Start of employment male might authorise (7)
I believe the answer is:
empower
'authorise' is the definition.
(empowering is a kind of authorising)
'start of employment male might' is the wordplay.
'start of' indicates taking the first letters.
'might' becomes 'power' (I've seen this before).
The first letters of 'employment male' is 'em'.
'em'+'power'='EMPOWER'
(Other definitions for empower that I've seen before include "Give authority to, enable" , "Authorize" , "Authorise, endue" , "Allow" , "Give strength and confidence to" .)