People empowerment and organizational effectiveness.

Business environment is highly volatile, ambiguous and competitive. These frequent changes in the business environment have forced organizations to evaluate their management systems more frequently to remain competitive in the business environment.

People/ employee empowerment is one of common and central theme in management and leadership practices that enable organization to become more competitive (Breeding, 2008). Generally, decision making of an organization is managerial responsibility. But in some cases due to this decision making process many important decisions get delay. Employee empowerment is a term which uses to express ways that non-managerial staff members can make decisions without consulting their management.

Empowering of people quicken the decision making process and many important decisions can be made on time for the betterment of organization.

Figure 1: Empowerment process

Source: (Dizgah et al., 2011)

Studies have revealed that empowered employees are committed, loyal and conscientious. Empowering make employees feel that they are valued. Everyone wishes to get admired. Also empowerment is a culmination of many ideas and tenets of employee satisfaction. Especially in industries where employees and customers directly interact, management could experience that empowered employees bring more business by making customer satisfied which convert customer satisfaction to greater profits (Hitt et al., 2001).

Table 1: Steps to empower employees

Source: (Randolph, 2000)

Step	Description
Identification of reason of empowerment	Normally upper management engages in empowerment process. It is their responsibility to identify the reason and associated benefits to handover decision making authority to lower levels of employees
Selection of employees to empower	While some employees wish to be empowered some are unwilling to have additional responsibilities. Organization authority should identify correct skilful employees who can make correct decisions and able to have additional responsibilities.
Provide required information	The management should provide necessary information on responsibilities, authority. Also employees should aware the performance criteria of additional responsibilities and rewards for their achievements. Other than that empowered employees should know organizations issues and some sensitive information which make employees to make most suitable decision.
Provide training to employees	Empowered employees should aware the basics of cost and revenue. Employees should make free to decide how clients are handled.
Inspire individual initiatives	An employee who inspired is highly productive resource. Hence management of the organization should take actions to motivate those employees through rewards. Hence empowering is a two way process both parties are benefited.

                                                         

                                                             Figure 2: Dimensions of psychological empowerment

 

Table 2: Factors which drives organization towards employee empowerment

Source: (Baird & Wang, 2010)

Factor	Description
Encourage creativity and innovation	-          Employees contribution is valued -          Employees encourage to meet organization objectives -          Have possibility to improve systems and process -          Innovative and creative processes enhance the organization efficiency
Increase productivity	-          Empowered employees are productive since they are free to make decisions -          Response time is less -          Work as a part of self-managed teams -          Hence improve organization productivity
Align both employees’ and organization goals	-          Empowered employees have clear view of organizational goals and strategies -          Understand their role and value -          Employees are satisfied and display enthusiasm towards the job -          Hence both parties’ goals are aligned
Assist employee retention	-          Autonomy is given for employees -          Feel secure on their jobs -          Help to develop skills and knowledge
Quality of work	-          Employees feel empowered to deliver high quality work -          Lesser the response time enhance the customer satisfaction -          Empowerment philosophy enable company to give innovative service with high quality -          Empowered employees take personal pride in their work and perform their job properly -          Quality of service together with effectiveness leads to gain competitive advantage

All in all the practical issues of people empowering is also there that management of organizations hesitates to implement those practices. Other than that the organizations with flat structures do not tend to empower people and the decision making process is a solely a management responsibility. But employee empowerment is one of significant HRM practice which produces satisfied employees to the organizations where the effectiveness and organization performance is easily enhanced. As the human resource is most valuable asset of an organization, satisfied employees make organization more productive and efficient while enhancing customer satisfaction.

References

Baird, K. & Wang, H., 2010. "Employee empowerment: extent of adoption and influential factors. Personnel Review, 39.

Breeding, R., 2008. "Empowerment as a function of contextual self-understanding: The effect of work interest profiling on career decision, self-efficacy and work locus of control. Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin, 51(2).

Chow, I., Low, S. & Hong, J., 2006. "The impact of development expects empowerment and organizational support on creating service staff performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25, pp.478-95.

Dizgah, M.R., Mehrdad, G.C., Farzin, F. & Sajjad, S.K., 2011. Employee Empowerment and Organizational Effectiveness in the Executive Organizations. Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research , 1(9), pp.973-80.

Hitt, M.A., Bierman, L., Shimizu, K. & Kochar, R., 2001. Direct and moderating effects of human capital on strategy and performance in professional service firms: A source based perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 10(1), pp.13-28.

Randolph, W.A., 2000. Re-thinking empowerment: why is it so hard to achieve. Organizational Dynamics, 29(2), pp.94-107.

 

 

	Figure 2: Dimensions of psychological empowerment Source: (Chow et al., 2006)

	Figure 2: Dimensions of psychological empowerment Source: (Chow et al., 2006)