5 simple steps to engage and empower your staff
People are at the heart of every company, which is why it’s important for employers to continually review how they’re engaging and empowering their staff – whether that means helping them be more time-efficient; enabling a healthy work/life balance; or providing the tools they need to excel. Here are 5 simple steps to make sure that your team is motivated, content and productive.
- Understand their priorities
There is no point in guessing what your employees need and want – consulting and listening to them is the only way of ensuring effective and impactful organisational change. As well as shaping company strategy, this process also makes people feel valued and should support in creating a more productive and transparent company culture.
Moreover, you may find that their priorities aren’t what you expected; perhaps communal office areas are vital for encouraging collaboration and creativity on work projects. Similarly, employees may feel that a social or sports committee would help them to get more out of their professional lives while also enhancing their personal wellbeing.
- Make a real difference
The secret to engaging and empowering staff is implementing initiatives that actually make a real difference to your employees, based on what they believe is important. It’s about facilitating them in relation to what they want to achieve, not just in their careers but their lives. By engaging with the causes and activities they’re passionate about, you can motivate and inspire staff, whilst creating trust and loyalty.
For example, if people in your organisation feel that they want to contribute to wider society and perhaps don’t have the time to volunteer, a Corporate Social Responsibility programme would allow them to do this. Alternatively, if those in your business have families, a parental leave policy which gives them flexibility is vital.
- Create a positive, productive workplace
A productive environment kitted out with the latest equipment enables staff to perform to their full capacity and work as effectively as possible. The optimal office is designed to empower people, providing them with cutting-edge technology and developing business processes that enhance and streamline how they work.
By focusing and improving the workplace with tools and strategies that boost efficiency and take care of time-consuming or menial tasks, employees can be better-equipped to handle their workload. This also prevents them from taking work home with them or staying late to complete their ‘to do’ list, helping to maintain a healthy work/life balance.
- Enable mobile working practices
According to a Ricoh survey, conducted in association with TechPro magazine, only 37% of workers have the authorisation and remote access to enjoy mobile workstyles. Considering that increased productivity and improved collaboration are benefits of this approach, this is a rather surprising statistic.
Remote working practices, utilising the latest technologies, allow staff to work whenever they want and wherever they are, providing greater agility. This means that they can fulfil their responsibilities while on-the-go or from home – in other words, they can work smarter, not longer. Such bespoke workstyles can help to boost business output and customer service, as well as employee satisfaction and overall contentment.
- Continue to innovate
For companies, innovation should be twofold. As well as providing customers with products and/or services that make their lives easier and enable them to reach their business objectives, they need to encourage and motivate staff by providing them with tools and technologies that allow them to fulfil the responsibilities of their role.
The organisation itself also has to progress and develop which, nowadays, means incorporating automated workflows and embracing digital transformation. As well as improving performance and proficiency, such capabilities also boost security and accessibility.
People are what make organisations successful and business leaders are quickly realising the value of investing in and enabling their teams. At Ricoh Ireland, we understand the importance of engaging and empowering employees in terms of achieving business objectives and company growth. To find out more about how we can support through our services and products, contact us today.
