How to Empower Employees: Building a Culture of Ownership and Value

I'm Rudy, and after 40+ years in restaurants and running Rudy's Smokehouse since 2005, I've learned that ownership comes from skin in the game. The most effective thing we've done is our Tuesday charity program—we donate half our earnings to local Springfield charities every single Tuesday. Our team gets to vote on which organizations we support each month, so they're literally deciding where their hard work goes beyond their paycheck.

When your dishwasher sees the food bank get a check because Tuesday's shift crushed it, or your line cook's kid's school receives new equipment from our donations, they start thinking bigger than just clocking in. We've raised thousands for the Springfield community this way, and our staff turnover dropped noticeably after we started letting them choose the beneficiaries. They're not just making brisket—they're feeding families through our charity partners.

I also make it a point to be on the floor constantly. I'm not hiding in an office—I'm meeting guests, yes, but I'm also watching my team work and asking what they need to do their jobs better. Last year a server told me our catering inquiry process was confusing customers, so we rebuilt it based on her feedback. She now trains new hires on that system because she owns it.

The barbecue business is personal, and so is leadership. When people see their ideas implemented and their values reflected in where the money goes, they stop treating it like just another restaurant job. That's been the difference for us in Central Ohio's competitive food scene.

I run a family-owned excavation company in Indianapolis, and the single biggest shift came when we invested heavily in technical training and certification programs. We don't just send people to standard OSHA courses—we fund specialized training in GPS-guided machinery, laser grading techniques, and stormwater management systems. When an operator masters a new skill set, they immediately see it reflected in their paycheck and title.

The second piece is putting workers in front of clients during planning phases. Our equipment operators now join pre-construction meetings where they can speak directly to engineering challenges they've solved on previous sites. I've watched a guy who started running a backhoe three years ago explain trench safety protocols to a commercial developer last month. That kind of visibility changes how someone sees their role.

We also appointed team leads as "competent persons" under OSHA guidelines—giving them authority to stop work if they spot safety issues. That's real power, not fake empowerment. Since 2020, our on-time completion rate hit 98% specifically because crew members started catching problems early instead of waiting for management to notice. When someone can halt a $200K job over a soil stability concern and gets thanked for it, they understand their judgment matters.

I run a luxury and exotic car dealership in South Florida, and our industry has crazy turnover because sales can feel transactional. What shifted everything for us was letting team members own entire customer relationships from first contact through delivery--not just hand-offs between departments.

One of our sales guys kept getting questions about consignment from clients who wanted to sell their high-end vehicles, so instead of redirecting them to management, I had him build out our entire consignment process. He now handles appraisals, creates the marketing strategy with our 40+ photo shoots, and manages those relationships end-to-end. His commission structure changed to reflect that ownership, and clients specifically ask for him because he actually knows their car's story.

We also started including our entire team in vehicle acquisition decisions. When I'm evaluating a potential AMG E63 S or Lamborghini Huracan for inventory, I'll bring in whoever's interested to discuss market positioning, pricing strategy, and what features we should highlight in listings. The detailer who preps our cars now spots value-add details I would've missed--like mentioning factory carbon-ceramic brakes or track apps--because he's thinking about the sale, not just the clean.

At James Duva Inc., we've been in business since 1978, and I've learned that career ownership starts with trust and exposure. When team members see the full picture of our operations—from sourcing specialty materials like Hastelloy C-276 to managing relationships with manufacturers like Bristol and Sandvik—they naturally start thinking beyond their immediate tasks.

One thing that's worked incredibly well is involving our warehouse and inside sales teams in vendor meetings and technical discussions about alloys. Our warehouse manager Jesse Kroner, for example, started learning the technical differences between duplex 2205 and standard stainless grades, which made him way more confident when handling inventory decisions. That knowledge translates to ownership because he's not just moving boxes—he's managing critical materials for nuclear and chemical processing clients.

We also make it a point to celebrate when someone solves a sourcing problem or finds a better solution for a customer. In our industry, when a customer calls with an urgent need for specialty fittings or high-nickel alloys, the person who figures it out becomes the hero. Recognition comes immediately, not at some quarterly review, and that real-time acknowledgment makes people feel essential to our success.

The biggest lesson I've learned is that people take ownership when they understand why their work matters. When our team knows that the Incoloy 825 components they're shipping could be going into critical oil and gas infrastructure, it's not just another order—it's mission-critical work that demands their best effort.

