Empowerment: Increasing Efficiency and Effectiveness in Todays Organizations - Essay Example

Empowerment: Increasing Efficiency and Effectiveness in Today’s Organizations Research shows that following successful implementation of empowerment in many business organizations, budget issues have been observed to be significantly reduced owing to the fact that employees become personally involved which overrides the necessity of keeping an army of managers as active employee participation already markedly speeds up the decision-making. This way focus is restricted on the bigger picture related to employee motivation and customer satisfaction. In contrast, opponents of employee empowerment argue that the tendency to grant more responsibility than necessary to employees is potential of creating pandemonium in an organization due to multiple reasons. Basically employee empowerment refers to the smartly engineered technique of enabling people working even at lower levels in an organization to actively participate in important decision-making processes as a way of assisting them in sharing problems and making decisions to address the customers’ needs in the best possible way. Research literature also suggests that there are both merits and demerits associated with this highly debated and well-researched strategic method which is why this essay aims at contemplating both sides of the picture to analyze the extent to which employee empowerment is associated with workforce motivation and organizational success. It is implied by Elloy (2012, p. 627) that empowerment in recent years has transformed into an exceptionally popular business concept because it not only helps phenomenally in motivating employees who make up one of the most important assets of the organization but also because it is believed to be critical to organization reputation and “one of the main ingredients of organization effectiveness (Conger & Kanungo, cited in Elloy 2012, p. 627). By giving the employees a chance to share their problems in a direct manner and propose solutions, they are ensured a sense of belonging and do not consider the option of leaving which is critically important for them to produce their best and the time also gets invested so wisely that the payoffs turn out to be surprisingly effective for the organization. “Empowerment perceptions are associated with increased job satisfaction, commitment, work productivity/effectiveness, as well as a decreased propensity to leave the organization” (Koberg et al., cited in Elloy 2012, p. 628). Employers have been found to manage the circumstances increasingly well as a way of adapting and responding to the dynamic business environment after giving employees the empowerment. It actually aids in increasing the rate of motivation in an otherwise failing organization because “authority has been delegated to the lowest possible level in an organization where a decision can be made” (Conger & Kanungo, cited in Elloy 2012, p. 627). Sahoo, Behera and Tripathy (2010, p. 40) claim that in addition to multiple other benefits, employee empowerment boosts the level of individual commitment which is highly critical for the long-term success of an organization in the present highly competitive and dynamic business environment. It is important to base empowerment on industrial democracy because otherwise it could drastically fail. It also “enhances the spirit of initiative among employees and makes them insist on the performance of the tasks” (Cook & Hunsaker, cited in Areiqa & Zamil 2011, p. 190). It is further suggested that there is a direct and positive link between such employee empowerment initiatives and “employee participation and job satisfaction, motivation and performance, individual commitment and organizational achievement” (Sahoo, Behera & Tripathy 2010, p. 40). Much research is also done on establishing relationship between leadership and empowerment. It is stressed that not only should the leaders be democratic in order to run business successfully, they should also avoid authoritarian style by giving their employees the authority to decide because they are an absolute asset for the organization. Employee empowerment many times fails despite implementation because those given the power to decide are not trusted by the employers and their proposals are always second guessed. Good leadership necessary to handle the wayward organizational issues demands proper implementation of such a model that organizations around the world successfully operate out of and employee empowerment is one such desirable model. According to (Mills 2005, p. 2), strict yet understanding and focused leaders who consider it important to confide details in their employees are excessively important for stabilizing the structural framework of organizational behavior. Employers should definitely ensure if all of the employees, should they experience any issue or problem, have easy access to him/her or not for discussing that issue. It is claimed that empowering employees makes them put “extra time, brainpower, and energy toward their work that results in discretionary effort” (Perrin, cited in Johnson 2011, p. 13). This also strengthens a kind of environment in which the workforce develops increased organizational commitment. It is stressed that such commitment is related “positively to a variety of desirable work outcomes including employee job satisfaction, motivation, and performance, and related negatively to absenteeism and turnover” (Mathieu & Zajac, cited in Sahoo, Behera & Tripathy 2010, p. 45). It is understood by the proponents of employee empowerment that this is not a kind of option which is not associated with any risks at all as it could readily lead to false results like organizational chaos and disrupted business system specially in case of improper implementation by employers. “Outstanding performance by an empowered employee cannot be achieved without risk taking” (Mills & Ungson, cited in Sahoo, Behera & Tripathy 2010, p. 45). Most of the times in absence of employee empowerment, conflicts arise when there is no kind of communication or any friendly relation between the leader and subordinates, with the result that small issues grow into an oversized giant creating much trouble and chaos in an organization. The research study presented by (Mills, 2005) in his book regarding the influence exerted by empowerment on organizational success stresses on the need to adopt such a leading style that would