Ways to Make Employee Empowerment Fail - Assignment Example

 People and Performance Question 1 There could be several varied reasons for why Philip would seek to change his job situation but the case study gives several hints which point towards a content theory of motivation. A theory based on content suggests that people are motivate by their desires to fulfil their basic and higher order needs and that they can find happiness in their work if the work they do allows them to combine the reward for working i.e. salaries, bonuses etc. with their higher order needs such as personal fulfilment (Boxall and Purcell, 2003). As discussed by Armstrong (1999), Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs can be used to explain the situation Philip was in and the manner in which he decided to change his job. Considering that Maslow’s theory presented us with five orders of needs it is clear that all of those were fulfilled by the job he had with Avant Garde. He had a competitive salary which took care of his basic needs for nourishment; he had a company car, free healthcare, personal pension plan and a job he liked which took care of his needs for safety, security and social affiliations. The fourth order need in term of esteem could have been fulfilled by his rising position within the company even through his first class travel as he worked for Avant Garde. Even in terms of self actualization, he could have attained some level of it through his making the HR Department of the company the envy of others. Recognition by others within his social circle and even outside his social circle would have come from this achievement and it is likely that he would have continued working for the company till his retirement. However, there was a fly in the ointment which caused him to rethink his decision and his life as well since his third order needs were put in danger. From being socially accepted within the company he found himself being excluded from meetings when the company he was working for was taken over by someone else. In fact, he even lost his position as part of the strategic decision making group of the company. The final straw as put by the case study was the requirement for Phil to eliminate a large portion of the company through making many of his co-workers redundant. These developments put Philip in a position where he could not continue working for the company. While his basic needs were being fulfilled, his higher order needs were not being met which made him look for other opportunities. Amongst these opportunities was the chance to work at his Alma Matter and he took that knowing that he had had positive experiences in the past while he was at college. These elements became the main motivating factors for Philip’s search for a new job and for changing his job from Avant Garde. Word Count: 488 Question 2 There are several key issues which could be taken as the primary problems being faced by Philip as he works as a Principal Lecturer at Newhaven University. The first and most important amongst them appears to be a lack of communications between various individuals and departments. Other issues which could be said to stem from this lack of communications is a lack of motivation, low levels of employee empowerment, lack of teamwork, the absence of a positive vision, low motivation and organizational politics which partly come from having an autocratic as well as bureaucratic system. Many of these problems can be explained through the applicable theories and these theories also offer solutions to the problems being faced by Philip. As a part of the process theories of motivation, the Expectancy Model says that individuals may choose a path between several different behaviours based on the external influences which act on them. When the workers at the university see the environment they are placed in, they may not like or appreciate the toxic environment but the situation forces them to act accordingly. Knowing that politics and infighting can be used to personal advantage, they may engage in it without considering the impact it could have on the company itself. Such a choice would be based on their personal expectancy of getting an outcome which is good for them. For example, lining up against Philip’s ideas may come with the expectancy that Philip could be pushed out of the university while allowing others within the organisation to take his place. The solution to the problem comes with positive communications and a change in the atmosphere which is geared towards rewarding individuals based on their performance alone (Kerr, 1996). if a person at the university knows that working hard and working towards the aims of the university would get them a promotion or even a higher salary that person would certainly be inclined towards working with the aims of the university rather than against them. On the other hand, the bureaucratic setup and the administrative maze within the university may be giving individuals the job security they need without them having to show real performance. The quality of education as well as the performance of the individuals would thus be decreased dramatically simply because an autocratic system exists against which it is impossible to fight unless the vision and the guiding principles of the administration are to change. Instead of functioning as a bureaucracy, the university has to become a meritocracy. Even though it is an educational institute, it could learn a lot from companies such as GE, PepsiCo, Sun Microsystems and IBM who differentiate between their employees and give rewards based on performance alone (Grote, 2002). The idea of rewarding people based on their performance is not new but it has to be applied for it to be effective. Some of the top companies in the world use the system invented by GE and heavily reward the top 20% of employees while normally rewarding the middle 70%. The bottom ten percent who cannot deal with the vision of the company, the position it is in or even their own place within the organisation are asked to leave (Welch, 2005). Another problem the university is dealing with is the issue of empowerment and Philip is quite a victim here. While he is trying to do things for the university including the creation of local partnerships, he finds that he is not empowered to do so since the politics of the organisation are standing in his way. Welch (2005) recommends that an organisation that wishes to empower the individuals working within it should not have a bureaucratic system since that leads to inefficiencies when it comes to rapid decision making which is the essence of empowering the employees and workers. Empowerment is necessary for the university since it would allow people working within the university to take decisions. Heathfield (2007) suggests that the problem is one of understanding when it comes to empowerment since managers and administrators may not have a clue what empowerment actually means. She says that managers may “have a vague notion that employee empowerment means you start a few teams that address workplace employee morale or safety. You ask people what they think about something at a meeting. Wrong. Employee empowerment is a philosophy or strategy that enables people to make decisions about their job (Heathfield, 2007, Pg. 1)”. Clearly, the teachers and lecturers at the university are completely unable to make decisions regarding what they will do and what they can do to help the university achieve its potential. The decision making process therefore has to be decentralised and a lack of empowerment coupled with problems in decision making are putting Philip in a position where no matter what he suggests can be put down by others who simply disagree with him being there in the first place. Without real empowerment or even without a certain level of decision making authority which resides with the employees, the majority of power within the organisation would be kept by just a few individuals (Beardwell & Holden, 1997). As discussed by Hollinshead and Leat (1995) such systems are difficult to maintain or even remain profitable in a culture which encourages independent thinking and individual action. Going against the grain of the people working for the university is certainly the situation here and while Philip is trying to make things better, it is essential for him to understand that the system needs change before the individuals he is working with would accept his ideas and the changes he wishes to bring. This brings us back to the problem of communication since it seems that no one within the university is willing to talk to others to come up with solutions. Perhaps those who are not communicating need to be removed since they are the ones who refuse to accept new ideas that are supposed to be good for the university. However, it is certainly clear that a lot needs to be done before Philip can become a productive member of the organisation and if nothing is done soon, knowing Philip, it is very likely that he will leave the university which will certainly be their loss. Word Count: 988 Works Cited Armstrong, M. 1999. A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, Kogan Page. Beardwell I. and Holden L. 1997, Human Resource Management: A contemporary Perspective, Pitman. Boxall P. and Purcell J., 2003, Strategy and Human Resource Management, Palgrave & Macmillan. Grote, D. 2002, ‘Forced Ranking: Behind the Scenes’, Across the Board, vol. 39, no. 6, pp. 40-46. Heathfield. H. 2007, ‘Top Ten Ways to Make Employee Empowerment Fail’, [Online] Available at: http://humanresources.about.com/od/involvementteams/a/empowerment.htm Hollinshead, G and Leat, M. 1995, Human Resource Management: An international and comparative perspective, FT Pitman Publishing. Kerr, S. 1996, ‘Risky business: The new pay game’, Fortune. vol. 134, no. 2, pp. 94-97. Welch, J. 2005, Winning, Collins. Read More