Lokesh Nigam
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October 18, 2022
Employee engagement is key to a company’s success. A 2021 study in the USA found that 34% of employees said they were engaged, while 16% said they were disengaged at work and the workplace.
As companies and businesses invest more in improving their employee experience, it has become a fundamental requirement for making them agile. It has been observed that employee motivation is finite, and there is only so much you can do to motivate them to do their best. This has led to the understanding that employees can be engaged and still not work to their full potential.
The falling engagement levels bring us to an often-overlooked aspect– employee enablement.
In simple words, employee enablement is the practice of providing employees with everything they require to perform their job at max potential. For this reason, employee enablement is critical in delivering great customer experience consistently.
When a company’s focus moves from engagement to enablement, they are empowering their employees by providing them with training, development, skills and competencies to make smart decisions. Not only does this inspire and motivate them in their current job, but it also gives them a career path to grow.
Enabled employees help create the best customer service experiences and give your business a competitive advantage that is often difficult to replicate by others. This makes engaged and enabled employees the best investment for any organisation.
So what, then, are companies doing wrong?
Well, most organisations set expectations based on employees’ resources rather than understanding where they are and providing them with what they need to boost their productivity.
Employee enablement is the newly found key to better employee experience. Here are a few reasons why it is crucial to your organisation’s digital HR transformation:
Think successful businesses, and one of the few commonalities you will find is the best customer experience they provide consistently. A great example of this is Starbucks. From its standard menu, distinct store look and replicable processes, the brand and its employees know how to keep their customers happy.
Enabling employees with adequate information and decision-making power allows them to connect with their customers and helps them maintain committed experience levels at every level.
While consistency is fundamental, there is a constant need for innovation. Engaged employees are an asset, but motivating and empowering employees to bring about change is what beats the competition. Organisations need to be agile to adapt to the ever-changing business landscape to clock in profits. Enabled leaders and employees have the passion and enthusiasm to innovate and constantly outperform their competition.
In the era of the Great Resignation, organisations must focus on their employee happiness and well-being if they are looking to achieve their business goals. Happy and contented employees are more likely to work on work culture, boost productivity and build better work relationships.
Happier, energised employees are more likely to deliver beyond what is expected. A 2016 study found that employee engagement boosts productivity by 17% and customer rating by 10%. Therefore, employee enablement directly affects customer experience and positively impacts the company’s revenue, profits, and brand.
Organisations striving to improve employee experience and boost enablement are touted as low-stress work environments that do not resort to peer pressures, termination or other high-stress behaviours to push employees to do more. 360-degree feedback, employee recognition and one-on-one meetings are ways to improve employee relationships.
Low-stress levels and positive work environments ensure employees are mentally and physically healthy. According to an estimate by The American Psychological Association, around USD 500 billion are lost each year due to workplace stress.
Happier, empowered, and more engaged employees are also likely to be motivated to take better care of themselves, be less obese, and be less likely to suffer from chronic diseases, eat healthily, and exercise regularly.
A 2022 McKinsey report states that 55% of employee engagement was driven by non-financial recognition and serves as the biggest driver of employee experience. With a large number of the younger generation entering the workforce, the meaning of employee loyalty is shifting.
While the earlier generation equated loyalty with a long-term dedication to the organisational goals, today, employee loyalty is based more on how the organisation treats the individual. A shocking 46% of employees said they would readily accept another job offer if the opportunity arose. (A 2017 survey)
When employees are engaged and empowered, they are more likely to stick around and work to the fullest of their potential.
Customer experience is directly proportional to your employee experience, which stems from improved employee enablement. Engaged and enabled employees are more likely to provide excellent customer service. Employee engagement without enablement is like a driver without a vehicle.
Here are a few best practices that facilitate employee enablement required for optimising employee potential and ensuring successful digital HR transformation:
#1 Have clearly defined goals and expected outcomes
Think quantitatively and qualitatively to know what you want to extract from your employee enablement efforts. Set your goals beyond employee engagement and provide what your employees require to ‘truly succeed’.
#2 Identify your employees’ needs
Employees are the main driving force in an organisation. Perform a thorough analysis of the following parameters to understand your employees’ needs:
#3 Optimise workflows
Enabling your employees is empowering them and ensuring they know the best path to take at any given time and are able to make decisions seamlessly. This means optimising workflows and processes at every step.
Organisations must ask themselves – What improvements do we need to make to simplify and optimise employee workflows and enhance their performance? Once you have figured out the optimal workflow, create standard operating procedures to help all your employees in the organisation to adapt them.
#4 Ensure open communication and feedback mechanism
Employee enablement is incomplete without open team communication and efficient collaboration. After developing proper workflows and the right tools your employees require to work, it is important to create a work culture where employees are able to engage, communicate, share and collaborate.
Avoid a rigid procedural approach to communication and enable open-ended conversations. Enablement in communication motivates your employees to seek help when and where they need it.
#5 Provide open access to the organisation’s knowledge base
Enablement is incomplete without providing employees access to the organisation’s knowledge base. Knowledge management, which involves creating, storing, accessing and enhancing knowledge assets, is an often overlooked aspect of employee enablement.
Empowering your employees to look for the information and guidance they require during their work is an effective way to enable them to support organisations in endeavours like digital transformation.
#6 Provide customised learning and development opportunities
Employee enablement is not just about providing employees with tools and simplifying processes. They must also be provided with adequate learning and development opportunities to help them grow in their job.
Some ways to consider are:
Learning and development can be formal (scheduled online or offline guided sessions) or can be offered as ‘in the flow of work’ sessions. Learning and development opportunities aim to create maximum value and the best experience for your employees.
#7 Measure, monitor and improve your enablement efforts
Your employee enablement efforts are a continuous process; even if you do it right, there is always scope for improvement. Talk to your employees about your current efforts and get direct feedback about how you can improve them in the future. A few essential questions to ask them are:
Use this information with employee performance evaluations, and you’ll get a holistic picture of how enabled and empowered your employees are and areas that require more effort.
Employee enablement focuses on providing employees with a holistic and well-rounded employee experience. This can be made possible by reinventing learning and development to ensure consistent employee engagement. As the industry shifts its focus on employee enablement and better employee experience, this endeavour forms the core of HR transformation and must be led by HR.
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