes from not being empowered.
I believe there is no greater gift that you can give your employees than to listen to their concerns so that you can make necessary changes as needed....and in return, your employees will feel more valuable and empowered.
Unfortunately, I have met some business owners who never listen to feedback from their employees. They believe that they are the only ones who can make the decisions...and there's really no way around that because those people are not cooperating with open and honest communication.
This is not about you being a good or bad person; it’s about your business being successful and growing in the community. You will be surprised at how much more you can accomplish when you empower your employees to contribute their ideas and concerns toward progress. By consistently listening to everyone, it will make everyone feel like they have something important to add, which makes an organization stronger as a whole!
2. Provide instruction on what needs improvement.
As a business owner, I'm sure you have some employees who are more interested in what they know, rather than improving their skillset. Conversely though, there are others who try to take advantage of your generosity by constantly asking if they can improve in areas that they already know.
You face a dilemma when either employee asks for improvements; but if you give the wrong advice in the form of approval or disapproval, it could ruin the relationship that you have with one individual or most of your employees...but at the same time, you are letting them know in a very real way that they aren't in the right job for them.
That is why it is important to clearly communicate what areas to improve upon by incorporating it into a training and development plan. Training and development plans have so many benefits for your employees...from the satisfaction of working on something fun, to having an opportunity for recognition when results are achieved, or any other number of reasons...but they can be a little daunting for those who don't do much training and development.
The first step is to determine the areas of your business that are most important to your employees...and then give them a framework for improvement in their area of expertise. It's important that you stay true to your business, but by including training and development in a fun and interesting way, you won’t be doing a disservice as an employer; rather, your employees will truly feel like they are valued.
Once you decide upon the focus of the training and development, it's time to develop some basic goals with measurable results. Remember, there are no perfect businesses...but wildly successful ones had certain objectives in mind before they realized their dreams.
You can either have your employees create their own objectives, or you can give them a framework while they are thinking about what they would like to work on. For example, let's say you want to provide seminars for your employees...and you want to teach them how to do certain techniques, as well as a detailed calculation of the amount of time it takes for each step for success. However, one employee might want more "hands-on" training instead, so she may prefer that you create objectives that are in more broad sense. That way she gets more time with the actual material and working directly with the tools herself.
Here is a sample plan of action to help you create a training and development plan for your employees:
3. Give credit where it's deserved.
Most employees base their self-worth on their performance; and, at the end of the day, you are responsible for delivering what they work for. Unfortunately, those who are not happy with their situation feel like they have nothing to offer in return so that nobody will ever recognize them.
When I came into the workforce after college, I worked as a customer service rep during the day and a part-time pharmacy technician in my spare time. It was only after my boss gave me a raise that I felt like I had something substantial to offer....but it didn’t change my life in any way.
It wasn't until I began to develop the resources and information through which I could teach others how to use these tools that my self-esteem started to grow. This accomplishment was largely based on the fact that I had produced something valuable for others...and nobody else was helping me by providing me with an income.
Even though I was offered a significant amount to work on my own, I still felt like I needed a paycheck coming in to show that people really did value me. You see, basing your self-worth on praise can be very difficult when you have no other form of income; and you need to know that if someone leaves you without a paycheck, it's not because they don't value you.
So how do we solve this problem? It's quite simple actually! All we have to do is give credit where it's deserved. This could be publicly or privately; what matters is just that we show our appreciation for their efforts and their hard work...
Conclusion
You see, if you give everyone a way to feel successful and valued, they will be their best "self." That's because they will be able to realize their goals without feeling like they need other people's approval. There are times when a person might feel like they don't want to get involved... or they might want a little more pay... but those are really just minor problems that can easily be solved.
No matter what your opinion is about the economy, no one should have to give up their dreams for fear of having nothing to offer someone else! We're all here for each other....