Workers Have the Entrepreneurial Bug but Lack Confidence

Why workers don’t pursue entrepreneurship

According to a Zapier-commissioned Harris Poll of more than 2,000 Americans, while 61 percent of employees have had an idea for starting a business at some point (34 percent have had more than one), 92 percent don’t move forward with their entrepreneurial dreams. 

Entrepreneurial ideas are put on hold for various reasons. A lack of funding is the biggest barrier, with 63 percent of survey respondents citing a lack of capital as the primary reason they don’t start their own business. However, other barriers to entrepreneurship exist, including not knowing how to get started (39 percent), a fear of failing (33 percent), and a lack of access to business tools (29 percent).

Why employers should help employees build entrepreneurial competencies

It may seem counterintuitive for employers to nurture and encourage entrepreneurship in their team members. After all, businesses want to attract and retain top talent, not push excellent employees away into new ventures. 

However, employees with robust entrepreneurial competencies can benefit their current employers while honing the skills and experience necessary to become entrepreneurs and small business owners in the future. This workplace philosophy is called intrapreneurship.

What is intrapreneurship?

Intrapreneurship, or “intra entrepreneurship,” is entrepreneurialism within the workplace. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and numerous research efforts going back decades, intrapreneurship can actually increase employee engagement. The NIH research found increasingly positive correlations between intrapreneurship and workplace engagement, particularly when employees are invested in the organization’s success.  

Intrapreneurship can free entrepreneurial employees to work on new ideas and business pursuits, such as new departments and initiatives, within the safety of an established company. They don’t risk their own money and resources, but if their ideas succeed, everyone wins. 

How can employers encourage intrapreneurship?

Helping employees build core entrepreneurial competencies will encourage intrapreneurship and create a more engaged and innovative staff. When you build your employees’ confidence, your organization will benefit from new ideas, dedicated team members and increased leadership. 

Employers can encourage intrapreneurship in the following ways: 

• Provide professional development resources. You can build employees’ confidence and encourage intrapreneurship by prioritizing professional development. When businesses encourage professional development, they help create an engaged, loyal workforce that fuels business growth. In fact, providing professional development resources can attract the kind of high-level talent that fuels business growth in the first place. According to LinkedIn research, professional development opportunities are a significant driver of employees’ decisions to work with specific companies and can boost employee retention. 
• Provide the right workplace culture. Intrapreneurship can’t develop in a stifled workplace culture. Instead, strive to create an inclusive company culture that prioritizes independent thinking, collaboration and innovation. Focus on “macromanagement” – management from afar. By avoiding a tendency to micromanage, which can impede employees’ innovation and stifle new ideas, employers can help to support a culture of intrapreneurship. 
• Set clear expectations and offer direction. You want to set up your team to succeed. To do so, set clear expectations for intrapreneurial endeavors and provide direction and support. For example, do you need a new product to fulfill a specific niche? Does a particular process need improvement? Are customers revealing a need your current offerings can’t satisfy? Empower your team to solve problems within the parameters you set. 
• Teach employees the financial side of the business. It can behoove business owners to teach savvy, trusted employees about business financial management. This knowledge can support the employees’ future entrepreneurial dreams and give them the tools they need to succeed. However, in the shorter term, it can provide business insights that inform their decision-making about organizational strategies and initiatives. For example, you can teach them how to secure a business loan, how to select the best business loan for a particular organization or how to set up accounting software.
• Incentivize employees to innovate. Encourage intrapreneurship by offering monetary or other incentives. When employees have a stake in the rewards their ideas generate, they’ll grow more confident and empowered.
• Let employees know it’s OK to fail. Fear of failure can stop employees from acting on their entrepreneurial instincts. Employers can help their team members develop confidence by making it OK to fail and showing them how failures can become opportunities for learning and development. For example, reward employees who take risks even if they don’t work out as expected. A fear of failure diminishes confidence and makes employees less likely to share ideas in the future.
• Encourage employees to pursue external interests. Give employees time to pursue talents and interests outside the scope of their jobs. They can bring back fresh skills and perspectives and apply them to current workplace challenges. Additionally, well-rounded employees with experiences outside their day-to-day jobs gain confidence. 

How can employees help create a culture of intrapreneurship?

Employees play a critical role in boosting their own confidence – and the confidence leadership has in them. Team members can help foster a culture of empowered intrapreneurship in the workplace by doing the following: 

• Volunteering for new tasks
• Asking to be included in learning opportunities 
• Taking on new responsibilities outside their comfort zone
• Leveraging feedback with open-mindedness to identify opportunities for improvement
• Learning new skills and competencies to boost workplace success

Acting more like an entrepreneur in your current position can boost your success as a team member while preparing you for the day you can launch your great business idea.  

Paving the way for tomorrow’s entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs and small businesses form the foundation of the U.S. economy. While big businesses tend to make the headlines more often, small businesses help local economies enormously, generate 44 percent of all U.S. economic activity and create two-thirds of the country’s jobs. 

Employers and managers don’t necessarily want top employees to leave their organizations to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. However, they do want their team members to be robust contributors who fuel organizational growth while developing as professionals. Employers can do a great deal to help workers gain the confidence necessary to lay the groundwork for future endeavors while finding success in their current positions. 

When employers take steps to understand and develop their team members’ entrepreneurial tendencies, everyone wins.