Employee Empowerment of Organization - Term Paper Example

 Running Head: Employee Empowerment Table of contents Abstract Introduction I. Employee Empowerment-the concept II. Objectives of Employee Empowerment III. The importance of Employee Empowerment IV. Strategies for Employee Empowerment V. Empowerment and Leadership VI. Diversity and Employee Empowerment Cultural Diversity Inter personal relationship Language diversity Differences in capacity & knowledge levels Changes in Team member’s Demographics Changes in employee expectation Result based performance VII. Tools for Employee Empowerment Training Motivation Communication Performance appraisals VIII. Conclusion IX. References Abstract This paper deals in detail the relevance of employee empowerment in the performance and outlook of an organization. The concept that drives the process of empowerment has been discussed in detail. The paper further explains the importance of employee empowerment in the organizational outcomes, personal attributes of the employees and in the overall integration of the organization with its employees. The strategies for initiating employee empowerment as identified by different researchers have also been reviewed. The relationship between leadership and empowerment, and the relevance of empowerment in diverse management scenario are also dealt. Finally, the paper analyses the tools of employee empowerment with relevance to the modern work environments. Modern business environments demand enormous amount of energy and diligence from the employees, regardless of the kind and mode of business. In this context, it has been found that organizations that mange to channel their energy and resources towards the encouragement and empowerment of its staff have witnessed quality excellence and successful organizational outcomes. This fact has been confirmed as the publication on Standards for Establishing Healthy Work Environments released by American Association of Critical-Care Nurses has suggested that there is an inevitable link between the nursing outcome and the empowerment of the staff (American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, 2005).This linkage can be expected in every organization regardless of the mode of activity. The objective of this paper is to analyze in detail the role of employee empowerment in the operational outcomes and work environment within an organization. It also examines the various tools of employee empowerment and the role each of it has in empowering and motivating the workforce. Different perspectives through which the management should handle operations pertaining to employee empowerment has also been explained. Employee Empowerment-the concept Erickson, Hamilton, Jones and Ditomassi (2006, 96-104) have stated that the process of empowerment happens when the team leaders engage their staff in ways that would promote personal and professional growth. During this cognitive process, the leaders help the employees to develop their skills and attitude. This resultantly make positive move towards the realization of the staff’s optimal potential. The basic concept of staff empowerment is to build a healthily functional, dedicated and motivated human resource team with an increased sense of productivity. (Copp, Agpaoa, Carvalho & Pfeiffer, 2004). To put it in simple language, employee empowerment is the process of enabling and encouraging an employee to think, make decisions, take action and control their work autonomously. It refers to the enhancement of the employees’ responsibilities by giving them the authority to make decisions about their job without seeking the approval of their supervisor. The process of empowerment in many cases has to be deliberately induced into the working system. This is because in normal organizational structures and employee hierarchies, the chances for the employee getting automatically empowered is scarce. This is due to the mindset and the peculiarities on the behavioral protocol gap among different cadres of staff. In this context, the organization has the responsibility in formulation of ideal work environments, which would catalyze the ability and desire of employees to act in empowered ways. The creation of such an environment would mean the removal of barriers that play vital role in restricting the ability of employees to have an empowered outlook. The concept of empowerment has to get involved in each and every human resource policy of organizations. This is important because it is often considered that the process of employee empowerment starts right from the inception process. Many of the studies held in the line have agreed to this point. If self driven candidates with the capacity to be innovative, responsible and those who hold decision making capacity is hired into the team, the empowerment process becomes much easy. With the presence of ideal candidates and optimal work environment, empowerment to an extent happens automatically. Objectives of Employee Empowerment In general the objective of employee empowerment is to ensure the availability of technically, physically and mentally competent and committed individuals readily available in the work force of the organization. This part of the essay analyses the objectives of employee empowerment broadly through different perspectives. Societal Perspective The capacity building and the empowerment of the employees has to be answerable to the social responsibilities of the organization. The ideal role of staff empowerment is to identify and deliver towards the challenges and needs of the society while ensuring that the negative impacts these gestures of Corporate Social Responsibility does not affect the operational performance of the institution and the targeted benefits both of the organization and its employees. This