Why Investing in the Employee-Driven Growth Model for Your Team Will Fuel Your Business Success

The benefits of consistent employee engagement are simple—the more your workforce puts in, the closer you get to achieving your business goals. In service and sales, your workforce is the lifeblood of driving profits, so investing in them is a no-brainer.

But how do you create a workplace culture that results in an empowered team who is willing to go the extra mile? The answer, many successful businesses are finding, is in investing in your employee experience.

After all, a fulfilled workforce with a sense of ownership over their own roles is more likely to face customer issues with a smile and take any potential challenges in their stride.

Happy employees = better customer experience

As Harvard Business School has noted, employee buy-in plays a crucial role in meeting your organizational goals. This, in turn, has a positive impact on their own involvement and, therefore, customer loyalty, which goes up by 10% when employees are engaged.

Repeat customers play an important part in commerce, so if you are looking for ways to make for a more profitable business, improving client retention is a superb goal to set.

When you set up a business plan, it can be easy to overlook the people you hope to employ as they may appear more abstract, but bearing in mind the crucial role an empowered workplace can play in your profitability will help you keep your team at the forefront of your mind.

So what are some actionable strategies you can put into place in your business?

Employee Empowerment Initiatives

Here are a few ideas for some ways to add to your company culture and increase job satisfaction for your workforce:

1. Offer meaningful CPD programs

When employees feel they are being offered opportunities for professional development, such as mentorships and training programs, they feel they are being invested in by the company. This can create a sense of loyalty, as well as being the main way to boost employee retention.

The majority of people will be looking for career development in their positions, so ensuring they are looking upward at leadership roles as opposed to sideways at other companies will keep your staff motivated and ensure you have a team that is experienced.

After all, so much money gets spent on recruitment, so if you are looking to get your overheads down, providing training and opportunities for career progression within your company can save you money in the long run.

2. Give feedback

If you're looking for empowered employees who can take control of situations, you need to offer constructive feedback to them to ensure they are always refining their practice in the job role in order to better meet their career goals.

When delivering observations, you must ensure any advice is actionable and that any potential criticisms are valid and have an impact on their performance. Remember, there are no bad employees—just members of your team who need help to reach their full potential.

Within this, you could also create a company policy that encourages peer reviewing. Peer reviewing has many benefits and can often result in better self-awareness, too!

3. Celebrate team successes

While stakeholders are naturally rewarded by business success, it is worth investing in celebrations at all organizational levels, including those who are involved in customer-facing roles.

Your frontline employees are so crucial to the running of successful companies. Making sure you reward them for their contributions will improve employee morale, which will, in turn, translate to long-term success as they feel driven to keep up their efforts.

There are many ways you can go about celebrating successes—verbal praise, handwritten notes, pizza parties, and half days are just some of the ways in which a successful business can celebrate the employees behind their success.

4. Listen to your team

Whether you are an online business that meets via Teams or you meet in your business location, it may be worth dedicating time in staff meetings to hearing suggestions from employees and involving them in the decision-making process.

Creating a collaborative culture will help with employee satisfaction, as your staff will feel heard and, therefore, validated, giving them a sense of empowerment. It could also aid you in making informed decisions and could even provide innovative ideas you hadn't thought of.

5. Prioritize mental health

Corporate culture these days has shifted—business owners are increasingly considering what can be done to aid their workforce. This will add to your business’s reputation as an employer, which in turn makes recruitment much easier.

First, you must establish a culture of trust, and then there are so many ways you can foster a sense of psychological safety, such as offering remote work options in difficult circumstances if possible and investing in mindfulness practices.

How Edge can help

Edge's platform can help motivate your employees to offer the best in customer service. With Edge, you can create automated sales contests based on positive Google reviews. These are collated and presented in a leaderboard format to foster a healthy sense of competition.

Your employees will be able to access these from a handy app, giving them a level of autonomy over honest feedback and celebrating and commenting on the success of others in their team.

You can set timescales for the contests and your own rewards. You could opt for monetary bonuses, or some prefer more creative ideas like offering flexible scheduling and travel vouchers.

This will incentivize all frontline staff to consistently deliver their best, as all potential customers could give them a review that sees them soaring up the leaderboard.

Try Edge today

If you are looking to reap the benefits of employee empowerment, you need to look no further than Edge's platform. Contact us today to arrange a demo of how our software can contribute to your organizational success.

With over 5000 franchises and businesses currently benefiting from our technology, you can see how our employee empowerment strategies are deployed and make such a big impact in driving sales.

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