EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT PRACTICES FOR ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

By N. RAMAKRISHNA

 Research Scholar

Department of Business ManagementSri 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 Empowerment Though the word, ‘empowerment’1 in the management context has

been coined recently, its roots in management roll back to several 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 wasn’t 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 Structure From To Pyramids * Circles Dependency * Autonomy Departments Project * Teams Work Standards Superimposed * Self-Imposed Work

Standards Individual Performance Appraised * Individual and Group

Performance Appraisal Individual Performance Rewarded * Individual and Group Performance Rewarded

Information Hoarded * Information Shared Responsibility Delegated * 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 individual’s own ideals or standards.”

4.Choice: “…involves casual responsibility for a person’s actions.”

Elements of Structural Empowerment: Autonomy: 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: Communication is a combination of people, messages, meaning, practices and purpose, and it is the foundation of modern organizations.

Training: 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.

Rewards: Employee reward systems refer to programs set up by a company to reward performance and motivate employees on individual or at group levels

Organisational Culture: 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 Empowerment

Prof. Bowen and Lawler define three types of Empowerment,1. 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 organization’s 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

Autonomy

Communication

Training

Rewards

Organisational

Culture

Development oriented Behavior

Employee Effectiveness

Quality work performance

High Productivity

Work Motivation

Job Satisfaction

Empowerment Practices Organisational Effectiveness Employee Behavior

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