responsibility of the institutions must be read together with the fact that an organization failing to utilize their manpower and other resources to deliver towards the societal objectives, may lead to legal, political and other locally relevant restrictions. Organizational Perspective Any empowerment activity of the human resources does not persist within itself. It has to work in relation and association with the objectives and vision of the organization Employee empowerment strategies have to aim to recognize its role in bringing about organizational effectiveness and improvisation. In totality, staff empowerment should work along with the lines of the vision and mission of the organization. The harmony among the staff and the team spirit within the work force are obvious necessities for the effective work flow to happen in the organizational environment. Employee empowerment is key factor in integrating the manpower towards a single direction leading to the sustainable development of the organization. Functional Perspective Functionally, employee empowerment has to work relentlessly in making ready the man power of the business or any other institutional entity so as it delivers effectively towards the organization’s performance. The functionality of the human resources has to be tailored to match each and every specific functional objective of the organization that it serves. The optimization of the effectiveness of workforce should be prime functional aim of employee empowerment Personal Perspective Employee empowerment should take into consideration the personal goals of the individual employees within the organization. Adhering to and respecting the employee expectations becomes vital especially in the modern scenario with a market welcoming professionals with huge opportunities. Strategies on employee empowerment must ensure to motivate, maintain and retain the work force by paying respect to the personal objectives. Cases in which the personal objectives are met may lead to the decline of employee performance and satisfaction, ultimately resulting in employees leaving the organization (William, Werther & Keith, 2003, 11). The importance of empowerment In the modern corporate scenario the pressure of competition is immense upon organizations. Developments in globalization and liberalized international policies have added acute diversity in the organizational operations across the globe. This would urge the employees to assign themselves with varied roles and responsibilities. The time factor in business however allows little time for this self amendment process. Thus the management will not be in the luxury of training the staff for each mode of work. Thus the concept of developing independency and being empowered is quite vital. However, the empowerment of the staff as per the changing situations requires tremendous change in their mindset and capacity. In order to make possible the tiresome task of making the workforce ready to voluntarily take responsibilities as per the demands of the industry, the most influential factor is moral courage and commitment. Lachman (2007, 275-277) has defined moral courage as the capacity to overcome fear and stand up for personal core values and ethical obligations. Thus empowerment is vital in helping the staff to overcome fear for responsibility and to motivate them in having personal values of their own. Further it is the skill of the organization and its training team to ensure that these personal values and the vision of the organization match each other. In the development process of courage many empowerment tools would play consistent roles. Klein and Napier (2003) opined that courage is a way of speaking and listening for the expression and enhancement of relationships. Interrelating these definitions with the importance of staff self dependency, it is proved that the tools like communication is crucial in the empowerment process. The detailed analysis of these tools would be dealt in later sections of the essay. The most important feature of staff empowerment is that it strengthens the employees to make independent decisions in differing organizational situations. The end result of empowerment would be that it would automatically set situation-specific behavioral guidelines of each employee. This would further lead towards effective work environments. While looking into the records of pioneer companies who boast to have an effective and successful workforce, it can be found that these companies were innovative enough to focus on giving optimal decision-making power to its front-line employees. Fostering this type of work environment significantly enhances employee engagement and commitment. The personal growth of each employee happens as a result of empowerment. It has been confirmed that the empowerment of employees would create a nurturing environment in which staff can learn, grow, improve, and function effectively (Pfeiffer & Dunlap, 2005, 154-156). Moreover it helps in the development of self respect as it provides a feeling of trust, importance and capability. These feelings would create a happy and satisfied work force. The satisfaction of the workforce has much to do with the overall performance of the company. Empowered employees are happier, more productive, and more committed to their organizations. Zhu, May and Avolio (2004, 16-26) have opined that employee empowerment increases job satisfaction. Thus empowerment has a direct implication with organizational performance. If the workforce is allowed to make autonomous decisions, it increases their job satisfaction and sense of responsibility. This directly reflects as an improvement in the quality and promptness of work. Thus the management will be in the luxury to concentrate on more concrete issues. The benefits that the empowered