The Role of Trust in Employee Empowerment

In modern organisations seeking to increase productivity, innovation, and employee job satisfaction, employee empowerment has become an area of interest. What drives empowerment is fundamental trust — the confidence in managers investing responsibility to employees where they can be accountable for their work and make decisions that influence company goals directly.

The moves to better enable employees sometimes suffer; without trust, micromanagement, poor engagement, or even lost staff can occur. Here, we discuss the importance of faith in employee empowerment and how trust within an organisation can lead to employees being engaged and proactive.

How Trust Enables Employees

Mutual respect fuels an atmosphere of trust and breeds confidence to empower employees. Assuming that employees are responsible and trustworthy implies that we believe in their ability to perform, make reasonable decisions and act ethically. Here are some pros to trust in employee empowerment:

Encourages Autonomy and Decision-Making

Trusted employees take more initiative and are guided by the company practices rather than waiting for every action. It gives employees this autonomy where they have to think on a different level rather than just executing what has been done before. Empowered employees begin to feel more capable in their roles because they recognise that the managers believe in their decision-making capacity.

Fosters Innovation

When employees are motivated to experiment, take risks and explore new ideas — drivers of innovation. One of the critical enablers for a culture of innovation is trust, as employees feel that they can confidently suggest new solutions if their manager trusts them to try them out. On the other hand, no trust will encourage employees to remain in their comfort zones for fear of being blamed if they fall.

Builds Accountability

Accountability without trust and empowerment is not possible. Having faith in your team by instilling a sense of ownership to achieve tasks further increases the chances your people will hold themselves more accountable for their work. This feeling of responsibility increases productivity and performance because the higher your employees feel trusted, the more motivated they are to meet targets. Trust also enables a culture where employees are free to own up for their failures and escape the cycle of failure due to fear of punishment.

Improves Workforce Engagement and Job Satisfaction

More autonomy and trust in their judgements generally leads to more engagement from your employees. Trust results in a positive workplace where employees feel appreciated and respected, generating higher job satisfaction. This leads to higher job security and lower turnover rates since motivated employees are unlikely to search for a new career opportunity in the first place.

How to Build Trust at Work

Transparent Communication

The only key to the issue is open, honest communication between the management and employees. Managers should communicate organisational goals, challenges, and changes with employees and make room for feedback and ideas. Talking to developers helps create transparency and lessens ambivalence.

Support and Resources

Employees need to be equipped to succeed. Managers trust employees to expand their abilities and talent by providing continuous training, guidance, and development opportunities.

Trusting Employees to Do the Job

Delegating important work and trusting employees to do the job without micromanagement by managers. Integrating an organisation’s employees into taking ownership of these critical tasks communicates that management believes in their capabilities and integrity to have such responsibilities.