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Empowerment at the work place, generally means to allow people to have an expanded autonomy over their scope of work and exercise a certain amount of decision making, in their work processes. This allows them to use their judgment and arrive at solutions that impact an organization and its customers alike. In the process, empowerment has tremendous morale boosting power over the people who own it. Oxford dictionary defines Empower as “ to authorize, license, give power to, make able”.
Futuristic organizations
Futuristic work places believe in shorter corporate structures. Tall hierarchies and command organizations have already been replaced by more approachable management styles and open-door policies. There is a constant flow of communication in both, top-down to bottom-up modes. Within formal departments, informal groupings are formed that allow people to create, cultivate and nurture, meaningful work relationships. These teams have space to operate, with the end in mind. That is, a more congenial and a profitable organization to both, the management and the workers within a given frame work. Often, a well bonded team will help each other in times of personal need.
Assumptions of empowered organizations
According to Charles Handy, assumptions behind the empowerment are:
- competence: the belief that individual employees can be expected to perform to the limit of their competence with the minimum of supervision
- trust : it is necessary not only to believe in people’s competence but also to trust them to get on with the job
- teamwork: few organizational problems can be solved by one person acting alone. The sheer rate of change and turbulence means that as new challenges and problems appear, people must naturally group together in flexible teams without barriers of status or hierarchy to solve the problems within the framework of the organization’s goals and values. The organization is held together by these beliefs and values – by people who are committed to one another and to common goals
(courtesy How to be an even Better Manager )
The process
The process of empowerment can take many shapes and shades. In the forefront are:
Structural means: where employees function in informal groups with an identified leader. They would have control of their job function and make decisions within the informal group structure, to which they belong. Such groups meet an important psychological need of any employee – that is of Belonging. Formal organizations have an innate capability to alienate the employee, as a person, from the structural forms of its operation. The employee becomes a mode of delivery of goals and targets. Informal groups eliminate this distance and create a closer bonding, which satisfies the employee’s belonging needs.
Leadership attitude and style: Managers in empowered organizations tend to delegate more and maintain a free flow of communication at all levels. Each employee gets included at some point of the operational process. This is by no means letting go of executive control but vesting it in the right people, with a clear understanding of what is necessary to be achieved. The leader will still retain onus for guidance, skill training and qualitative appraising of his or her team, and the ultimate delivery of targets or achieving goals, in a timely manner.
Consultation : Empowered organizations tend to consult their employees in the decision making process. It stems from the belief that the person handling the job or the situation would best be knowledgeable about process re-engineering or enhancing service quality of that particular job. Consultative management style becomes a daily process. Management may ultimately make the necessary decisions for change or for continuance, as the case should be. However, it will be for the greater good of the organization to consult those who are engaged in the process, before a decision is reached.
Employee engagement: Employees of empowered organizations are more engaged with their job and the organization. Creating an engaged environment, is primary, to reap the full benefits of an empowered employee. This is attributed to winning employee loyalties through trusting them to make decisions for the organizations. Acceptance, belonging and consultation would naturally create the fire within, to innovate and deliver beyond the set parameters of a job objective. This is done with ease that leaves a sense of achievement, for the employee. Smart organizations capitalize on this factor.
Measurement and appraising: Measuring performance against set objectives is a key aspect of empowering. This allows the management the opportunity of one-to-one conversations with its employees and analyze the effectiveness of empowering. Objectives define a set of functions that has timelines and delivery parameters. Generally, how the results are delivered is much in the hands of the employee, given the organizational support, its goals and values. Working within this framework, an employee is able to guide, retract, adjust and balance the activities that are needed to achieve the set objectives. Empowerment without measurement can be equaled to a razor in the hands of a monkey!
Benefits to the organization
Empowered employees take ownership to their job functions. This means minimal supervision which eliminates tall organizational structures. In turn, a cost saving.
Employees have a check and balance on themselves. Responsibilities are taken seriously. Delivery is mostly thorough and timely. Problems are escalated well on time, so that the work process can be re-adjusted and carried through.
Organization can achieve the status of a market leader simply because the people who are on the job, influence the decision making process. Decisions are quick and applicability is speedy.
Innovation will be a hall-mark, as creativity flows from an uncensored mind-set and an openness that encourages new ideas. Ideation has enough scope to grow and mature.
Low attrition of employees – contributing to a deeper sense of commitment, loyalty and motivation. In case of a down turn of events, the organization will have a work force which it can depend on. All other forces being conducive, revival and moving on will be guaranteed.
The writer’s first hand experience has been aligned to the benefits mentioned. When empowered to perform a job process, she has found herself to possess high energy levels and deliver positively with a constantly creative free-flow. However, when controlled and ‘told to do’ the reverse is true – in stressful delivery, with low energy levels.
Hurdles for empowerment
Political power-play of the hierarchy, with its own agenda. This is one single most factor for employee dissatisfaction and attrition. Not only it creates a mis-trust in the work place, if not curbed on time, its ugly tentacles will spread across work relationships, under mining the social fabric of the entire organization.
Insecure leadership that thwarts creativity in team members, resulting in a belligerent work force. It is imperative to appoint leaders with a positive mind set and open attitudes, to encourage and woo the team members to team excellence. Confident leaders who will ‘ shepherd’ the team without going on the over drive, are a must, to reap the best benefits of empowerment. Emotional intelligence of the leader is a key attribute to a team’s performance or its downward slide.
Wrong people in the wrong job – not only frustrates the rest of the work force, but adds a burden to the organization in dealing with poor performance. How can they be replaced? Is compensation costly? What about the labour regulations? It is important for the HR department to make sound decisions based on right skill-sets and attitudes in filling job slots with the right people.
Behaviour of the HR department – in whatever group the employee works and belongs to or to what level empowerment is done, end of the day, it is a living, breathing, pulsating Human Resource that will live within organizational walls. There will be interactions with the HR department from time to time. Whether its promotions, grievance, health benefits, personal loans, counseling or any other personal issue, the relationship HR department maintains with the employee needs to be a positive one. After all, personal needs are closest to heart. Then, the link with HR is even more important. Never bordering on manipulation but always trust-based whether it is a positive interaction for a promotion or a not-so-nice interaction for a behavioral ticking-off, role of HR can either bond together or crack-up the employee’s loyalty link with the organization.
Abraham Maslow’s needs hierarchy describes Self Actualization as the pinnacle of all human achievement. In latter years, he adjusted this to read as Self Transcendence or living for a purpose higher than self. Empowerment may well translate into Self Transcendence to many an employee, in the work place. We are not advocating that employees should live for the work place – but, while you are within its walls, it will do well to enjoy and ‘find’ yourself in what you do.
According to George Bernard Shaw:
“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one…being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy…I am on the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations “
