Employee management is a vital aspect of running a business. A well-managed team increases productivity and develops the organization. Not managing your workers appropriately can lead to employee burnout. This is a serious issue as statistics show that 70% of workers have burnout in their jobs.

To ensure employees perform at their best, it is essential to put specific measures in place. These measures include making sure they’re engaged, enabled and empowered. The 3 Es of employee management – Engagement, Enablement and Empowerment are HR’s best practices and must-haves for any forward-looking organization.

These three crucial practices keep workers at their fittest and boost their attitude. To effectively create engagement, enablement and empowerment for your staff, you must consider some factors. These factors and other important information regarding the 3 Es are highlighted in this article.

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement involves consistently connecting your workers to their job, team and organization. It requires generating a high level of passion from them. Engaged employees work harder, are happy to stay longer at their jobs and influence others to do the same. In addition, workers who are engaged perform better at tasks, have better customer relations, improve their team’s output and contribute to the growth of the business.

What is employee enablement?

Employee enablement entails giving workers all they need to perform well at their jobs. It involves providing employees with all they need to succeed at their jobs. It also has to do with creating a conducive environment for them to work. Staff enablement includes putting in place policies and processes that encourage productive work. Enabling your employees also involves providing the necessary work tools and financial resources for the job.

What is employee empowerment?

Empowerment is a notch above enablement. Empowering your staff goes beyond allocating sufficient resources to them. It involves giving them a voice, recognizing their efforts regularly and providing them with opportunities for personal development. It involves equipping them with decision-making and problem-solving skills and authority. This makes them develop leadership skills and lets them see themselves as a vital part of the organization.

Key factors that influence the 3 Es; Engagement, Enablement and Empowerment

To put the 3 Es into practice, you must be aware of factors that affect them. Knowledge of these factors enables you to effectively execute employee engagement, enablement and empowerment. Find some of these factors below.

A good definition of business goals and outcomes

One essential factor that affects the implementation of employee engagement, enablement and empowerment is the ability to define your business goals and outcomes. To arrive at a destination, you must first determine the destination, why you’re going on that journey and how to get there. It’s the same for businesses.

To practice the 3 Es, your team must focus on the organization’s goals and end results. This would only be possible if these goals and outcomes exist in the first place. Putting this all-time business essential in place is one of the first steps toward ensuring your employees are engaged, enabled and empowered.

Identifying employee needs

For employees to be adequately engaged, enabled and empowered, you must meet their needs. These needs include both official and personal ones. Official needs include tools, policies, processes and facilities required to perform their jobs. Personal needs include opportunities for personal development. To meet these needs, you must first identify them. Identifying employee needs equips you with the information necessary to execute the 3 Es.

Investing in employee wellbeing

Any organization that makes its employee wellbeing a priority will reap great benefits. Your only concern shouldn’t be just getting the job done; you must be concerned about how the job affects your employees’ overall health and happiness. Investing in a platform like Perkbox that makes this easier comes with a lot of rewards. This tool helps you cover aspects of employee wellbeing like physical, emotional, psychological, financial and social.

Using the right employee management tools

Technological innovations in human resources have made employee management much easier. Leapsome is one such innovation. This all-in-one platform comes with features that facilitate personalized learning, making it easier to drive employee engagement, alignment, enablement, empowerment, performance and development. Easy to use, you also get top-notch analytics with this platform.

Facilitating knowledge management

Knowledge management involves having an integrated approach towards recognizing, capturing, assessing, retrieving and disseminating information in your organization. It plays a massive role in influencing employee engagement, enablement and empowerment. When you gather, organize, share and evaluate your organizational knowledge in a way that makes it easily accessible to employees, they will become engaged, enabled and empowered.

Effective communication and collaboration

There is no debate on effective communication’s role in an organization, especially in employee management. To engage workers efficiently, there must be proper communication. Likewise, in enabling and empowering your staff, you must communicate with them effectively. Without communication and collaboration, any attempt at employee engagement, enablement and empowerment is null and void.

Benefits of the 3 Es on businesses

Employee management involves a significant investment. However, the benefits are immense when employee engagement, enablement and empowerment are well implemented. The following are some benefits you will gain from executing the 3 Es.

Improved employee health

When employees are engaged, enabled and empowered, they’re less likely to come up with chronic illnesses. As a result of the implementation of the 3 Es, workers are likely to eat healthier, exercise more and be less predisposed to obesity. This is a win-win for all parties as a healthy workforce translates to an even healthier business.

Happier and more satisfied employees

Job satisfaction is the dream of all workers. However, only 45% of American employees are very satisfied with their jobs. Employing the 3 Es in your business will ensure that your employees do not fall in the 55% segment of dissatisfied workers. Happy and satisfied workers deliver better results and contribute significantly to the business’s bottom line.

Reduced absenteeism

No one flees from a good thing. A major cause of employee absenteeism is a stressful and toxic workplace. This won’t be the case if you practice the 3 Es in your organization. Engaged, enabled and empowered staff love their jobs and won’t be absent without good reason. Absenteeism leads to reduced productivity and causes the business to lose revenue. On the other hand, when workers show up regularly to do their work, the company experiences increased growth.

Higher staff retention

Employees will leave an environment that does not enable them to realize their potentials and perform at their best. However, they will stay in a place where they are appreciated, engaged, enabled and empowered. Not implementing the 3 Es will cost your business good staff and money spent on frequent recruitment and training.

Improved customer service

It is common knowledge that your employees are your first customers. If they are happy, they will make your customers happy. However, if they’re unhappy and dissatisfied, it would spill into their customer relations and affect customer service.

The marketing strategies for boosting sales you have mastered won’t matter if there is poor customer service. It’s hard for workers to give their best to customers when they don’t enjoy their jobs. Therefore, investing in employee engagement, enablement and empowerment is equal to investing in customer service; happy employees create happy customers.

Increased employee loyalty

We often see and hear of people who have spent decades in a company and wouldn’t dream of leaving, no matter the offer they get from another company. Most times, this is as a result of the management applying the 3 Es. When workers are fulfilled, they stop searching and stay loyal to the organization. When your workers are easily and frequently poached, it means you have not engaged, enabled and empowered them.

Start implementing the 3 Es for improved employee management

Proper management of your employees is not complete until you start practicing employee engagement, enablement and empowerment. To implement these 3 Es in your business, you must understand the factors that influence them. Putting these factors in place puts you in a better position to apply the 3 Es effectively.

Factors that influence employee engagement, enablement and empowerment include defining your business goals and outcomes, recognizing employee needs, investing in employee wellbeing, using the right tools for employee management, improving knowledge management and effective communication and collaboration.

Some benefits of applying the 3 Es in your business are improved employee health, satisfied and happy employees, reduced absenteeism, high staff retention, enhanced customer service and increased employee loyalty.

Moyofade Ipadeola is a Content Strategist, UX Writer and Editor. Witty, she loves personal development and helping people grow. Mo, as she’s fondly called, is fascinated by all things tech.