No place is perfect — no one is perfect — no customer expects you to be perfect. However, they expect you to recover in near perfect time. Empowerment enables you and your organization to do this. Only an empowered Service Engineer can respond immediately to the infinite variety of customers’ needs.

Field Service Executives need to train their managers on how to apply this incredible empowerment tool. Otherwise the suggestion of employee empowerment dies with the following middle management response:

Manager: So the employees should be freed up to just ‘do their own thing’?

Executive: Well, sort of . . . to support their doing what they think is the right thing to do.

Manager: So they do what they think is right . . . but I’m still held accountable for the results of my department?

Executive: Well . . . yes.

Manager: Just wanted to be sure I fully understood Empowerment.

Essential factors in effective employee empowerment training:

Customer Satisfaction Direction

Without direction, empowerment can become the non-productive, or even counter productive, tool that the above manager fears. Therefore, the first step in training managers to use empowerment is to define its customer satisfaction direction. Service Engineers need to know and apply the essence of the organization’s customer driven vision and values without hesitation.

Organizational Focus

Empowerment only works in an organization that focuses on the customer. This requires turning the traditional pyramid organizational chart (s) upside down (t). This puts the customer at the top of the chart and the executive at the bottom. The second most important person in the organization becomes the Service Engineer who directly interacts with the customer. Empowerment enables this interaction to occur in real time.

This ‘reorganization’ also defines the Executive’s role as one of support for the Service Managers and their Engineers in their successful interplay with customers.

Modeling

Service Executives and Managers need to learn how to model empowerment on a daily basis. People are conditioned through twelve or more years of school and other organized activities to succeed or survive by following the rules — go when the bell rings, stop when the whistle blows. People are used to structure. Empowerment shakes up the structure. The result is discomfort. The leaders of a change effort must address the predictable insecurities. Since behaviors speak far louder than words, modeling becomes a major issue.

Empowerment can’t survive in a vacuum. Empowered front line Engineers are dependent upon their Service Managers being empowered. Only managers who are trusted to use their judgement can delegate this power to their people. Unempowered managers direct with activities, rules, and numbers. Empowered managers direct with values and results. They model empowerment in their daily interactions and decision. They walk the talk.

Handling Mistakes

Service Managers need to be trained on what to do when one of their empowered Engineers makes a bad decision or takes an inappropriate action. This becomes THE moment of truth for any empowerment effort. The answer is simple. They do the same thing that they would do when they make a mistake. They don’t fire themselves, publicly humiliate themselves, or strip themselves of their authority.

Service Managers also need to know that they will be treated the same way if they or one of their people makes a mistake. This will only become evident when the Executive works through several mistakes with the Managers and their Engineers.

The Executive and Manager needs to review the situation with the individual Service Engineer, support the initial action if possible, identify better options, learn together, and move on. These situations and their solutions can be shared with the Service Engineers in a timely manner. The customer benefits of empowerment will soar as the Service Engineers experience mistakes as learning experiences. Likewise, empowerment will crash and burn if the Engineers perceive a mistake as a punishable offense.

Empowerment is more than a training program. It’s a commitment that takes work. People are used to bells, whistles, and rules. Under pressure they will naturally refer back to a quoting rules or policy. Or they may delay while seeking CYA approval before making a decision.

Empowerment training will only set the stage for the organizational change needed to accomplish the fantastic and essential benefits of immediate customer satisfaction. Empowerment training is the 10 percent tip of the iceberg. The ultimate success of empowerment will rely on the 90 percent follow through provided by the Service Executive and Managers in aligning the organization’s customer driven focus, consistently modeling empowerment behaviors, and positively resolving bad decisions.

Empowerment training is best introduced in a well thought out and low key manner. Do not expect the Service Engineers or Managers to leap on board. Trust is a two way street. They will have to believe that they can trust you before they begin exercising their independent decision behaviors.

Is it worth the effort? Clearly the answer is yes if you value:

• Reduced undesired turnover
• Reduced customer turnover
• Fast dissatisfied customer recovery
• Profit

Worth the risk? Not if you can afford to have your competitors empower their people first.

Introduced and followed though properly, empowerment will generate the following management response:

Manager: So the employees should just be freed up to do what’s right for our customers?

Executive: Well, yes. . . to support their doing what they think is the right thing to do.

Manager: So they do what they think is right, but I’m still held accountable for the customer satisfaction results of my department?

Executive: Well . . . yes.

Manager: Just wanted to be sure I understood Empowerment.

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