Ownership is deeper when people understand the economics of their labor. I present revenue dashboards during team meetings and explain how each department contributes to top line movement. Occasionally, I'll break out how a 3 percent lift in conversion will equal $180,000 in additional revenue for the year. When you allow people to see that kind of information, you're showing them you trust them and inviting them to think strategically. Confidence comes from feeling valued, which is earned more through understanding your influence than it is through compliments. Defined accountability and the economics behind your organization's goals can turn jobs into careers.

We encourage ownership through real conversations, accessibility to leadership, and creating opportunities for people to grow in directions that matter to them.

In one-on-ones, we ask people what they want to develop, what skills matter to them, and where they see themselves going. Not everyone wants to move into management, and that is fine. Some people want to become deep experts in compliance or maintenance coordination. Others do want leadership roles. We try to create pathways for whatever someone's goals are, whether that is stretch projects, pairing them with mentors, supporting continuing education, or giving them opportunities to lead.

We also give people real responsibility and trust them to handle it. Creating the Director of Compliance role and promoting Hannah Childers into it is one example. We identified a need, recognized someone who could fill it, and empowered her to own that role completely. That kind of trust builds ownership.

People feel valued when they are recognized, when leadership is accessible, and when they have autonomy. We do a lot to acknowledge anniversaries and accomplishments. I am in the office almost every day and people can reach me. We give people flexibility in how they approach their work as long as they are accountable for results.

Do we have formal career development programs or structured training tracks? No, not really. We are a 40-person company, not a corporation. But what we do have is genuine investment in people's growth and a culture where development matters.

In order to cultivate an ownership mentality, we need to transition away from focusing on the needs of the company and concentrate more on how the goals of the company are aligned with each individual's technical growth trajectory. There's a sense of belonging when developers feel that they are not simply executing on a predetermined path, but rather are actively helping to create the path that they will take in their career. When a developer sees how their growth in a particular technology or development methodology solves a bottleneck in production that is impacting the success of the company at large, they develop a stronger sense of ownership. This transforms the employer/employee relationship into a partnership where both are building the individual's professional legacy.

A specific program we have implemented that has achieved this goal is Project Bidding. This program allows engineers to express interest in joining a team/squad with whom they would like to work, using a technology stack that they would like to become an expert in, even if it falls outside of their current primary role. Growth Sprint provides the necessary support to Project Bidding. Growth Sprint is a portion of time in which engineers are provided with dedicated resources to work internally on either building internal tooling or gaining new certifications related to their technology stack, which results directly in addressing real-world business pain points. This program aligns with examples from other organizations within our industry as exemplified by LinkedIn's Workplace Learning Report, which indicates that 93% Of Organizations Consider Providing Learning Opportunities as their Top Retention Strategy. Therefore, by providing engineers with not just a training budget but actual time, ownership of one's career transitions from the idea of an HR objective to an everyday practice.

In order to create a culture of ownership, it is vital to build a very high level of trust amongst employees and to encourage experimentation in safe environments. The long-term marketability of an employee is equally as important to that employee as is the current productivity of that employee to the organization. When an organization invests in its employees' future, the employees subsequently become more invested in the organization.

I run a fourth-generation equipment company in Wisconsin, and in our industry the challenge isn't just retention—it's getting people to think beyond "I operate machines" to "I understand the business." What worked for us was turning our service technicians into teachers through our best practices program.

We started documenting every major repair pattern we saw and turned those insights into training content. When one of our techs kept seeing the same undercarriage failures, we had him write the actual maintenance guide that now lives on our website and gets used in customer training. He became the go-to expert, customers request him by name, and his hourly rate reflects that specialized knowledge.

The bigger shift happened when we involved our parts and service teams in customer fleet management decisions. Instead of just filling orders, they now analyze fluid samples, track maintenance costs against that 30% resale value threshold, and make rebuild-versus-replace recommendations directly to contractors. They see the $70,000 rebuild decision they influenced, not just the $200 parts order they processed.

We also opened up our operational data after we remodeled our Madison location in 2014. When the team saw actual costs of emergency callouts versus preventive maintenance contracts, they started proactively calling customers about upcoming service intervals. Our emergency calls dropped, planned maintenance revenue went up, and they earned quarterly bonuses tied directly to those preventive contracts they sold.

