Five ways to empower your team to be more proactive

Would you like to see your team take more initiative rather than wait to be told what to do? Follow these five tips and you’ll be on your way to having a much more proactive team around you.

1. Be clear what everyone’s role is and what their goals are

People perform better when objectives and expectations are clear. Provide a succinct definition of everyone’s role and how it impacts others and the business. Give clear expectations and goals for each person. Using a goal-setting management system such as Balanced scorecard is a great tool for the job.

2. Give lots of feedback

Everyone wants to know how they’re doing in their role, so provide as much feedback as you can. Make sure you listen too – feedback works both ways. Be constructive and positive, even if it’s just celebrating small things, so you show people when they’re doing things right as well as wrong. People are often quick to say what they can’t do, so show them their superpowers and provide mentoring when they face challenges.
Remember that giving feedback is a skill, so you might need to provide some training to your managers. People Puzzles often helps clients train up their managers to have really positive performance conversations.

3. Implement the right tech

Implement or update whatever systems that will help you operate efficiently – as well as capture what people are doing – be it a CRM (customer relations management) system, project management software or digital accounting tools. Enable people to utilise this technology by providing the right resources and training. Once in place, these systems will allow you to measure performance more easily, hold people accountable and make more data-driven decisions.
Having hard data to hand can make it easier for managers to talk about performance in objective way – and provide the feedback mentioned in point 2.

4. Be available and responsive

To empower people, you also need open lines of communication. If you are too busy to respond to queries, let your people know when you will have time for them. If they are waiting on a decision or direction from you, it can block processes and cause unnecessary delays.

5. Develop people’s skills

This doesn’t necessarily mean providing external training. Ask people what you can do to enable them to do their job better, and offer training, mentoring or other resources to broaden their skill set and give them the tools to do their job well.

Empowering people also means delegating effectively and being collaborative. Once people feel more empowered, you’ll be able to assess their capabilities and delegate accordingly.

Hire an HR superstar from People Puzzles who can work part time in your business to bring about increased productivity through your people by calling 020 3633 6830.

 

Divya Kanani-Jones, People Director