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EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT PRACTICES

FOR ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS


By
N. RAMAKRISHNA

Research Scholar
Department of Business Management
Sri Venkateswara University
Tirupati

Empowerment is not a verb.


It is more a state of mind & way of
working
- Ken Gilliver

Introduction
Empowerment is the process of giving employees
the power, authority, responsibility, resources, freedom
to take decisions and solve work related problems in the
organization
"Empowerment means encouraging and allowing
individuals to take personal responsibility for improving
the way they do their jobs and contribute to the
organization's goals- Richard Carver
Empowerment is the period of improving the
decision making ability of the employees through
cooperation, sharing, training, education and team
work- Vogt and Murrel

The
Evolution
of
Employee
Though the word, empowerment in the management context has
been coined recently, its roots in management roll back to several
Empowerment
decades. In the Hawthorne Experiments, at Westinghouse where it

was shown that productivity improved when staff felt they were
being paid attention to, dates back to the 1920s. After the Second
World War, the occupying forces installed work directors in major
Germen companies but bulked at the idea of taking the same
medicine at home.

It wasnt until 1960s that the understandable backlash to the time


and motion approach popular in the previous decade; and the idea
of greater job involvement came into force. It was at this point that
a number of management scientists, notably Smith and McGregor,
Drucker and Likert, began to question the role of people in new,
highly automated workplace. This led to the concept of job
enrichment, while repetitive motions may be the most technically
efficient way of doing a job, a more varied job role could lead to
greater motivation and productivity.

Empowerment Involves Shifting


Pyramids * Circles
Structure
From To

Dependency

Departments Project

Work Standards Superimposed

Individual Performance Appraised


* Individual and Group
Performance Appraisal

Individual Performance Rewarded

* Autonomy
* Teams
* Self-Imposed Work Standards

* Individual and Group

Performance Rewarded

Information Hoarded

Responsibility Delegated

* Information Shared
* Responsibility, Authority and

Accountability Delegated

Classification of
Empowerment:
A. Psychological Empowerment:
Psychological empowerment has its roots in early work on employee division
and quality of work life. Instead of focusing on managerial practices that
share power with employees at all levels, the psychological perspective is
focused on how employees experience at work. Psychological
empowerment is not what one can see physically. It is a process of
changing the belief of the people internally.

B. Structural Empowerment:
Structural perspective focuses on the managerial practices and policies
that will facilitate empowerment. Structural empowerment basically
involves a movement from top down control system towards high
involvement practices which entails authority and participation, autonomy
for decision making, open sharing information, information across the
hierarchy, training and leadership development, performance based
rewards, access to resources, opportunities for innovation, management
support and encouragement, and with well designed organisational culture.

Elements of Psychological
Empowerment-Spreitzer
1.Impact: the degree to which an individual
can influence strategic, administrative, or
operating outcomes at work.
2.Competence: The degree to which a
person can perform task activities skillfully
when he or she tries.
3.Meaningfulness: the value of a work
goal or purpose, judged in relation to an
individuals own ideals or standards.
4.Choice: involves casual responsibility
for a persons actions.

Elements of Structural
Empowerment:

Autonomy:

Communication:

Training:

Rewards:

Organisational Culture:

Job autonomy referred as the degree which provides


substantial freedom, independence, and discretion to the individual in
scheduling work and in determining the procedures to be used in carrying it
out.
Communication is a combination of people,
messages, meaning, practices and purpose, and it is the foundation of
modern organizations.
Training is process of acquisition of knowledge, skills and
competencies as a result thus, equip the individual to be more effective in
his present job and for a future assignment.
Employee reward systems refer to programs set up by a
company to reward performance and motivate employees on individual or at
group levels
Organizational culture represents the
organization values, visions, norms, working language, systems, symbols,
beliefs, and so on.

Methods of
Empowerment

Structured Empowerment: Structured


Empowerment includes close control,
formal set of clear boundaries and clear
rules passed on through training.
Flexible
Empowerment:
Flexible
Empowerment
includes
certain
boundaries set expecting employees to
use their experiences and common sense
to make decision and guidelines rather
than rules.

Types
of
Employee
Prof. Bowen and Lawler define three types of Empowerment,
1. Empowerment
Suggestion involvement: Employees are encouraged to contribute
ideas through formal suggestion programs or quality circles but their

day-to-day work activities do not change.


2.

Job involvement: Jobs are redesigned so that employees use a


variety of skills. Employees believe that their tasks are significant, they
have considerable freedom in deciding how to do the work, they get
more feedback than employees in a command and control organization
and they each handle a whole and identifiable piece of work.

3. High involvement: High Involvement organizations give their lowest


level employees a sense of involvement not just in how they do their
jobs or how effectively their group performs, but in the total
organizations performance. Employees develop extensive skills in
teamwork, problem solving and business operations and participate in
work unit management decisions. High involvement organizations
often use profit sharing and employee ownership as a technique of
employee empowerment.

Empowerment-Organisational
Effectiveness
Empowerment Practices

Employee
Behavior

Employee Effectiveness

Autonomy
Communication
Training
Rewards
Organisational
Culture

Organisational Effectiveness

Development
oriented
Behavior

Quality work performance

High Productivity

Work Motivation

Job Satisfaction

Conclusion

Employee empowerment affects a lot on the


organizational activities regarding its growth because
if the people will be satisfied, then automatically they
fulfill the requirements of the organization as well as
customers then cost will reduce and organization
must grow. Empowered people are more resistant to
stress, especially that associated with technical or
organizational changes. They get involved and
behave assuredly only when they judge themselves
capable of handling such situations. The more that
people are in control of their lives and their work, the
greater are their self-esteem, energy, enthusiasm,
productivity and attendance.

Thank You

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