We encourage career ownership by giving employees real chances to shape the business. We run Entrepreneurial Office Hours where anyone can pitch improvements directly to leadership. If an idea gets approved—like a Spanish for Real Estate module—that teacher becomes the project lead and earns a share of the results. We also give a learning stipend for certifications or training they choose. The big shift is that people stop feeling like they're just delivering lessons and start feeling trusted to build what's next.

I run a landscaping company in Massachusetts, and the biggest shift for us was getting out of the truck alongside the crew. When I'm out there edging beds or managing a hardscape install with them, people see I'm not asking them to do anything I wouldn't do myself. That mutual respect changes everything about how they view their role.

We also let experienced crew members bid their own jobs within reason. If someone's been with us for a few seasons and they think they can handle a spring cleanup or mulching project independently, I let them quote it and run the job. They keep a percentage above their hourly rate when they bring it in on time and on budget. Suddenly they're thinking like business owners, not just hourly workers.

The winter months are tough in New England when landscaping slows down, so we cross-trained our team on snow management. Now the same guys maintaining lawns in summer are running plows for our commercial clients in Wellesley and Roslindale during snowstorms. They went from seasonal uncertainty to year-round security, which completely changed retention.

I tell them exactly what each job costs us and what we charge so they understand the margins. When they see a $6,000 patio project breaks down to $2,400 in materials, $2,000 in labor, and $1,600 covering equipment, insurance, and profit, they get why quality matters and how their efficiency directly impacts whether we all eat next month.

I've been running Titan Technologies since 2008, and I've spoken everywhere from West Point to Harvard Club on cybersecurity, so I've seen what motivates technical teams versus what just sounds good on paper.

The most effective program we implemented is phishing simulations before training sessions. We send fake phishing emails to employees, collect the results, then share them anonymously with the entire company. When people see that 60% of their coworkers clicked a bad link, they suddenly pay attention to the training that follows. Employees who catch the phishing attempts get recognized, and those who don't get personalized coaching—not punishment. This approach cut our click-through rates from 60% to under 15% in six months.

We also let employees request specific technology training they want, not just what we think they need. One team member asked about advanced Excel for data analytics, we paid for it, and she ended up redesigning our entire project tracking system. She now trains new hires on it because it's her creation. Human error causes 90% of data breaches, so when employees take ownership of their security knowledge, everyone wins.

The key is making mistakes educational instead of punishable. We openly discuss security incidents in team meetings—no names, just lessons. When "Jared" clicks a suspicious link, we talk about what made it convincing, not who Jared is. That transparency builds trust and gets people genuinely invested in protecting the company.

I encourage ownership by designing the company to be small on purpose: I work directly with a handful of specialists, each owning a clear domain end-to-end and using AI to remove the admin and coordination work that used to justify layers. That structure makes careers feel real because progression is not "become a manager," it's "become the owner of a bigger outcome," with deeper autonomy, clearer impact, and faster feedback. The specific practice that keeps it working is direct weekly leader-to-specialist check-ins focused on decisions and blockers, plus a monthly scope review where we expand or refine ownership based on what the specialist shipped and what the business needs next.

At PressBeat, we hold monthly hack days where anyone can pitch an idea. Our engineers have taken new AI features from concept to launch on their own. When we share company goals and give people that freedom, they take charge. A simple call-out in a team meeting for that work makes people feel seen. And if someone wants to learn something new, connecting them with a mentor or the right course keeps them invested.

Nothing beats a profit sharing program. When employees get a percentage of monthly profit, they're much more likely to feel valued, enjoy their work, and stay motivated to perform their best. It also creates a deep sense of transparency in terms of business performance. Profit sharing can make sense for any type of employee, and while a standard commission structure is often used for sales reps, I still think profit sharing is better for sales reps because then they're less likely to pressure the wrong leads to buy. Profit sharing takes a longer term view and if a customer cancels after 1 month (or leaves a bad review after a one-off purchase), then that's not good for long term profit.

I wanted my designers to have more skin in the game, so I let each one put together a seasonal collection. They inject their own style into our mainstays. Now they actually check on their work in stores and pore over customer reviews. I learned that when people can see the direct result of their labor, they do their best work. Show them how their design fits into the whole picture, then give them the freedom to mess up or nail it.

Most organizations engineer passivity by treating career progression like a linear algorithm: complete task X, receive title Y. This "checklist culture" breeds a Passenger Mindset, where employees sit back and wait for the company to drive their growth. To engineer true ownership, you must break this dependency loop. The most effective strategy is to deliberately deprecate the granular career ladder in favor of an open-architecture model.