employees deliver towards the institutional cause are substantial. They have a greater ability to make a direct impact on their organization. Additionally, empowered employees prove to have better confidence in their own abilities and thus are able to positively influence their job and the organization. Employees who are empowered understand the ethical meaning of their responsibility and maintain a higher level of commitment towards the organization. This creates a passion for the work and they perceive it as meaningful. Subsequently, this increased commitment and involvement, will be evident in the quality of work which ultimately benefits the organization. Strategies for Employee Empowerment As suggested before, employee empowerment has to be a continuous process beginning right from the inception of employees. So as to have a scientific approach to ensure the deliverance of empowerment programs at all the ideal stages, firms should have appropriate polices in relation with empowerment of its staff. Lamperes (2004, 32-37) has suggested ten strategies pertaining to human resource empowerment. It included: ‘sharing information’, ,sharing decision making’, ‘practicing consensus decision making’, ‘developing consensus on budget’, ‘creating a common vision’, ‘developing shared beliefs’, ‘allowing employees to direct their professional growth’, ‘empowering stakeholders’, ‘understanding customer needs’ and ‘developing symbols of empowerment’. All of the strategies as mentioned by Lamperes can be implemented universally in varied forms, according to the specific requirements of the organizations. When the employees are consulted and properly conveyed with information critical to the organization, they get psychologically empowered. This would urge them to have the moral responsibility to deliver positively towards the organization. When given a role in the decision making process, it gives an inclusive feeling to the staff. Moreover such decision making sessions would serve as training modules for the employees who will be empowered to make autonomous decisions in future. To have a practice of consensus decision making directly refers to the development of the workforce as a single cohesive team. It would mean that all the decisions of the team would be decision of the each employee as well. Further when the team is taken into confidence about the budget, they modulate automatically as per the stipulations and limitations of the financial plan. This would help them to be empowered in terms of decisive financial situations. Ensuring to guide the team towards a single vision would mean that the organization is leading to a stage where the employees make themselves ready in all means they could help the organization. This strategy is quite parallel with the creation of identical beliefs which also would empower the employees in a generic way. As discussed in the paragraphs dealing with the importance of empowerment, if the growth prospects of the staff are strategically ensured, they would in turn work hard for the cause of the company. The empowerment of the stakeholders and the proper understanding of the customer needs would urge the employees to get updated as per the situational needs. More importantly, every organization intending to have employee empowerment should develop its own symbols of empowerment. These would be unique to each organization according to the diverse situations. However, these symbols would be a readymade benchmark for the staff on the empowerment needs. Employee Empowerment and Leadership The role of a leader is quite contributory in the process of employee empowerment. A good leader can stimulate self dependency in the professional endeavors of the employees. When they are happy with the leadership pattern and style, they tend to be contributing members of a healthy system. In the application of almost all of the employee empowerment strategies the leader has vital roles to play as well. It is the responsibility of the leader to deal as a mediator between the staff and the policy makers. The values of the empowerment symbols should not devaluated during this extension process. Evaluation and recognition of the contribution of each person and the identification of empowerment requirements of each person is the duty of the leader. The efficacy of the employee empowerment process would thus highly depend on the accuracy that the leader shows in this evaluation. This must be read together with the fact that the developmental needs of each person would differ heavily as per the capacity of the person. However, it is also true that every individual will have the desire to contribute in varying magnitudes. The simple role of the leader is to facilitate this desire and to create more energy for working in the right direction. The specific responsibilities of a leader in the context of employee empowerment would be as described in the following paragraph. The primary responsibility of the leader towards employee empowerment begins in the hiring process itself. It has to be ensured that only enthusiastic people are hired. Another major measure is to clearly educate the recruits on the tasks and goals. A proper understanding on the vision and common beliefs of the organization would serve as a benchmark for the empowerment process. A continuous responsibility of the leader is to ensure that the staff gets opportunities for the advancement of their professional skills. The transition of the efficiency level of the workers depends much on the leadership style. A transformational leadership refers to a leadership style where leaders are able to motivate and raise employees’ level of commitment to the organizational standards and requirements. Transformational leaders influence followers’ organizational commitment by encouraging