SuperManager: Empowering Your Employees
Christine: You’re listening to SuperManager, the podcast for people who manage people and business with ideas, trends, and expert interviews to help you be a SuperManager.
Sam: So welcome back. This week’s SuperManager is focusing on empowering your employees and I have my group of super friends.
Rick Shore: Rick Shore, Legal Shield Business Solutions.
Tara Gregor: Tara Gregor, Breakwell Workplace Wellbeing Resource and Partner.
Mad Underhill: Mad Underhill and this is my last day as an intern at CN Video Production.
Sam: And Samantha Naes CN Video Production Corporate Video and we’re going to miss Mad around here. So we’re talking about empowering employees, and you have heard the old adage, “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” I think we’re talking about the reverse of that: How do you not have to do it yourself if you want something done right? How do you empower your employees to do a good job to be successful? One question I have is how do we define empowerment? I mean, to me it means being successful, being able to get things done, being able to accomplish things without being micromanaged, without needing as much. I mean everybody needs help, but without really needing help that you should not need in order to get it done. Any other ideas of what empowerment means.
Rick Shore: And I think when you say to you it means X, Y, Z, but to me or to Tara or to Mad, it might mean something else. So maybe for the employee, that empowerment, they might be looking for something different than the manager believes he’s or she is granting to the employee.
Sam: Mad, what to you is empowerment in the office?
Mad Underhill: I think for me it is a lot about not feeling as if you can’t ask questions and that is okay too as like a new employee that you can learn and you’re not going to get criticized by your supervisors or other coworkers for not doing something exactly right. But being empowered for making mistakes and learning.
Rick Shore: And I love that because it, you have to give people the freedom to make a mistake.
Sam: Yeah. So like during training in a safe environment.
Tara Gregor: And allowing them the space to be vulnerable if they do mess up, but being okay with that to give them the space to ask if they don’t know.
Sam: Right. Ask questions, being approachable.
Mad Underhill: Sure.
Sam: Things like that.
Tara Gregor: They’re not meant to know everything at first.
Sam: I used to be in a situation where I took care of systems during the day, but then there was a team that came in at night that kind of maintained things overnight and they had a list of responsibilities that they needed to follow to make sure things, you know, run the backups and check this and reboot and things that they needed to do. And they were given a checklist of all of the steps they were supposed to take overnight to make sure everything was maintained properly. We ran into all kinds of problems because they only knew how to follow the checklist. And so we would come in in the morning and the backups didn’t run and the computer wasn’t rebooted. We’d say, why not? And they’d say, well, this message popped up on the screen and it wasn’t in the checklist. And so I didn’t know, am I supposed to click okay? Am I supposed to call someone? You know, what do I do about that? So I just left it on the screen until somebody came in. And so one of the things that I did to more empower these employees to be successful was I actually came in and explained to them, here’s what the system does, here’s who’s using it, here’s why we reboot them. These are the things that can happen. So that when they followed the checklist, it wasn’t just a set of steps that they were performing, but they actually understood what the final goal was to the steps they were performing. And I think they enjoyed it. In fact, they came in during their time off to learn more about what they were doing so that they could better understand it. And I think it just worked better from both sides.
Rick Shore: And it wasn’t just a task list.
Sam: Right, right. Because if you don’t really understand what you’re doing, you’re only following instructions. And that’s
Rick Shore: You’re only checking the tasks off.
Sam: Right.
Rick Shore: You know, it’s interesting in your business, in video production, Pixar, very successful production company. One of the things that they do is they move their employees around to different jobs. They have their own cook, they have their own whatever. You may be working with the cook that day. You know, even though you’re a IT professional, so everybody gets an exposure to what it takes to run that company.
Sam: But you mean not for a lengthy amount of time, you know, just kind of shadow for a day kind of thing.
Rick Shore: Yeah.
Sam: Oh, that’s a great idea.
Rick Shore: Yeah.
Sam: I thought you meant they would swap people in different jobs. I am like “wow.”.
Rick Shore: No so also the cook is the guy that does the production. Yeah. We don’t, everybody had started,.
Sam: “Why does my soup taste funny today?”
Rick Shore: But they got such value out of that and their employees got a lot of value out of that. They felt empowered when they were done because they knew what this whole thing was all about, what they were supposed to do.
Sam: I feel like big picture does kind of mean empowerment. Even if your job isn’t a big picture job, if you’re working on the fine details. In fact, especially those people that work on the fine details. I think empowerment really could be just understanding the big picture and where their details fit into that piece of the puzzle.
