Employee enablement: Best practices and business benefits

Key takeaways

• Employee enablement means consistently giving people everything they need to do their best work, from tools to ongoing training.
• It's different from engagement (motivation and connection to company values) and empowerment (authority to make decisions and solve problems).
• Enabled employees perform better: Gallup reports that increasing engagement can raise workplace productivity by 17%.
• Ongoing opportunities to grow improve retention and reduce recruitment costs.

What is employee enablement?

Employee enablement is the practice of giving employees everything they need to work to the best of their ability – from the right tools to ongoing training – on an ongoing basis. It’s what takes employee engagement to the next level, and it helps your people grow.

Why does employee enablement matter?

Helping your people reach their full potential will almost certainly have a positive impact on your business and employee goals.

Employee performance

Giving your employees the right tools helps performance skyrocket. Gallup reports that increasing engagement can lead to a 17% increase in workplace productivity.¹ A big plus for everyone.

Alongside engagement and productivity, you’ll see employee autonomy grow too. When your team can recognize what they need to succeed, and how, they’ll make the extra effort to perform at their best.

Employee retention

If you consistently enable employees by giving them opportunities to grow and develop, there’s less reason for them to look elsewhere.

When people can keep learning and improving their skills without tedious training days and seminars, you build a workforce with an outstanding level of knowledge – both of their role and of your wider organization’s culture.

Potentially the biggest win is the saving on recruitment costs. Deloitte has calculated that if a company loses an employee paid $130,000 a year, it would cost over $109,000 to replace them.²

Improved business performance

Retaining your best employees is always good news for business performance – and when those people have the best tools, the impact is even greater. Gallup found that highly engaged, enabled teams are at least 21% more profitable.¹

Because enablement is an ongoing process, giving your team the right resources and opportunities to grow can create a massive positive impact on business performance further down the line.

How to measure and improve employee enablement

Employee enablement is a continuous process. If you’re doing it right, it’ll evolve as your business grows.

Technology is always advancing and developing, and so are your employees. As they become more enabled, empowered and engaged, they’ll need new growth opportunities.

Research through regular employee reviews and KPIs will help you to determine whether or not your processes for workforce enablement are working.

This can be reflected in checking they consistently have the right tools to reach their full potential. If the way you’re implementing these processes is allowing your team to do the job right, this will be reflected in the growth of your company.

There are plenty of evaluation models out there when it comes to reviewing progress. We’ve listed a few of the best here.

From powering your people, to nurturing top talent and growing revenue, there’s a lot to be said for being a champion of your employees and their progress. Employee enablement allows you to do just that.

If you’d like to give your teams everything they need to succeed, talk to the Attensi team today.