By refusing to provide a rigid roadmap, you force the employee to function as the architect of their own trajectory. The mechanism here is the "Self-Authored Promotion Spec." Instead of asking a manager what boxes to check, the engineer must analyze the organization's systemic bottlenecks and propose a new role designed to solve them. This forces a shift in perspective from individual task completion to organizational impact. They stop asking, "How do I get promoted?" and start asking, "Where is the highest leverage point for my skills within this system?"

In my experience, when you mandate that employees design their own next level, the conversation shifts from entitlement to value exchange. You stop promoting people who are merely good at following instructions and start promoting leaders who understand that their career is a product they must build, iterate, and sell based on the ROI it delivers to the enterprise.

Letting team members lead small things, like a site inspection or an ops meeting, really helps. Our crew supervisor recently ran a new hire training session and it went great. Since we started rotating these tasks, people are stepping up more. My advice is to give people real work, not just talk, and to call out their specific wins during team meetings.

Running a remote SEO team, I found that simple things work best. We started monthly sessions where everyone shows their recent work and gets feedback from colleagues. After one of these, a junior SEO specialist pitched a client strategy that went live the next week. Now people are constantly learning new skills on their own so they have something cool to share at the next meeting.

You know, people get excited when you ask them to show what they're working on. Even a casual roundtable works. Our junior analysts were quiet about their calculator prototypes until we started doing open feedback sessions where everyone could see the reactions. That changed everything. Try starting with forums where people explain what their project actually does for customers. No fancy presentations needed.

Letting people try things out themselves makes a real difference. When we launched EcomLedger, one person suggested a dashboard change, so we let them run the test. Suddenly they were in every meeting, asking questions, pushing the project forward. Even a quick mention in our weekly catch-up makes people feel like their work actually matters. Specific praise goes a lot further than a generic "good job."

One of the ways I encourage ownership is through making career progression explicit and co-owned, including regular career conversations in which individuals define what they want to achieve and managers commit to providing specific support. The most effective approach is one in which career progression is linked with actual opportunities for individuals, such as stretch assignments or internal mobility, and in which feedback is provided to demonstrate that progression is not just conceptual but actively supported by the organization.

As the founder of DeWitt Pharma, I lead the teams that assist licensed medical providers in the whole of Texas by selling them FDA-approved aesthetic injectables. Because we are in a highly regulated healthcare setting, the workers are the owners of their careers when they understand that patient safety, provider trust, and regulatory compliance directly depend on their work. We are well aware of the direction the business is headed and what standards must be upheld, and it makes the employees realize why they must be able to work on technical knowledge as well as professional judgment.

We not only believe in growth, but we also realize it by ensuring that growth is a daily practice rather than a thing that is associated with annual reviews. Managers discuss the skills development, education on the products, and readiness for bigger responsibilities, particularly how to serve medspas, dermatologists, and physicians. The employees are granted the liberty to run the processes and provider relations, as well as quality controls, and their advice is highly encouraged. Human beings adore their work and maintain their loyalty, even as they realize that their decisions can influence real providers and real patients. They consider responsibility and accountability to be a serious issue. In this way, we have a highly interested workforce over an extended period of time.

Creating clear AI skill progression paths for our team really helps. They see how their hands-on work, like improving score-distillation or collaborating on 3D mesh projects, builds both their resumes and confidence.

Our quarterly Innovation Showcases worked wonders, with team members presenting their own AI side projects. This sparked more ownership and led to a few unexpected cross-team collaborations. The key is letting people showcase their learning openly. Peer recognition is the best motivator.

Ownership must be the norm, not the outlier. Titles aren't synonymous with performance. Performance isn't synonymous with engagement. Therefore, the systems have to make ownership unavoidable, rather than something to strive for. This requires smaller teams, less bureaucracy, and less micromanagement. More freedom for unique systems to develop organically. Individuals run circles around managers when they are empowered to patchwork around problems themselves.

Cadence is more important than program. Quarterly trainings or monthly check-ins will not change habits. It's the subtle, systematic behaviors that go almost unnoticed: one sync per task with a trusted peer, daily prep walk-throughs without being watched, etc. Movement within a group should not require permission.

When a mentor actually cares about someone's growth, that person starts taking charge of their own career. At my company Together, people got more involved after our leaders opened up about their own paths and just asked what they wanted to do next. Most people just want clarity and someone to talk to. My advice? Keep it simple and ask what they actually need. That's how they know you're paying attention.