EMPLOYEE
EMPOWERMENT
• A primary goal of employee empowerment is to
give workers a greater voice in decisions about
work-related matters.
• Their decision-making authority can range from
offering suggestions to exercising veto power
over management decisions.
• possible areas include: how jobs are to be
performed, working conditions, company
policies, work hours, peer review, and how
supervisors are evaluated
Organizational improvement
through employee empowerment
• First, empowerment can strengthen motivation
by providing employees with the opportunity to
attain intrinsic rewards from their work, such as
a greater sense of accomplishment and a feeling
of importance.
• Intrinsic rewards such as job satisfaction and a
sense of purposeful work can be more powerful
than extrinsic rewards such as higher wages or
bonuses.
• The second means by which employee
empowerment can increase productivity is
through better decisions. Especially when
decisions require task-specific knowledge,
those on the front line can often better
identify problems.
TOYOTA
• Toyota Motor Company empowers some
of its employees to identify and help
remedy problems occurring during product
assembly. An automobile coming off
Toyota's assembly line with a paint defect
is seen as an opportunity to delve into the
root cause of the defect, as opposed to
merely fixing the defect and passing it on
to distributors for resale.
• Solutions resulting from employee
involvement tend to have more employee
buy-in when it comes to implementation.
Because such solutions are generated
from the front lines, this further enhances
the potential for productivity improvements
by reducing the attitude that solutions are
"passed down from above."
• A number of different human resource
management programs are available that
grant employee empowerment to some
extent. A number of these are discussed in
the following sections, including informal
participative decision-making programs,
job enrichment, continuous improvement,
and self-managed work teams.
INFORMAL PARTICIPATIVE
DECISION-MAKING PROGRAMS
• Informal participative decision-making programs
involve managers and subordinates making joint
decisions on a daily basis. Employees do not
enjoy blanket authority to make all work-related
decisions; managers decide just how much
decision-making authority employees should
have in each instance. The amount of authority
varies depending on such situational factors as
decision complexity and the importance of
employee acceptance of the decision.
• While it may seem obvious, one key to
empowerment is choosing under what
conditions to empower employees.
Employees should be empowered in
situations where they can make decisions
that are as good as, or better than, those
made by their managers.
• One possible problem is that the interests of
workers may not align with those of the
organization. For example, at one university a
department head delegated the task of
determining job performance standards to the
faculty. Because the faculty believed that it was
not in their own best interest to develop
challenging standards, the standards they
eventually developed were easily attainable.
• The success of empowerment also often hinges
on whether employees want to participate in
decision making. Some employees, for instance,
have no desire to make work-related decisions.
Suggestions for increasing employee participation
levels include work situations where:
• All possible solutions are equally effective. For example,
consider employee vacation schedules. If one solution is
as good as another, employee groups can be
empowered to work out the scheduling.
• Managers do not possess sufficient information or
expertise to make a quality decision without employee
input. Managers should at least consult their employees
before a decision is reached to prevent overlooking
solutions that may appear obvious to front-line
employees, but which may be more evasive for higherlevel managers who are unfamiliar with front-line
practices.
• Managers do not know exactly what
information is needed or how to find it.
Again, managers should at least consult
their employees before a decision is
reached to determine whether employees
have the information required to make an
effective decision.
• The group's acceptance of or commitment to effective
implementation is crucial and the group is unlikely to
accept a manager's unilateral decision. If employees'
acceptance is crucial, participative decision-making
should be used. As alluded to previously, employees
tend to accept decisions more willingly if they have had a
voice in the decision-making process. One caveat is that
the participation should be genuine; managers should
not ask for employee input simply to give the
appearance of participation. Employees can usually
recognize this ploy and, if they do, feelings of distrust will
likely develop.
• Employees' goals are aligned with those of
management. If employees do not share management's
goals, participative decision-making would be
inappropriate, because the two parties would be at odds.
JOB ENRICHMENT
• Job enrichment aims to redesign jobs to be more
intrinsically rewarding. Certain job characteristics help
managers to build enrichment into jobs. These
characteristics (summarized in Exhibit 1) include:
• Skill variety—The various skills needed to perform a
given task, where increased skill requirements are
associated with increased motivation
• Task identity—The degree to which employees perceive
how their job impacts the overall production of a product
or service
• Task significance—Whether the task is meaningful
beyond the task itself
• Autonomy—Employee discretion over how to perform a
task
• Feedback—Input from peers and supervisors regarding
the quality of an employee's work
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•
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•
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Exhibit 1
Job Characteristics That Enhance Intrinsic Motivation
Skill Variety: The degree to which a job requires a variety of different
activities to carry out the work. A job has high skill variety if it requires
a number of different skills and talents.
Task Identity: The degree to which a job requires completion of the
whole and identifiable piece of work. A job has high task identity, if the
worker does the job from the beginning to end with a visible outcome.
Task Significance: The degree to which the job has a substantial
impact on the lives of other people, whether these people are in the
immediate organization or in the world at large. A job has a task
significance if people benefit greatly from results of the job.
