Empowerment Unlocked: Key Conditions for Thriving Teams

In the second blog of Microsoft People Science team’s People Success Series, we shared the importance of employee trust in leadership. This 3^rd edition “flips the script” and examines the importance of leadership trust in employees: a cultural foundation to empowerment.

With rapid technological changes, increased pressures to reskill, shifting workplace policies, and staff restructuring, certainty about how and where one does their job can be a challenge for many employees. Recent research found that job insecurity and workplace uncertainty significantly impact workers’ stress levels, emotional exhaustion, and motivation. Workers affected by constant, overlapping changes reported higher levels of disorientation and confusion, which correlated with reduced performance and engagement¹.

But at the same time, today’s fast-changing business landscape requires organizations to respond quickly to challenges and opportunities and employees to be agile and resilient. So how can people be more empowered to take risks and make decisions in a work environment that feels less certain and more stressful?

In 2023, our research on the PS Elements found 9 critical needs associated with Empowerment, such as Decision Transparency, Risk-Taking, and Work Ownership. Our recent research on employee engagement and attrition drivers between 2024-2025² revealed five empowerment items with the strongest associations with engagement and attrition.

* from the 2025 attrition multiplier analysis: figures represent how many times more likely employees are to stay if these conditions are met2.
** from the 2025 engagement key driver analysis: displaying the Pearson r correlation value between the empowerment item and engagement outcomes2.

Today, we’ll take a deeper look into each of these empowerment factors and provide data-backed recommendations on how to improve the conditions for empowerment.

Job resources: critical to meeting today’s work demands

We define Job Resources as “resources (time, people, tools, information, knowledge) available when people need them to get their work done.” Our research shows there’s a strong (with Pearson r values = .76) correlation between having the resources to succeed and eSat: (How happy are you working at <COMPANY_NAME>?) and Recommend (I would recommend <COMPANY_NAME> as a great place to work)².

With the many changes happening in today’s work world, employees are under pressure to keep up. Providing sufficient time and resources helps to mitigate feelings of stress. And if not provided adequate resources, our data shows people are twice as likely to leave than those who are².

Calls to action:

• Encourage managers to read employee survey comments and have conversations with direct reports about what they need and why. Do they have access to networking opportunities? Do they have access to technology and the training to use it? Do they have sufficient time to adjust to changes?
• Take an expansive perspective on overall work demands and resources to make sure that employees feel the full support of the organization. This, in turn, will help employees develop psychological capital and trust in leadership.
• Help employees use Copilot prompts and develop job-specific agents that speed up routine tasks.

Barriers to execution: when slow processes get in the way of timely performance

A critical component of empowerment is the ability to “carry out one’s duties and responsibilities without running into roadblocks and with minimal delays.” People expect to see company actions to remove barriers and install efficiencies that make it easier to execute the work. Employees who see their management removing obstacles are more than 2 times as likely to stay with the company than those who don’t². Our data shows a dramatic increase (more than 15% in Pearson r value YoY) in the correlation between removing barriers and engagement outcomes (eSat and Recommend) ². This signals an increasing need for task efficiency and predictability in an environment where work processes and roles are quickly evolving.

Calls to action:

• While some process roadblocks are systemic and require company support to fix, many barriers to action are entirely addressable by individual workers and small teams (e.g., testing small improvements in their workflow before asking for changes). Give employees the resources and authority to safely mitigate problems at their job level and within their scope without asking for permission.
• Open up feedback channels so that employees can easily report obstacles that get in their way. Then involve them in developing solutions and making changes to streamline and improve workflows.

Continuous improvement: a mindset for lasting success

We recognize continuous improvement when companies put effort and resources into ongoing improvements that help people successfully get their work done and produce better quality outcomes. It is an attitude and approach where individuals, teams, and organizations are committed to consistently seeking ways to improve processes, products, skills, and outcomes over time. The continuous improvement mindset is rooted in the belief that there’s always room for growth and optimization, no matter how well things are currently working.

Our stats show that continuous improvement is a strong driver of eSat and Recommend (with Pearson r values of .74 and .76 respectively) ². Changes in technology (e.g., AI), office location (e.g., hybrid/remote workplace), and work policies (e.g., asynchronous “always on” work) are swiftly transforming the way work gets done, but without proper process reengineering, these changes can feel disruptive and create frustration among workers. Both barriers to execution and continuous improvement call for streamlining work to reduce friction and are highly associated with people feeling well-supported by the company.

Calls to action:

• Organizations can better support their managers to help their teams operate more efficiently and successfully by providing them with more decision-making authority and/or better tools to make improvements upon local team feedback.
• Help teams surface improvement ideas through connections to other departments across the organization. Managers can guide their teams on how to grow their informal networks and use them for sharing learnings, innovation, and improvement.
• When individual contributors face inefficiency at work, encourage them to bring the issues to their manager so it can be escalated. Leaders may not always have insight into the day-to-day challenges, so it’s up to employees to share their experiences to drive improvement.

Job empowerment: a matter of trust from leadership

Beyond efficiently getting the job done, empowerment also means being trusted to approach one’s work with ownership, flexibility, and autonomy. This is where leadership trust in employees will make or break feelings of empowerment.