them to think critically using novel approaches. They would urge the employees to get involved in decision-making processes and inspire their loyalty. Recognition and appreciation of different needs of each individual would also be ensued by a good leader. Good leaders must ensure to maintain healthy work environments. They should provide assistance to the employees by supporting, training, leading and mentoring. In an empowered work environment, the power that managers maintain must be shared with employees with confidence, affirmation, encouragement and support. Managers must relinquish part of their power and control to share it with their employees. This would allow employees to make decisions, set goals, accomplish results and reap the benefits and rewards of their successes. In turn this will assist managers in becoming more effective while focusing on other strategic objectives. However, the lack of commitment from the leadership has been proved to be detrimental in the process of employee empowerment. There are many literatures available which have researched and confirmed this negative impact on empowerment due to the indifference of the organizational management and its leaders. Boggs et. al  (2005, p.621-624) had conducted a similar study with the objective to analyze the effect of management’s approach on the staff and their empowerment activities. The basic emphasis of the study was on the observation that the mindsets of many of the leaders hindered the process of decentralization of power and responsibilities. The results of this study indicated that the morale of the employees suffer when the leaders take an indifferent approach towards the empowerment process (Boggs, Carr, Fletcher & Clarke, 2005, 621-624). Diversity and Employee Empowerment Advancement in technology, travel options, communications and liberalization of international business regulations has incorporated numerous possibilities of conditions with diverse natures with in the work environment. This trend was found to increase in the early nineties. The transference of a command driven economy to a market driven one, sheltered markets to competitive ones, domestic trade to international trade and the trend of monopoly to the trend of competition has extensively made possible the chances and demand of diversity in the workforce setup and processes involved. However these chances and demand are expected to have an upward trend in the coming years as well. Thus the challenges of the organizations to respond and to act according to the changing scenario and the empowerment of the employees in accordance become very important. The pressure that the employees may feel to adapt to the abrupt changes in the work environment has been explained by Apker (2004, 211-227). The differential situations that a team may face and the possibilities of empowerment of the team in this context have been described below. It is the responsibility of the management to coordinate these diversities into a unified direction. Haimann defined Coordination as the orderly synchronization of efforts of the subordinates to provide the proper amount, timing and quality of execution, so that their unified efforts lead to a stated objective, namely, the common purpose of the enterprise (Nair & Oommen, 2006, C.N.1). Cultural Diversity A modern definition of culture is “the shared ways in which groups of people understand and interpret the world (Fons & Charles 2004, 3-4). A diversity in the interpretation and understanding as defined by Fons and Charles is very possible to be experienced within any team of modern days mainly due to the resultants of globalization namely in- sourcing and out-sourcing. Moreover the policies on exchange of manpower among different nationalities promoted by the shortage of skilled manpower in many countries have led many working groups to hire people belonging to different countries with diverse cultures. International educational opportunities are also increasing the chances of multi-cultural team. The diverse understanding on work cultures and varied interpretation of management scenarios by this multi-cultural workforce adds complex cultural diversity to the team environment. The behavioral empowerment of the employees is quite critical in such a culturally diverse team. The primary measure that the management will have to initiate is to understand different cultures to an optimum level. Having personal relationships with different individuals in the team will help the leader to have a better cultural understanding. The leader should learn and motivate the team members to respect each and every culture persisting within the team. Another major challenge that may be faced in a culturally diverse team would be the chances of discrimination. There should be initiatives from the leader to mitigate such possibilities and the policies of the team must strictly maintain unity in the team. In totality the employees must be empowered to respond in accordance with the cultural diversity within the team. Inter personal relationship The modern work groups hold much diversity in their inter-personal relationship attitudes. Although this may vary from person to person, the range of the diversity is much high with reference to the modern work groups which includes staff from different countries and cultures. Christopher & Diana (1996) have mentioned seven factors concerning to the human relationships including time, space, odors, frankness, intimacy of relationships, values and expression of emotions. When a team member or a group from a particular part would insist on punctuality, others from different part of the globe would not pay much importance for time. Space is also viewed differently by different people. When some need to be close to their colleagues some others would