not discourage the employees to bring forward any ideas they have in their minds for the betterment of the organization. Rather as a way of ensuring that employee empowerment does not fail the employers should hold regular meetings with the employees working at every level so that intricate visions could be shared and plausible strategies could be introduced. “Working together with employees to establish clear performance targets” (Elloy 2012, p. 630) is the essence of empowerment and yields highly effective results for the organization. Such a strategy positively affects the rate of career commitment among employees and workers with high level of career commitment make greater efforts to make meaningful contributions. “Those committed to their jobs and careers are absent less and have lower intentions to quit, increased job satisfaction, and increased intrinsic motivation” (Sahoo, Behera & Tripathy 2010, p. 47). With a haphazard and uncoordinated leadership that never considers the highly effective and practical option of employee empowerment, the organizational setup could easily become stagnated, slow, and business targets could become virtually unreachable. It is justifiably claimed that “walking at the front isn’t really leadership unless the person in front is actually choosing the direction!” (Mills 2005, p. 14). Much has been written on the issue of employee empowerment over the past years to evaluate its complexities and establish its relationship with organizational efficiency and effectiveness (Perrin, cited in Johnson 2011, p. 11). However besides increasing business effectiveness, it is also suggested that the personal involvement of employees in myriad decision-making processes and other work tasks overrides the necessity of hiring an army of managers which is claimed by the opponents of empowerment to be a huge disadvantage associated with this business strategy of increasing employee motivation. Empowering employees could significantly add to the stress for managers because this may even make them lose their jobs. Consequently, they could become insecure and not able to perform their daily duties appropriately. “This is a real risk, as empowering employees means that there is less need for different levels of management” (Fortier 2011). This is why it is best that managers are still ensured a place at the company so that they do not create hurdles in the way of empowerment implementation but is it is important to “put them in a different functioning role, as they will no longer be needed to run the daily operations of employees” (Fortier 2011). Empowerment also adds to the responsibility burden of the employees because they are then authorized to participate in the decision-making processes. A disadvantage associated with this issue is that some employees may begin to abuse this newly assigned power and develop a tendency to take extra advantage of it which could seriously interfere with the organizational environment and business targets. Also it is quite possible that some “employees may not be able to handle the increased stress that the added responsibility and decision making will bring” (Fortier 2011). This risk is also mentioned in another report which says that not only could worker arrogance “create a big trouble for the supervisors and the managers” (Management Study Guide 2012) but also they “often lack the expertise to execute or enterprise, which can cost big” (Management Study Guide 2012). However, the disadvantages associated with employee empowerment are quite limited in contrast to the benefits offered by it as it is claimed to be “a multi-level process and can be considered both an effective and efficient approach to employee motivation and performance” (Siebert, Silver & Randolph 2004, p. 346). Concluding, this much becomes clear from the above discussion that empowering employees holds more benefits than demerits and the incidence of an organization benefiting from adopting such strategy is significantly higher than not being able to benefit from it. Overdoing any strategy though it may be beneficial and effective could also lead to drastic results because while the employees may begin to enjoy the sense of belonging, the managers could on the other hand become increasingly insecure which could negatively affect their work performance and motivation level. However, the truth is that with the advent of empowerment, employees try to produce their best because they are assured that they actually belong to the organization they work for. Also in the process of making decisions, a collection of innovative and well-structured ideas is formed because every employee is individually given the authority to propose effective ideas to deal with a certain work issue. General consensus is that employee motivation forms the bedrock of the whole concept of empowerment and actually lays the foundation upon which the whole building of empowerment stands. The central objective of this business concept is to advance the employees’ general level of motivation and then direct their individual talents to achieve mutual business targets in the shortest time frame. References: Areiqa, YM & Zamil, AM 2011, ‘The Role of Empowerment in Crisis Management in Business Organisations’, Asian Journal of Business Management, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 188-195. Elloy, D 2012, ‘Effects of Ability Utilization, Job Influence and Organization Commitment on Employee Empowerment: An Empirical Study’, International Journal of Management, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 627-632. Fortier, A 2011, ‘THE ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT’, LIVESTRONG, 14 June, retrieved 25 November 2012, Johnson, M 2011, ‘Workforce Deviance and the Business Case for Employee Engagement’, The Journal for Quality & Participation, pp. 11-16. Management Study Guide 2012, ‘Employee Empowerment - Good or Bad’, retrieved 25 November 2012, Mills, DQ 2005, Leadership: How to Lead, How to Live, MindEdge Press. Sahoo, CK, Behera, N, & Tripathy, SK 2010, ‘Employee Empowerment and Individual Commitment: An Analysis From Integrative Review of Research’, Employment Relations Record, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 40-56. Siebert, SE, Silver, SR & Randolph, WA 2004, ‘Taking Empowerment to the Next Level: A Multiple-Level Model of Empowerment, Performance, and Satisfaction’, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 47, no. 3, pp. 332-349. Read More