Three ways to help your organisation switch to an autonomous environment

Autonomy is good for business. Our research found it was more effective at helping organisations achieve four of six core business outcomes:

1. Innovation
2. Customer experience
3. Employee experience
4. Organisational agility.

However, incorporating autonomy requires people to have several skills, including self-motivation, initiative, resourcefulness, confidence, dependability, organisation, planning, and problem-solving. 

So how do you build greater autonomy in the workplace? Here are three steps you can take. 

Shift the growth mindset 

More and more organisations realise they can't just mandate certain behaviour through their management; they need to train managers in the right mindset to help people grow. Managers often forget their people have needs and desires – they’re not robots! It's easy to fall into a mindset of commanding and expecting obedience rather than asking: what do my employees need to succeed? 

A growth mindset believes our abilities are not fixed; you can grow and learn new things. This contrasts with a fixed mindset, which believes our capabilities are set at birth and cannot be improved. The first step towards shifting one's mindset from fixed to growth is self-reflection: ask yourself why you believe in your abilities. From there, leaders can identify the areas where they need to make changes to grow and enable autonomy in the workplace. 

To create workplaces where autonomy is encouraged and supported, managers should set clear expectations with their teams about what results are expected of them. They should also provide plenty of room for employees to take initiative; for instance, let them choose how they accomplish their goals. Managers can also adopt an ‘ask-first’ approach when delegating tasks or assigning projects, asking employees what work interests them before making assumptions about what they'd prefer doing. 

Employees who feel as though they have autonomy at work are also less likely to leave their jobs, creating a more stable workforce. These people are more likely to learn new skills and develop expertise, while encouraging them to take on new challenges, which leads to increased productivity and innovation. 

Build a culture of trust  

A culture of trust is essential if people want to feel free to take risks and put ideas into action; if you want people to self-direct, they need to be set up for success. This means fostering a safe and supported work environment, even when they make mistakes. Start by nurturing the relationships employees have with each other resulting in better collaboration for problem solving and innovation.  

While leaders are often not comfortable giving up control, people must feel confident working autonomously. They need to feel their leaders value their contributions. For example, share your organisation's mission statement, core values and business goals with all your people to understand how their work fits into the company's objectives. When people know what the company stands for and where it's going, they will be better equipped to do their jobs effectively. Transparency also helps build trust between managers and workers, because it shows you're willing to share information with them as equals. 

Gaining employee trust can also be done by allowing people to set schedules and deadlines, enabling them to prioritise what matters most based on their knowledge and preferences. People can design their processes to give them more control, while building autonomy skills such as self-motivation, initiative, resourcefulness, confidence and problem-solving. 

Communicate effectively 

For people to have autonomy, they need extensive access to resources. Few organisations are effectively delivering this in the form of organisation’s objectives, information about their tasks, training and skills support, as well as feedback on their progress and achievements. Clear communication is essential. 

One of the most effective ways to empower employees is to provide them with a collaborative workspace, be that digital or physical. When we create an open workspace for people to access relevant information using shared platforms, it removes the need for employees to ask managers for updates or information regarding any project.  

Allowing people to take charge of their process offers multiple opportunities for collaboration between co-workers. Digital collaboration ensures  a more seamless workflow, as there is no longer a need for hours to be spent in meetings discussing what has been done on individual projects. Instead, everything each team member has worked on is available online and easily accessible by anyone else working on the project. 

No matter what industry you're in or what type of business, one thing's for sure: you can't achieve your goals without the help of your people. But to maximise the productivity and desire of your employees, they need to have comfort in making their own decisions and trust they have the information they need to succeed.