prefer to keep a distance. Frankness is another factor which can bring in diversity in inter-personal relationships among the staff. High-context cultures are more frank than low-context cultures. (Lesikar R & Flatley M 2005, 442). Intimacy among the staff also brings in diversity in the team as some may limit themselves to strict social and some times economic classes whereas others would like to interact without restrictions. The definitions on the role of the women in the work group, relationship in between superior and subordinate all can be expected to be diverse within the team. The attitude towards work, value for authority, work quality and honesty also can differ with in the workgroup. Members of the team may respond differently to the emotional expressions as well. These complexities make the behavioral approach of the employees much complicated. Developing a strict code of conduct which is culturally and geographically neutral would help the employees to get empowered in response to these diversities. However the employees must learn to amend their behaviors with reference to the culturally and regionally specific attributes of people when dealing with them individually. Language Diversity An employee dealing with an international workforce can expect a wide diversity in languages. Even though there may be a common language acceptable to the team, the capacity of each staff would differ with reference to the expertise in that language. Even the same language can have Grammar and Syntax differences in different regions. Adding to the language diversity, the same words or phrases may mean different in different cultures. The employees cannot afford to learn all the languages in the world. A strategic approach would be to motivate the team members to use a common language. Trainings and capacity building sessions must be initiated by the leader to encourage the team to have a same spirit both in terms of ideology and language. A properly empowered team with ethical attitude would hear more to their moral responsibilities than to the official check systems established. It can also put on ease the communication systems, as the interpersonal communication would be improvised. Sharing of capacity, responsibility and leadership would automatically happen in such an environment.(Nair & Oommen , 2004, M.1) Diversity in Capacity and Knowledge standards As workforce would include people educated from different countries and universities of differing standards, their capacity and knowledge standards also will have wide diversity. Though the intake process would have involved standardized screening techniques, as the definition of these standards itself is different for different educational scenarios, diversities are still sure to be present. It is the key skill of an effective management to make the team members get empowered with regard required capacities and motivate them to have the same direction and vision. The differential skills of individuals within the team should be recognized and responsibility assigned accordingly. Sharing of responsibility and a participatory approach initiated by the empowerment process would help the team to develop the required capacities. The team should be convinced on the scope of the innovation and the fear of failure must be alleviated by ensuring the fullest of credit for success and assuring that they will not to be lonely blamed on failures. Changes in Team member’s Demographics A change in the average age of the work force, more presence of women and an increase in their role can be expected in diversified scenario of team work. Managements would be further challenged to address the equality in the empowerment process. The increased level of awareness among the employees would demand the capacity building and the empowerment of the whole team in unison. Bridging the generation gap is a critical issue in employee empowerment. Identifying common areas of interests and encouraging them to get engaged them would help to an extent. Moreover the management and its empowerment tools should act as a link in between age groups in case of such differences and should not make that feel of difference come out. However the vigor of the youth should be substantially made use to contribute to the team’s success. The increased awareness is also a choice which can positively contribute to the innovation process. On the other side the experience of the older generation also must be capitalized and acknowledged. Changes in Employee Expectations It should be taken to notice that as the diversity in the team increase so is the diverse chances awaiting the qualified staff outside the team. This realization would enable the employees to expect more benefits and a better work environment. The expectation on equal treatments, basic rights and exposure would really challenge organizations. The tools for employee empowerment Researches dealing with modern management aspects have suggested various tools for carrying out the empowerment process. These tools are scientifically analyzed and tested in practical management scenarios for its efficacy. Training, Motivation, Communication and Performance appraisals are the important ones in this list. In this section of the essay, each of these tools is dealt in detail and their efficacy in facilitating the staff empowerment process. Though the efficiency of each of these would highly depend on the circumstances prevailing in and around the work environments, a general overview of these tools is being described in the context of employee empowerment. Training The implementation of effective behavioral interventions, which in other terms is empowerment, requires knowledgeable application of specific intervention techniques. Thus, staff training and development is an essential preliminary