Hiring great talent for your operations team is just the first step. The real challenges are retention and empowerment. Teams should feel empowered to innovate and think freely while feeling good about working for the company, and leaders play a huge role in making it happen.

A careful leadership strategy is imperative, but with the right approach, you can build strong teams that will support your organization for years to come.

Why Retention and Empowerment are Important

Retention and empowerment go hand in hand. When empowered, teams feel more valuable to the company and are typically willing to go the long haul.  They won’t be so quick to run to another organization.

Empowerment and retention also work on other levels, providing unique benefits to the employer-worker relationship, as follows:

• Empowerment: When employees feel empowered, they develop innovative ideas that can establish the organization as industry leaders. Additionally, empowered workers are more likely to make decisions and lead teams within their departments, so their superiors can focus on growing the company rather than micro-managing teams.
• Retention: Considering the cost of talent acquisition and productivity loss, losing a worker can cost a company 50% to four times the person’s salary. The processes contributing to turnover and the company’s turnover rate can also impact the organization’s reputation and ability to attract top-tier talent.

How to Make Employees Feel Empowered

With empowerment being a vital part of work relationships, COOs must focus on making workers feel empowered as part of their leadership techniques. Here are some helpful tips:

• Ask for Feedback: When you ask workers for feedback, you let them know their opinion matters. They will be more likely to provide insight into other aspects of work. The approach breeds innovative thinking.
• Assign Leadership Roles: Consider organizing projects that divide your team into groups. Then, assign specific team members as group leaders. This shows you value them and empowers them to make certain decisions without oversight.
• Set Boundaries: Although employees should feel empowered, they should know their boundaries and avoid overstepping.
• Provide Learning Opportunities: Offer training and classes that allow employees to develop their skills and work their way up in the company.
• Embrace Mistakes: When employees are ‘punished’ for their mistakes, they often don’t feel comfortable stepping outside the box with innovative ideas. Leaders who embrace and recognize mistakes as learning opportunities contribute to their employees’ growth.
• Recognizing Achievements: Employees who know their achievements are recognized and appreciated will continue contributing to the organization’s growth.
• Lead by Example: This involves applying empowerment principles in daily processes and displaying the behaviors you’d like to see in your team.
• Provide Resources and Tools: The proper resources, tools, and technology can help employees become more efficient and support them in decision-making. It also shows the company invests in them, making them feel more confident in their roles.

How to Support Retention

The strategies for empowering employees make them feel valued at the company, supporting retention, but there are additional techniques that specifically support retention, as follows:

• Benefits and Compensation: Companies should compensate employees fairly, offering opportunities for pay increases and promotions, as well as generous perks and benefits.
• Company Culture: Employees who align with a company’s culture will likely support it for the long haul. For example, if sustainability is essential to your staff, consider integrating eco-friendly methods into your work processes. Leaders should also consider teams’ religions, ethnic backgrounds, and personal needs, and ensure they offer a schedule that supports their lifestyle.
• Refine the Onboarding Process: It’s not unusual for companies to lose employees during onboarding. They may not have time to properly train their workers and make them feel comfortable in their new setting. As a result, they lose all the money and effort they put into their hiring processes. Organizations can overcome this issue with dedicated onboard specialists, AI training, and videos.
• Support Wellness: Organizations can support wellness in various ways, including promoting a work-life balance, offering resources like fitness and meditation centers within the workspace, and recognizing when employees need mental health assistance. In addition to increasing retention, this approach minimizes sick days, which can be costly to companies.

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