Tara Gregor: Absolutely. Well and every position is important inside of a company. So I was in the hospitality industry, so if that is the laundry service being done in the hotel, or if it’s the valet, all of it is for the greater good of the guest experience. Right?
Sam: People don’t always realize that too, that what they’re doing has such an effect on.
Tara Gregor: The importance of the thriving of the company. Absolutely.
Sam: Mad, we were actually having a conversation about that.
Mad Underhill: Yeah. A little bit of experience that I’ve had here is that I actually failed to do something and then I didn’t realize that me not doing something in the workplace really could mess with the workflow and can not only cause myself troubles, but it puts a lot of the work that I failed to do onto my coworkers and my supervisors and everybody else. And then some other people are having to make up more time and not do what they’re supposed to be doing because of my, you know, mistake. And it’s hard to see that you’re putting other people in a bad position because it’s something that you fail to do.
Rick Shore: Sure. And I see in these businesses that operate 24/7 that it just never fails that the problem is going to be blamed on the last shift. You know, they didn’t do what they were supposed to do.
Sam: It’s a team sport.
Rick Shore: Yeah. It’s a team sport. Yeah the goalie missed blocking the shot, so we lost, well not exactly. Yeah. So that goes back to getting people exposed to other people’s responsibilities to kind of see what it takes to make this thing run.
Sam: I love that shadowing for a day thing. That’s a great idea.
Rick Shore: They have done really well with that.
Sam: On the flip side of things, the positive things that you do, the ways that you help, the things that you’ve done, how they’ve helped the team and the overall goal and now all of that are well. Mad, for our listeners that don’t know, Mad’s been really helping out behind the scene on the podcast, the editing and recording and setting up the studio and everything.
Mad Underhill: Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun. I like it. So that brings us back to a conversation that we were having a little earlier about when you go on vacation and your team picks up your slack or they pick up, um, or they’re filling in for you. So yeah, you said you had a story about that.
Sam: Yeah, I actually went on vacation and left Olivia in charge and I think we were both a little, she’s let the record show she’s making kind of an evil, gesture. I don’t think either of us really knew how that was going to go. And I was tempted when she would send emails with questions that I knew she knew the answer to. I was tempted to respond and get on the phone and go, okay, here’s what you need to do, here’s how you handle that. But I stopped and I said, you know what, I’m on vacation. And she knows the answer to that. She’s got this. And I think probably the first couple of days were a little rough for her, but then she stepped up and just got a little bit of confidence and started doing things and making decisions. And towards the end when I was ready to come back, I would ask a few questions like, you know, did this get taken care of? And she’s like, yep, I did that. I took care of this. This is all under control. And so I think as somebody who is really concerned about every aspect of the business, I’m always keeping an eye on things and kind of hovering and making sure things get done and stepping away and saying, you know, although I have your back, I’m not going to be right here making sure that everything gets done. I’m going to let you kind of worry about that and, she was really able to step up and
Tara Gregor: and be empowered.
Sam: Yeah. Empower. And exactly. Sometimes the best way to empower your employees is just step back a little bit and,
Tara Gregor: and let them see that they have it in them already. That they know the answers. That’s awesome.
Rick Shore: To that point, they’ll always come to the manager and say, here’s a problem. Here’s this, here’s that. What would I do? And my tip would be to say, what would you do? Tell me what your thoughts are. And then as long as it’s not disastrous, then let them do that. Because a lot of times they have a different perspective on it than the management does. You know, shadowing everybody, the manager needs to shadow some of the people that he’s managing to, to see what their job really is like, but it’s what would you do? And all of a sudden they stop flooding your office in your time and sucking your time away with all these questions that they probably have a good idea on what to do.
Tara Gregor: And they start trusting their own abilities. They’ve got the answers.
Sam: We’ve talked about not being afraid of making mistakes, being empowered to try things, to ask questions, to get help, to have the resources that you need. We’ve talked about stepping away and letting people realize what they’re capable of for empowering. And then you talked about when people have questions, kind of asking them what their thoughts are for the solution to the problem. Did we miss anything?
Tara Gregor: Well, I think asking them of what would help them in their job position, in their role, what do they need? The problem is a lot of companies will ask, but then they don’t take any action with it or the companies take action without ever really asking what they need. So they’re just kind of guessing and there’s a disconnect there and it kind of creates that divide a little bit between the employee and the employer. So again, the asking and the action is a huge piece.
Sam: So saying this is what you’re responsible for, what do you need in order to be able to accomplish that? And then coming to agreement with them on what’s reasonable, what can be done and then making that happen. So that they’re able to do what they need to do.
Tara Gregor: Sure, absolutely.
