Anyone who has children will know: they reach an age where they want to do everything on their own. Starting with small things like picking things up or pressing a button themselves (including crying noisily if they are not allowed to), to bigger things as they grow up. Think about them wanting to decide for themselves what to wear, how to spend their pocket money, going out on their own, going to bed, studying or travelling. Making your own decisions is therefore a human need, one that is felt by most people, young and old, and that applies in all kinds of areas.
Autonomy at work
One of the areas where the wish for autonomy arises is at work. Not too surprising when you think how many hours of the day you spend there, a very large part of your life. Autonomy at work relates to how much influence you have over what you do each day in terms of the tasks, the time you spend on them, how and where you do them. It appears from research by the University of Birmingham, among others, that having enough autonomy leads to greater work satisfaction, more motivation and productivity and a happier life overall.
From a study of British civil servants, it also appears that a lack of autonomy increases the risk of cardiovascular disease more than, for example, smoking. The likelihood of burnout symptoms, sick leave and a higher staff turnover is also higher. In a nutshell, autonomy is well worth investing in.
How can you give your employees enough autonomy?
The answer to this question is simple, but different for each person. There are actually four areas in which you can give people autonomy:
- Working methods: you decide for yourself which procedures, methods and means you use to do your work.
- Work scheduling: control over your work timetable, work timing and the sequence of tasks.
- Location: deciding for yourself where you work.
- Work criteria: being able to set and change your own work goals and evaluation criteria.
A Burmese study revealed that many women, especially mothers, really wanted the freedom to decide for themselves where and when they would work. So they needed location specific autonomy. On the other hand, many men in the study mainly needed the freedom to decide their work tasks, work tempo and the sequence in which the tasks needed to be done, or work criteria and scheduling autonomy.
Personality and professional expertise also play a part in this. You may well imagine that a senior professional with years of work experience will want to have almost total freedom, and an intern will need much more supervision and rules. So it is good to look at each situation and see what people need. The easiest way to find this out is of course to start a dialogue about it (and continue it).No more micro-management
What you must never do, in any case, is micro-manage: get involved in all the details. This has been shown to cause people stress, make them uncertain and lacking in self-reliance.
By trusting people, by managing based on contents and results, and by getting them to define the details of how they get there, you will stimulate employees to find their own solutions to problems. You are then trusting their abilities, creativity and self-reliance. And the best thing is: in this way their skills grow, as does the ownership that people feel about the results.
Tips for increasing autonomy
Tips
- Set clear expectations
Room for manoeuvre relies on the existence of frameworks. What is expected, what is the goal and when will we all be happy? The clearer those are, the better people will be able to fill in the details of the content.
- Answer the question "why?"
Do you still remember how maddening it was when you asked your parents something and their answer was: "Because I said so!" or "You'll learn that when you're older." People really want to know why they should do something, what it contributes to and what their role is in the bigger picture. The better you can explain all that, they stronger their motivation. - Leave the "how" to your employees
Most people are very well able to work out for themselves what is the best way to achieve a goal. There are always several roads to Rome, and if you let your people choose their own highway, they will often get their sooner than if they have to follow someone else's route. - Ask what people need
And then look together at how you can best enable it. - Stand up for your employees
Create a safe environment in which it is OK to make mistakes. Did someone send in a complaint about one of your employees? Then don't just assume your employee was in the wrong, find out what really happened. Ask the employee what he or she can do to resolve the situation and to stop it happening again.
- Provide the tools and smooth the way
Make sure that your employees are well equipped to do their work. In terms of knowledge, skills and equipment. If it becomes necessary to make do with what you already have, then allow for this in the end result. Are there obstacles? First of all, give your employees space to remove them for themselves. Also make them believe that if they do raise the alarm because they need help, you will actually help them.
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