Regardless of any specific outcomes or benefits it may produce, empowering people in the workplace is always valuable and the right thing to do for any organization. Companies should always seek to provide employees with the authority, responsibility, and resources to make decisions and take action in their work.  

However, while employee empowerment is intrinsically good, high levels of empowerment can also promote specific positive outcomes and changes that many leaders and companies care about. 

Empowerment, Cultivators, and Positive Organizational Change 

A workplace with a strong culture of empowerment creates an environment where people feel valued and supported. Cultivators, our definition for the employees who create positive change and advance their ideas within organizations, in particular, thrive in these empowering settings. 

Cultivators work to change things without always having the benefit of vast positional authority. So, when these individuals experience more empowering situations and encounter fewer disempowering factors in the workplace, they can better commit emotionally and materially to solving problems in their companies and change their organizations for the better. 

But what does this mean on the organizational level? By empowering Cultivators, companies are then able to surface new ideas more easily and create meaningful shifts in the organizational culture from the grassroots. Having an empowering workplace also allows the company to leverage internal resources to drive strategic change, accurately address inequity within the organization, and continually adapt to the emerging needs of its people and the business. 

Evaluating Organizational Empowerment  

The goal for every company is to cultivate an empowering workplace where employee wellbeing and success are a priority. Moreover, these organizational spaces must empower rather than disempower people to create positive change. 

To do that, leaders and managers must first assess the levels of empowerment (and disempowerment) within the company. Then, they can create activities and policies that support or improve empowerment at work. 

Cultivate has built a comprehensive definition and model of organizational empowerment that leaders, managers, and even employees can use to understand the factors that affect empowerment in the workplace. 

Cultivate’s organizational empowerment model - called the SPACE Model  - identifies five dimensions of empowerment at work: Skill, Purpose, Autonomy, Community, and Engagement. Under each dimension is a set of indicators that help further describe what the dimensions of empowerment can look like in the context of the employees’ experiences, which can significantly help in assessing empowerment in an organization. 

Using the SPACE model as a guide, here's how to navigate the discussion on employees’ empowering and disempowering experiences and asses the empowerment needs of the team: 

1. Determine the employees’ perception of confidence and mastery in their work. 

To understand the level of empowerment in the Skill dimension, explore the people’s perceived confidence in their knowledge, capabilities, and capacity to succeed in their roles. 

Several factors affect their confidence and mastery, including their access to professional development and ability to experiment and take risks. Having a clear understanding of their role and how they are going to be evaluated also contributes to their level of confidence.  

In some organizations, it’s more common for people to assign blame when something goes wrong, while in others, people more readily embrace and learn from failures. The latter type of organization is better able to support employees learning and, thus, their experience of skill and effectiveness in their roles. 

2. Ask employees if they feel connected to the company’s mission and recognized for their efforts. 

In order to feel a strong sense of purpose within their organization, it is helpful for employees to understand how their work supports the company’s mission and current goals.  

These are some of the questions to ask to determine the employees’ level of empowerment under the Purpose dimension: Are the goals and mission clearly communicated throughout the organization? Do employees have a clear sense of how their work relates to the company mission? 

Adding to an employee’s connection and commitment to their work is the recognition for their efforts, contributions, and accomplishments. Indeed, Gartner found that employee retention and motivation were directly connected to their need to feel valued, acknowledged, and empowered at work. 

3. Discuss the employees’ experiences of autonomy in their work and decision-making. 

There are several factors that affect the levels of Autonomy of employees in an organization: trusting management, having individual choice, being included in the decision-making process, and the ability to introduce challenges to the status quo. 
 
It is important to know whether the employees feel that they have the power to direct their own work and manage the risks and consequences of their choices. Also, check if people are consulted when it comes to decisions affecting their work. 

Having a micromanager undermines most people’s sense of agency over their work. Asking whether people feel their manager trusts them versus if they are hyper-focused on minor details of their work can be an indicator of their level of autonomy. 

4. Find out if employees feel connection, belonging, and significance to others at work. 

Employees tend to have a greater sense of belonging when they feel they can bring their full selves to work and engage in authentic interactions with others. One way to know whether the organization is meeting the need for Community is to ask the employees if they feel the need to hide certain aspects of themselves from colleagues or believe they can freely express themselves without consequences and judgement. 

Other indicators that can be discussed for the Community dimension are a) the people’s level of comfort when reaching out to each other for information, b) the availability of formal and/informal community groups in the company, and c) whether employees feel welcomed and valued as members of the organization. 

5. Explore the employees’ intrinsic motivation and full participation in the work. 

Some of the best indicators if the need for Engagement is being met in the organization are the employees’ attachment to the organization and their plans to stay with it in the future. Turnover rates and employee satisfaction can provide insights into these factors. 

Additionally, highly engaged employees tend to share their knowledge with their colleagues and learn from them. If there is more knowledge hoarding than knowledge-sharing, that can be a sign of lower engagement.  

Understand Your Organizational Empowerment More! 

The Cultivate Model of Organizational Empowerment helps companies and leaders get general insights into their employee experiences. 

However, the dimensions and the key indicators of the SPACE model have tons of overlapping relationships to each other. For example, knowledge-sharing within the company can affect the employees’ skills, while higher levels of purpose, autonomy, and community can bring about higher levels of engagement from the team. Other correlations are that creating a culture of recognition can cultivate a better sense of community among employees, and fostering a space that encourages experimentation and risk-taking risks can introduce more challenges to the status quo. 

Moreover, the indicators listed in the SPACE model are not the only options. Organizations can utilize other factors that are relevant to their setup and culture. 

We can help you better understand the current state of empowerment across your organization by conducting a more formal audit of the dimensions and indicators. We even have a validated assessment instrument that can help. From there, we can assist in driving creative solutions and help individual employees and managers develop tools, skills, relationships, and knowledge they can use to empower themselves and each other.  Contact us to get started.