Rick Shore: That makes me think about the suggestion box so it can be an anonymous. And then, but you have to act on those, you know, they have to know that something’s going to happen from that suggestion box.
Sam: Has that ever actually been successful though, because, I always hear about it as being kind of a joke.
Tara Gregor: Sure. And in the eye roll, sometimes when you get those, you’re like, why do they need this? But if we don’t understand why they need certain things and it just sounds like they’re complaining or you know?
Rick Shore: Well, let their voice be heard. You know, a staff meeting. It could be, you know, one of the suggestions that came up is X, Y, Z.
Sam: “Alright, Who’s the one that asks for softer toilet paper? Who wanted the softer,”
Rick Shore: No, you don’t have to put him on the spot, but you can say this was just a suggestions I heard, anybody have any thoughts on that?
Tara Gregor: But so you can fully execute in the action piece. You also need to understand why they’re asking for that.
Sam: Maybe the suggestion box, they should be able to put it in there. But it’s the anonymous part that I think causes the problem because you can’t follow up. You can’t find out what this is for or why you need it.
Tara Gregor: But if we’re talking about empowering and creating a culture of empowering your employees, they should be able to talk to you face to face and not in a suggestion box.
Sam: Absolutely.
Rick Shore: Mad, you got a comment on this suggestion?
Mad Underhill: Well, I actually think that, not a suggestion box, but I think that constructive criticism is very important, especially as an intern. I am here to learn.
Sam: So you’re talking about feedback?
Mad Underhill: Just getting a lot of feedback and I think that can just really help someone kind of figure out what they’re doing. It makes them feel empowered. It makes them feel more comfortable in the workplace, knowing, okay, this is what I’m supposed to do and if I do something wrong, then I can just get that constructive criticism so that I can learn and become better at what I am here to do.
Rick Shore: What about constructive criticism of your manager?
Mad Underhill: I think that can also be beneficial because I think everyone can always learn. Even if you’ve had an experience and you can tell them like, hey, this is a situation that we had, maybe next time we can do this instead. And I think that that would benefit the next employee or the next intern who works here. That can always benefit someone.
Sam: Communication should always be a two way street and I think it doesn’t have to be awkward or it doesn’t have to turn out bad if people are professional about it. We had a podcast recording a couple of weeks ago and Katie Magoon said something that I’ve taken to heart that I found really helpful. She said, always enter a conversation with somebody, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Have a conversation, a difficult conversation with someone under the thought of, are you doing this because you hate me or you know, why are you doing this to me? But more of a, if a supervisor and an employee or an intern or to have a conversation, they should both come to the table with the idea of I’m doing this to help you and I’m doing this to help me. Let’s talk about it. That way that criticism can be constructive and not just mean or hateful or, um, and it should be a lot easier to have that conversation if it’s in the spirit of cooperation and being helpful.
Rick Shore: So my door is always open, but you walk into it and I’m going to look at you like, what are you doing here and I have my arms crossed and I’m.
Sam: My door’s always open as long as you have something nice to say. All right, with that being said, we’ve run out of time. Do we have a horror story having to do with empowering employees?
Rick Shore: I don’t know how this fits with empowerment, but I had a really, really good customer in a business that I owned in the healthcare industry and her son was looking for a job and she was a great client. And so I hired her son.
Sam: Oh, I already know where this is going.
Rick Shore: And he was a disaster and in fact he, you couldn’t really get him moving in any straight line. He was sort on his own in his own world. And he was a driver, a delivery driver for us. And after eight years in the business, he’s the only one that totaled the vehicle. And then the mother’s calling me wanting to see her son and now is angry at us because we somehow were responsible for him totaling this vehicle and it killed, obviously we couldn’t keep him on board and then it killed my business relations with the mother. So it blew up.
Sam: That’s a shame. That’s a tough one because what do you say when a really good client says, Hey, my kid is looking for a job. You know, that’s just a tough one.
Rick Shore: I learned from that, that I will, that’s great. Send me his resume and I will see if I can get it in front of the right people. You know, I will help, you know, I’ll help him, help them get their child a job. But I don’t want to put myself in a position where I’m going to be the one hiring him like they’re coming to me. How can my son get employment? Well, I know some people that I might want to talk to.
Sam: Good answer. If you think you might be interested in some custom onboarding or training videos to help empower your employees, give me a call at (314) 843-3663 that’s 314-VIDEO-ME.
Christine: Thanks for listening to super manager by CN Video Production. Visit our website at cn-video.com for additional episodes and lots of super manager resources, or give us a call at 314-VIDEO-ME.