by Liza Manalo-Mapagu
This is the last part of the PEOPLE strategy. I hope I was able to provide you with relevant and useful information about remote working from a CEO’s perspective given this pandemic.
Let me share with you the last and final insight:
Insights #6 Empower Your People (E)
Given the realities of work-from-home where people are left to organize, plan and work on their own, leaders and managers have no choice but to trust and empower their team. Empowerment means that we “provide our employees with the resources, authority, opportunity and motivation to do their work, and hold them accountable for their actions”.
The workers in a work-from-home scenario can only be motivated and productive if they are empowered to act and make decisions on their own. If the workers are not empowered, the customers will wait for a long time as decisions have to be made by the people on top. As such, the managers will be taxed as everything passes through them, also known as abuse of upward delegation.
Empowering people is easier said than done.
First, people can only be empowered if they have the trust and confidence of the manager. The employees must have earned that from experience working with the organization and the boss. It also means that the managers have developed their people, through delegation and mentoring, to be able to handle situations on their own.
Second, empowering people means sharing of power, or “shared leadership”. In a remote working scenario where employees may not have immediate access to the manager, their ability to trouble shoot like a manager is very critical in managing customer issues.
Third, a culture of empowerment requires a “blame-free” environment where the managers are not just delegating work, and allowing people to decide but they also take full accountability of the people’s decisions, and risks, in case errors and wrong decisions are made by the subordinates.
Fourth, a sure way of motivating people is to take the initiative of taking actions on their own, and be more proactive is by recognizing and rewarding those people who risk to take actions on behalf of the manager, when swift action is needed.
ABOUT ASEAMETRICS
ASEAMETRICS is an HR Consulting firm established to provide solutions to help companies solve talent-related business problems. They are an expert at providing technology-based solutions to help companies identify, develop, and manage the human resource for business success, today and in the future.
Integrated into the company’s high-impact services are advanced technologies through HR Avatar (for E-Testing), Udemy (for E-Learning and Competency Development), Arbinger (for E-Learning – Mindset Change), Withiii (E-Organizational Development), ESM (E-Strategy Management), and HopeChat VP (E-Psychological Services).
