Autonomous employee culture encourages your team to be independent
A lot of successful large companies today realize the value of employee autonomy and therefore foster a culture of autonomy in their organization. Prominent examples include Google and HCL with over 100,000 employees. A culture of autonomy gives employees a sense of freedom and drives them to do their best at work. A study conducted by the Learning Resource Network presented at the World Economic Forum revealed a strong link between autonomy and company performance. Measured as a degree of freedom, companies where employees reported high freedom scores were up to 20 times more likely to perform better than those where employees felt low level of freedom. Autonomy is also shown to reduce turnover and increase employee engagement. This leads to reduced costs and greater profitability.
However, many organizations do not realize that autonomy is the key to maintaining a balance in their organizational ecosystem. There is often a focus on growth, vision, purpose, and even communication but autonomy is ignored. It is important to realize that people also need freedom and trust to explore their potential and approach their work the way they see fit in order to perform at their best. Along with feedback and accountability, space and freedom is necessary for people to do their best. Let’s explore various aspects of autonomy and how you can promote a culture of autonomy at your company.
Autonomy with accountability
Employers and managers may have misgivings about autonomy that can prevent them from adopting an autonomous culture. Clearing misconceptions around the concept can help in making the implementation process smooth for managers as well as employees. One of the common apprehensions is that autonomy may get in the way of accountability. The worry is genuine because at the end of the day you want to make sure that the goals are achieved and every employee is contributing their best.
So how can autonomy work while having accountability? It’s all about balancing the two to make the structure be sustainable. The best way to go about that is to adopt transparency and clarity. Companies should set clear expectations from employees while making sure there’s transparency around any limits and constraints.
Every organization and department has some procedures and processes set in place and it is important to follow them. Having a culture of autonomy does not mean neglecting all rules and regulations. It is more about practicing freedom while respecting the limits and constraints. Managers should make sure that employees are aware of their constraints and make sure to give them breathing space to work around those to perform at their best. A truly autonomous culture requires open conversations about what the goals are and where the employees have room to exercise freedom and control their work environment.
Trust as the basis for autonomy
Trust is the key component in encouraging autonomy as well as employee engagement in an organization. When managers don’t trust their employees they are more likely to micromanage, constantly watching their work and trying to control them. In such scenarios managers tend to see their team members or employees as pieces in the machine of their organization. A better approach is putting trust in people and their ability to meet your targets, seeing them as complete persons each bringing in their unique strengths and talents to the team. When employees feel that they are trusted they feel more comfortable in their roles and are able to put their best foot forward. Lack of trust, on the other hand, limits their ability to contribute their best work and stay engaged with the company.
Recognizing and removing symbols of distrust
Sometimes there are certain controlling measures that companies take to monitor their employees. Some of these can be intrusive and represent your lack of trust in employees. In order to truly adopt and foster a culture of autonomy, companies need to look for these symbols of distrust and remove them. For instance using surveillance cameras to monitor your employees and their movements is clear symbol of distrust. If you are doing something similar in your company, think about why you’re doing so and if there is a better approach to achieve that. After all you’re not running a prison. Some companies go so far as to tracking their company vehicles via GPS to track their employees’ routes. Such extreme measures can damage your relationship with employees, limit their potential, and hinder progress in the long run.
How to measure autonomy
There are various ways of measuring the level of employee autonomy at your company and how satisfied your employees are with your company culture. The simplest way is through conducting internal surveys. An annual survey can include questions about autonomy, freedom, and trust. These can help you measure and improve autonomy at your company. In addition, an informal audit can help you see how your employees prefer to work. Another way to assess autonomy is through exit interviews or surveys. You can see if the reason people are leaving has anything to do with your employee autonomy and then improve based on the feedback.
Promoting Autonomy
Promoting autonomy at workplace empowers employees to become creative problem solvers and self-starters. Workplace autonomy also helps an organization to produce leaders. In contrast, micromanaging employees makes them feel that you don’t have trust in them and can become the main reason for employee disengagement and low job satisfaction. It is important to make autonomy a part of your organizational culture in order to get the most out of autonomy. Following are some best practices to encourage and boost workplace autonomy.
- Build trust
Team leaders and managers should demonstrate their willingness to trust employees to accomplish the tasks assigned to them. Lack of trust can hinder autonomy and initiative. Consulting your employees and discussing projects and tasks can foster trust and enable sharing of new ideas.
- Offer flexible work arrangement
Having rigid working conditions with no choice can make employees feel restricted and unhappy. Instead of judging employee effectiveness based on the number of hours they work, give them the freedom to choose their own schedule and then focus on the outcomes instead of the process. This may include giving them the freedom to work remotely at their preferred hours. What matters is that the job gets done, not how it’s done.
- Focus on growth not mistakes
Let employees adapt their work approach to their responsibilities so they feel a sense of control over their work. Accept that mistakes will happen. Realize that constant monitoring would not eliminate mistakes. Allow them to learn from their mistakes so they can improve. Create a culture of accountability but not fear. Leaders who are excessively critical of mistakes stifle creativity and initiative. When employees are afraid of the consequences of honest mistakes, their performance and engagement is affected.
- Give ownership
Giving employees a sense of ownership will help them do better on projects. Without ownership employees tend to just go through the motions to get the work done. A sense of ownership enables them to bring in their ideas and do their best work. Encourage your employees to share their knowledge or experience if you think it may be useful for a particular project.
- Pay attention to employee feedback
In order to create an autonomous culture you have to ask for their honest feedback and then really listen to what they need. It can be through surveys or discussions. But if you do not take action on the feedback the employees would think that their opinions do not matter. Pay attention to their unique perspectives on the gaps and problems in the company culture so you can improve and build better processes and culture.
- Hire the right employees
Having an autonomous employee culture also depends on your employee’s mindsets. If you want to foster a culture of autonomy it would be better to hire individuals with the right mindset, who do not require constant supervision and can work independently with their own initiative. During the hiring process make sure autonomy is part of the discussion. Be honest about the level of freedom and the constraints to autonomy so employees know what to expect.
- Provide tools and resources
Workplace autonomy also depends on whether or not employees have access to all the tools and resources they need to do their jobs. It can be difficult to accomplish tasks if you do not have the right tools. Make sure your employees have access to relevant resources whether it’s technology, guidelines, or training. Providing them what they need will allow greater autonomy.
- Step out of their way
Finally you need to give your employees space and freedom to exercise some control over their work environment. There can be no autonomy if you continue to micromanage and create hurdles to freedom. Make sure you create the right balance between giving employees the independence to approach tasks as they want to and being there to offer support and guidance when they need it.
