Why Employee Freedom Leads to a Better Workplace

It’s counter-intuitive, but increased employee freedom can boost productivity.

Managers can be reluctant to turn over more control to their employees. This was observed by Lisa Gill, who narrated her conversation with a team of managers.

They were trying to decide on how they were going to give rewards to employees. When Lisa suggested asking the employees themselves, the managers turned down the idea.

Outdated Assumptions

The assumption is that having a strict business structure yields the best results: if everyone follows instructions by seasoned managers, then everything should go according to plan.

This harkens back to the Industrial Age, where factory workers had very specific and routine tasks—so mechanical that it was practically impossible for them to make a mistake, or let slip any semblance of individuality.

As long as the managers focus on strategizing and giving clear instructions, and the employees follow, top-down, the expected results should materialize.

The Industrial Age began centuries ago—1700s, to be specific—and it’s an understatement to say that it’s outdated.

It’s Crazier Today

Because of the digital revolution–driven mainly by the Internet—how we’re doing business is changing. Tech startups, which are at the forefront of the disruption, are treating their employees differently, and they’re far from falling apart. They’re thriving.

They give their employees much more breathing room: unlimited holiday allowance, radical 6-hour days rather than the standard 9-to-5, the capacity to work remotely. Some of them even encourage employees to pursue side projects in the office—that’s how Google’s immensely useful Gmail and AdSense came about.

But surprisingly, this strategy was effective even in the 1980s. Chuck Blakeman’s interesting book (with the attention-catching title of “Why Employees Are Always a Bad Idea”) mentions a pickle factory that veered away from the traditional cog-in-the-system model.

As the story goes, the managers gave the pickle workers goals and told them to innovate on their own—they can do whatever they want, as long as they reach the goals. The entire company’s performance actually went up because the workers were able to improve the process with their own ideas.

The Psychology Behind It

Telling people what to do crushes their intrinsic motivation. The equation goes like this: being independent—and making their own decisions—is a major contributor to employee satisfaction, which naturally boosts productivity.

This goes hand-in-hand having an internal locus of control, which simply means that people feel in control of their own lives and take responsibility for their actions. Rather than blindly going about a task, they own up to it, want to get better at it, and are more willing to handle it themselves if something goes wrong.  

Run Your Own Experiments

To try this out in company, you don’t have to go to extremes all at once—take small measures and note how it affects people.

Maybe you can make working hours a little more flexible, or allow work-from-home days once a month, or even letting different employees run meetings so they can step forward and express their ideas—you might be surprised by what you discover.

Contrary to what managers might fear, giving employees more freedom won’t turn them into a bunch of lazy slackers who won’t do the job once you turn your back. It will definitely lead to more risk-taking and creativity—and potentially more mistakes.

But as Dan Levin, COO of Box, says: “Mistakes are a cost, but speed is a benefit. It’s critical to understand that at some point in your efforts to minimize mistakes, you’re going to lose out on maximizing workplace productivity and efficiency.”

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