strategy to prepare the staff towards optimal empowerment. (Utah State University, 2008). The assessment for the need of training and development has been done by Randhall, et.al (2006, 385). In this assessment the training and development need has been defined as the difference between standard performance and actual performance. In other words, training and development can be defined as the process which standardizes the actual performance of an employee. Any training and development program of the staff should efficiently contain inputs which would help the employees to gain the required skills. It should also help them to acquire a vision common to that of the organization. So as to have effective employee empowerment, a training package should include the key inputs like Skills, Education, Development, Ethics, Attitudinal changes, and Decision making and problem solving skills (Ashwatappa, 2004). Though the staff recruited will have some basic skills, trainings should emphasize on imparting the additional skills required for empowerment of employees. Training the staff on technological innovations is an ideal example for this process. The input termed education refers to teaching theoretical concepts and development of reasoning capacity and judgment. As an empowered staff, one should have the autonomous capacity to make reasonable judgments. Thus education should be an integral part of the training. The knowledge on ethical work procedures would further empower the employee in deliverance of his or her responsibilities. Training should also include trials to change the attitude of the employees towards the creation of a positive energy. The other input of training, decision making and problem solving skills would focus on methods and techniques aiding the facilitation of organizational decision making process and crisis management. Motivation Motivation has been defined as “the process that governs choices made by persons or lower organisms among alternative forms of voluntary activity” (Vroom, 1978, 6). With relevance to employee empowerment, motivation is the factor that helps the employees to make improved decisions pertaining to their professional endeavors. Motivated employees would always look for better ways to do a job. Literally this is the initiation of empowerment. When the empowered staff is exposed to decisive situations, this motivation aids them to make optimal actions. When this situation is applied to corporate strategies and other organizational decision processes, the relevance of motivation is corroborated. Thus motivation is an important tool which facilitates the process of empowerment Communication In an organizational scenario, the relevance of communication is enormous. The communication process is however complicated in organizations having huge staff strength and wider network of employees across the globe. The difficulty of communication in such a scenario has been explained in the research conducted by Chin (2005). When proper communication is ensured among the employees and with all the systems concerning to the organizational structure, the work flow becomes very smooth. Thus in the employee empowerment, the efficacy of communication has a vital role to play. When the employees are properly communicated on the organizational goals, financial situations and operational developments they get motivated automatically. This in turn ensures the empowerment of the whole business system and its employees. Performance appraisals “Performance appraisal is the systematic evaluation of the individual with respect to his or her performance on the job and his or her potential for development” (Beach, 2004, 290).This definition itself confirms the role of Performance appraisal in the identification of development needs and potential of different employees. Thus this tool comes handy as a preparatory function while planning the empowerment process. Performance appraisal not only defines the lacunas in the performance, but also appreciates the efforts of the employees which further motivate them to be empowered. Thus it would encourage the manpower to be more dynamic. Tools like performance feedback and counseling used by human resource managers to ensure quality would sustain individual effectiveness affecting the human resources positively. Conclusion The empowerment of the employees is the driving force behind the effective developmental strategies of an organization. The importance of employee empowerment as a development tool both in terms of organizational development and personal work behaviors of the employees is a confirmed fact. The managements have to take into consideration different perspectives of employee empowerment in terms of its objectives. This should include organizational, personal, societal and functional perspectives. However, so as to create a facilitative environment for the development of autonomous work culture among the employees, the leadership of the team has to take considerate measure. Scientifically evaluated tools should be made use by the management for the empowerment purpose. In totality, going with the fact that empowered employees are the key to organizational success, the management should optimize all possibilities in the work environment to empower its employees. Works Cited American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), Standards for establishing and sustaining healthy work environments: A journey to excellence Aliso Viejo, California: Author, 2005 Apker, J. “Sensemaking of change in the managed care era: a case of hospital- based nurses”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 17. 2, (2004): 211- 27. Ashwatappa, K. Human Resource and Personnel Management, Tata McGraw-Hill: NewDelhi, 2004. 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