Employees want an optimal level of autonomy and involvement in decision making to perform their work without having to check in first – and without a lot of monitoring. In fact, employees are willing to leave if they experience too much micromanagement. Our research found that employees who have job empowerment decision making authority are 2.8 times less likely to leave than those who don’t².

Post-pandemic, hybrid workers have mostly proven they can be productive with less direct supervision, which has fundamentally reshaped their expectations around control and trust. Yet some leaders still don't agree, and continue to enforce strict mandates that harm retention, especially of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups (women, people with disabilities, those who cannot afford the commute and time away from caregiving responsibilities). In fact, employees from underrepresented groups are 22% more likely to consider leaving if flexibility is withdrawn³. And caregiving employees (73% of U.S. workforce) are 30% more likely to quit if their ability to manage care is compromised by return to office directives⁴.

Calls to action:

• When managers micromanage (continuously checking up on employee progress), or worse yet, monitoring activities (e.g., tracking keyboard or camera actions), it can feel as though they lack trust which can lead to an environment of fear that hinders innovation and growth. Instead, encourage managers to check in on the status of the work tasks and use those moments as an opportunity to provide feedback and clarity which provide the necessary context for the team to plan and direct their own performance.
• Empowerment thrives when employees know they won’t be punished for thoughtful risks. Help managers foster a team environment that normalizes learning from mistakes where people discuss what worked and what didn’t without blame. Use language like “experiments” or “pilots” to frame decisions as opportunities for learning. Back employees publicly when they make decisions in good faith.

Initiative: a path to fearless innovation

People want the self-determination to be creative, take risks, and try new ways of approaching their tasks that bring joy to their work, improve their outcomes… and get the job done. In fact, taking Initiative scores highest among empowerment items as a very strong driver (with Pearson r values greater than .78) of eSat and Recommend². Correlation values have risen 15% YoY indicating an increasing importance of the autonomy, space, and time to experiment with new work practices².

Today, workers welcome new technologies (like AI) that reduce repetitiveness and allow time for more complex strategic activities, leading them to seek greater control over their new, redefined roles⁵. Embracing new tools and processes requires a curious mindset that is open to experimentation and to discovering better ways of working. This mindset is fostered when people can experiment without the fear of negative consequences for failure. Taking risks requires a climate of psychological safety to challenge the status quo.

Calls to action:

• Managers can encourage professional growth and risk taking by decreasing the weight assigned to goals based on expected outcomes and increasing the weight assigned to goals that encompass risk taking and learning. Encourage direct reports to challenge themselves by seeking responsibilities and learning opportunities that will take them in new directions. Recognize those who take risks and make independent decisions.
• Managers can model risk taking for their teams by sharing examples from their own work that demonstrate the value of creative approaches and innovative ideas. Share successes as well as misses, demonstrating that it is safe to fail.
• Managers can create a climate where it's safe to take risks by interacting with employees in ways that encourage alternative perspectives and approaches. Be sure to convey respect and consideration in verbal and nonverbal responses to innovative ideas. Ask questions designed to reveal and develop divergent thinking. Show an openness to new ideas that come from across departmental lines.

Conclusion

With today’s rapid workplace changes, empowering employees is essential for boosting engagement and retention. Empowerment grows with trust from leadership which enables employees to take risks and make decisions more confidently. When organizations provide job support and resources and actively promote self-determination, employees feel valued and motivated to contribute their best, benefiting both themselves and the company.

Is employee empowerment where it needs to be for your organization to thrive?
Think about which of the following survey questions is most critical for your organization's goals and consider including them on your next survey.

References

¹ American Psychological Association. (2025). Work in America™ Survey. Majority of U.S. workers say job insecurity has significant impact on their stress.

² The 2025 engagement and attrition key driver refresh and longitudinal analysis determined the top predictors of engagement and voluntary attrition (across 235 customers) based on LinkedIn Glint survey scores in 2022, 2023, and 2025 representing 6.8 million employee survey responses.

Engagement: As these data variables are continuous, Pearson's r was used to measure the correlation strength of the linear relationship between People Success “critical needs” (25 survey items that measure employee experiences aligned with the six People Success Elements) and the six engagement outcome items (eSat, Recommend, Manager, Belonging, Retention and Intent to Stay). The r values for each item were aggregated and averaged across all customers for each year reported.

To calculate meaningful change from year to year, we examined the delta in r value for each item-outcome pair over the 3-year period. Then, we calculated the correlation percentile splits to determine the top 33 percent (r value YoY deltas from .10 up to .25) and bottom 33% (r value YoY deltas below .05). We comment here only on those items and their outcomes with r value deltas in the top third, noted as “top predictors” or “strong drivers” of the outcome(s) and whether the change is trending up or down.

Attrition: Only survey item responses from at least 15 LinkedIn Glint customers who’ve had at least 80 voluntary terminations between survey administrations were included in this study. “Attrition Multipliers” were formed by comparing favorable vs. unfavorable survey responses scores from those voluntary termed employees for each of the People Success “critical needs” items. Aggregate analysis involved averaging the attrition multipliers per item at a customer level, filtered by n size for each of the three years in this longitudinal study.

³ The Hill. (Aug, 2024). Employers used return-to-office to make workers quit. Then this happened.

⁴ Upwards. (Nov, 2024). The Hidden Key to Successful RTO: Supporting Your Caregiving Employees.

⁵ Stanford Report. (2025, July 7). What workers really want from AI.