Autonomy: The degree to which the job provides the workers with
autonomy. A job has high autonomy if workers are given substantial
freedom, independence, and discretion in scheduling the work and
determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out.
Job Feedback: The degree to which the job provides the worker with
knowledge of results. A job has high job feedback if carrying out the
work activities required by the job provides the individual with direct
and clear information about the effectiveness of his or her
performance.
• Combining tasks. This involves assigning tasks performed by
different workers to a single individual. For example, in a furniture
factory, rather than working on just one part of the production
process, each person could assemble, sand, and stain an entire
table or chair. This change would increase skill variety, as well as
task identity, as each worker would be responsible for the job from
start to finish.
• Establish client relationships. Client relationships could be
established by putting the worker in touch with customers. For
example, an auto dealership service department could allow its
mechanics to discuss service problems directly with customers,
rather than going through the service manager. By establishing
client relationships, skill variety is increased because workers have
a chance to develop interpersonal skills. It also provides them with a
chance to do a larger part of the job (task identity), to see how their
work impacts customers (task significance), and to have more
decision-making authority (autonomy).
• Reduce direct supervision. Workers gain autonomy when they are
given responsibility for doing things previously done by supervisors.
For instance, clerks could be allowed to check for their own errors or
be allowed to order supplies directly.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
• Often referred to as total quality management, these
programs empower workers to trace product or service
problems to their root causes and redesign production
processes to eliminate them using various problemsolving and statistical techniques. In these situations,
empowerment arises from the need to involve
employees at nearly all organizational levels in
continuous improvement efforts. The use of continuous
improvement programs have grown rapidly, built on the
successful experiences of numerous companies. Xerox,
for example, was able to decrease the number of
customer complaints it received by 38 percent after
implementing continuous improvement methods, and
Motorola reduced the number of defects in its products
by 80 percent. Proponents of self-managed work teams
claim they succeed because they are customer-focused
and promote sound management practices like teamwork, continuous learning, and continuous improvement.
SELF-MANAGED WORK TEAMS
• Self-managed work teams are not for all organizations;
characteristic needed for success include:
• Technical skills. Cross-training, which allows team members to
move from job to job within the team, is essential. Thus, team
members should receive training in the specific skills that will
broaden their personal contributions to the overall effort.
• Interpersonal skills. Team members must communicate effectively,
both one-on-one and in groups. Cooperative decision-making within
and among teams demands the skills of group problem solving,
influencing others, and resolving conflicts. Team members must
learn problem-solving skills that assist in zeroing in on problem
areas, gathering facts, analyzing causes, generating alternatives,
selecting solutions, and other related facets.
• Administrative skills. Self-managed work teams must perform tasks
formerly handled by supervisors. The team must learn how to keep
records, report procedures, budget, schedule, monitor, and appraise
the performance of team members.
Drawbacks can include:
• Rivalry within and across teams
• A shortage of time and skills on the team
to deal with conventional management
concerns like hiring, training, and resolving
interpersonal disputes
• Difficulty appraising employees in the
absence of a traditional management
figure
Difficulty in implementing AWTs
• Sometimes, managers are reluctant to
relinquish control and employees are
reluctant to accept new responsibilities. To
prepare team members f\or selfmanagement, the organization must
provide a considerable amount of training.
Without proper training, teams are likely to
become bogged down permanently in midprocess.
INFORMAL TEAMS
• Informal teams are generally formed for social
purposes. They can help to facilitate employee
pursuits of common concerns, such as
improving work conditions. More frequently
however, these teams form out of a set of
common concerns and interests, which may or
may not be the same as the organization's.
Leaders of these teams generally emerge from
the membership and are not appointed by
anyone in the organization.
TRADITIONAL TEAMS
• Traditional teams are the organizational
groups commonly thought of as
departments or functional areas. Leaders
or managers of these teams are appointed
by the organization and have legitimate
power in the team. The team is expected
to produce a product, deliver a service, or
perform a function that the organization
has assigned.
Informal
• Social in nature
• Leaders may differ from those
appointed by the organization
Problem-Solving
• Temporary teams
• Frequently cross-functional
• Focused on a particular project
Leadership
• Steering committees
• Advisory councils
Self-Directed
• Small teams
• Little or no status differences among
team members
• Have authority to decide how to get the
work done
Virtual
• Geographically spread apart
• Meetings and functions rely on
available technology
SELECTING THE TEAM
MEMBERS
• Forming an effective team is more complex than
simply throwing a group of people together,
assigning them a task, and hoping for the best.
Potential team members need to be interviewed
and their skills and knowledge should be
assessed. Issues to consider in selecting team
members include: the individual's motivation with
respect to both the team and the task at hand;
the attitudes and goals of potential team
members; potential problems with intragroup
relationships; and potential problems with
relationships with external groups.
Interview Process for Team
Members
• What strengths does the individual bring to the
team?
• What is she or he is willing to work on
improving?
• What problem solving style does the individual
employ?
• Can she or he share information in an effective
manner?
• Does the individual have good listening skills?
• Can the individual provide constructive
feedback?