EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT

Empowerment - meaning
Empowerment is the process of enabling employees to
set their own work related goals, make decisions
and solve problems within their spheres of
responsibility and authority.
Ex: person empowered as team leader – given freedom
to guide his team members, solve problems within the
team, set goals for the team and he is less controlled.
Allows people, individually and in groups, to use
their talents and knowledge to make decisions that
affect their work.
Empowerment is not a program. It’s a cultural
change done in an organization.
Authorizes an individual to think, behave, take action,
and control work and decision-making in autonomous
ways.
Leads to creativity, introduction of new methods or
even innovation.
Organization has responsibility to provide an
environment that helps employees to act in an
empowered way and should remove the barriers for
the same, immediately after it goes for empowering
employees.
DEFINITIONS
Empowerment is the process coming to feel and
behave as if one is in power(autonomy and control)
and to feel as if he/she owned the firm”
- Richard Kathnelson
 Employee Empowerment predominantly about
encouraging front-line staff to solve customer
problems on the spot, without constant recourse to
management approval”.
- Goldsmith et al
EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT RESULTS IN
 Allows each individual to work to his highest capacity.
 Provides freedom to take initiative, to create, to solve
problems and to assume the responsibility of completing
the task with success, accountability and satisfaction.
 Changes the manager’s mind set. Leaves them with
more time to engage in broad thinking, visioning, and
nurturing, focusing on emerging opportunities and
empowered employees.
Well-managed organization with strong growth potential.
greater commitment and cooperation.
increases organizational effectiveness and success.
Direct and Indirect cost savings.
 EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT CAN BE
DONE BY

Encouraging sharing of information and resources

Seeking advice from employees
Facilitating employees to try their ideas of their own
Improving the communication skills of employees.
Allow employees to participate in the decision-making
process.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF EMPOWERED
EMPLOYEES
Enhances the beliefs in employees that they are also
the influential contributors for the organizational
success.
Employees perceive meaning in work (feel work is
important and take care of what they do).
Employees believe that they have an impact on
important decisions and others would listen to it.
 PRE-REQUISITES FOR EMPLOYEE
EMPOWERMENT

Empowerment works only when employees are

given the necessary resources, proper training and
effectively managed. Only then, they will be able to
successfully perform and make effective decisions.
Managers should assume more leadership and work
hard to provide employees the resources and
working conditions they need to accomplish the
goals they’ve agreed to.
 SOME IMPORTANT OBJECTIVES OF
EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT

Bring in employee involvement

Facilitate quick decision making
Solving complex problems.
 PROCESS OF EMPLOYEE
EMPOWERMENT
IDENTIFYING REASONS FOR EMPOWERMENT AND
LEVEL OF EMPOWERMENT
- managers should decide why should they empower
employees - say to improve customer service, reduce
cycle time or improve product quality and this must
suit the strategic goals, mission and objectives of the
organization.
- Clearly intimate employees about whether they are
empowered only to resolve customer complaints or only
determine work and vacation schedules or only to resolve
problems or only in handling operations or so. It has
to be specific.
DETERMINING IMPACT OF EMPLOYEE DECISIONS
- What decisions manager are willing to
hand over.
- deciding where it makes sense to have employees more
directly involved.
- Trusting employees is very critical. But
empowerment with trust enables good decisions.
- It takes time for employees to learn to make good
decisions and for them to trust that manager’s will
abide by the decisions they make.
WORKING IN TEAMS
- Together, Everyone Achieves More.
- will help empowered employees clearly
understand the
impact of their decisions on other people.
 SHARING INFORMATION
- Empowered employees should have access to
information such as cost to make a product,
average cycle time, customer complaints, annual
sales goals, etc.
 SELECTION OF RIGHT EMPLOYEES
- Taking initiative as well as able to get along with people
 PROVIDING TRAINING
- on decision making, conflict management, problem
solving, diversity, safety and to improve technical skills.
 SETTING GOALS FOR EMPOWERED EMPLOYEES
TO ACHIEVE.
** STRONGEST SIGN OF EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT**
Empowered people start developing skills and knowledge
through training provided in the organization or out side
the organization.
WAYS TO EMPOWER
EMPLOYEES
Empowering employees at lower level who
especially need it than anybody else. Say in customer
satisfaction, repairing a machine or so.
Must have optimum no. of rules to have certain level
of control on employees.
Allowing independent decision making.
Allowing more access to information.
Providing freedom to access the information and other
resources.
LIMITATIONS
Employees in many organization do not have even basic
knowledge about the organization.
Hurts non-empowered employees.
Employee Empowerment can become a major problem to
the organization if the following are not available:
- Increased organizational commitment and OCB.
- Proper intimation of level of empowerment and
proper and required control.
- Employee’s experience / smartness to learn quickly.
- Leadership quality and mingling with others in the
team like a person, one among them.
- Continuous and keen monitoring of the organization and
empowered employees.
TYPES OF EMPLOYEE
EMPOWERMENT

Structured Empowerment – Close control and clear

rules.
Flexible Empowerment – Certain boundaries set and
guidelines rather than rules. Expecting employees to use
their
experience or common sense.
EMPOWERMENT CONTINUUM