Employee Empowerment and Participation

Involvement and Participation

Employee involvement is a range of processes designed to engage the support, understanding and optimum contribution of all employees in an organisation and their commitment to its objectives Employee participation is defined as a process of employee involvement designed to provide employees with the opportunity to influence and where appropriate, take part in decision making on matters which affect them

Employee empowerment
Employee Empowerment is Employee Involvement that matters. It is a controlled transfer of authority to make decisions and take actions. It means giving employees responsibility and authority to make decisions regarding all aspects. Empowerment is the key to motivation & Productivity. It enables a person to develop personally & professionally.

Employee Empowerment
Their decision-making authority can range from offering suggestions to exercising veto power over management decisions

Primary goal of employee empowerment is to give workers a greater voice in decisions about work-related matters

Possible areas include: how jobs are to be performed, working conditions, company policies, work hours, peer review, and how supervisors are evaluated

Benefits of empowerment
Increased employee education and training Employees participate in creating their own goals Increased employee contribution Increased respect among employees Increased power equals lower absenteeism and better productivity Employees have more satisfying work Less conflict with administration and managers Employees are more likely to agree with changes if they participate in decision making

Costs of empowerment
Employees can abuse the increased power given to them It is too much responsibility for some employees All employees must "buy in" to the concept for it to be effective There is an increased cost to the organization for training and education It is time consuming There may be increased conflict or power struggle between employees due to group work Some employees may not be knowledgeable enough to make business decisions

Ways to empower employees

Management by objectives
Concept of MBO was introduced by Peter Drucker in 1954 It is a process whereby the superior and the subordinate managers of an organization jointly identify its common goals, define each individual s major areas of responsibility Based upon the assumption that involvement leads to commitment

Ways to empower employees

Management by objectives
Define organization goals Performance appraisal Defining employee objectives

Providing feedback

Continuous monitoring of performance Performance evaluation

Ways to empower employees

Advantages of Management by objectives
Improved performance, morale and motivation Greater sense of identification Maximum utilization of Human Resources No role ambiguity Improved communication and organizational structure Device of organizational control Career development for employees Result based performance evaluation

Ways to empower employees

Disadvantages of Management by objectives
Lack of support of top management Resentful attitude of subordinates Difficulties in quantifying the goals and objectives Costly and time consuming Emphasis on short term goals Lack of adequate skills and training Poor integration Lack of follow up

Ways to empower employees

Suggestion for effective implementation of MBO
Top management support and communication Clear goal setting Participative goal setting Overall philosophy of management Decentralization of authority Revision and modification of goals Orientation and training of executives Integration of MBO programme

Ways to empower employees

Job enrichment
It refers to the vertical enlargement of a job by adding responsibility and opportunity for personal growth Concerned with designing jobs that include a greater variety of work content, require a higher level of knowledge and skills, give workers more autonomy and responsibility It further leads to career growth of the employees

Ways to empower employees

Advantages of Job enrichment
It makes the job interesting to the employees Helps in reducing the rate of employee turnover and absenteeism Motivates the employees intrinsically Skills of workers are increased Task enforcement is made easy Creativity of the employees increase

Ways to empower employees

Disadvantages of Job enrichment
It may not be easy to enrich all jobs Adding challenges to a highly skilled job may not necessarily bring satisfaction for highly professional ones Employees may not have the requisite capability It is a costly affair

Ways to empower employees

Job enlargement
Job enlargement refers to adding a few more task elements horizontally It focuses on enlarging jobs by increasing tasks and responsibilities. It may not necessarily call for the acquisition of higher level or new skills

Ways to empower employees

Advantages of Job enlargement
Avoids monotony Improves workers satisfaction Decreased production costs and increased quality It also improves the worker s efficiency at work

Ways to empower employees

Disadvantages of Job enrichment
Workers may require training Productivity may fall during the introduction of new system Workers argue for increased pay because of increased work load

Ways to empower employees

Job rotation
A worker moves from one job to another, at the same level, that has similar skill requirements It reduces boredom and monotony, broadens employees experience However, work gets disrupted because employees take time to adjust, training costs are increased, there is no appreciable change in satisfaction

Ways to empower employees

Self managed work teams Quality circles Brainstorming Nominal Group Technique Suggestion Boxes