Positive Impacts of Employee Empowerment - Coursework Example

EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT Name Institutional Affiliation Introduction Organizations exist to achieve objectives and goals set. Due to the dynamism experienced in the business environment, organizations ought to be innovative to remain relevant and enjoy competitive advantage. Innovation thrives in an environment where new ideas are allowed to flow. One aspect of allowing new ideas flow into the organization is through employee empowerment. According to Kumar, Sahoo, & Das (2011), employees empowerment as a philosophy believes in the enrichment of peoples’ or employees’ jobs, thereby giving them power to exercise control and be in a position of taking responsibility of their own outcomes. Employee empowerment brings about satisfaction and motivates employee towards achievement of the organization objectives, consequently generating to increased productivity. Employee empowerment is not only limited to sharing power, but also entails management offering a listening ear to the employees and creating an avenue where their grievances are aired or addressed. This essay therefore seeks to critically analyze the role employee empowerment plays in the achievement of organizational objectives Employee empowerment Employee empowerment revolves mostly around issue to do with power and control, where employee empowerment was seen and considered a management function and technique used to motivate employees by delegating power. According to Ashcraft and Kedrowicz (2002), employee involves enabling power relations through management processes that encourage or rather favor competence and control. Conger and Kanungo (1988) asserts that employee empowerment was ideally reflected in power such that those who were given more power were likely to perform better and achieve desired outcomes. Empowerment is a form of motivation that is intrinsic in nature ad involves positive experiences that an employee obtains or derives from performing a given task. Through employee empowerment, employees in an organization feel motivated and connected to the organization. Empowerment help employees work towards achievement of organization goals. According to Kumar, Sahoo, & Das (2011), employee empowerment can happen in many ways without necessarily giving employees more power. Kumar, Sahoo, & Das (2011) asserts that employee empowerment can happen and be improved by giving employees a listening ear and the management being responsive to problems affecting their day to day operations. Additionally, providing employee training, encouragement from both the management and fellow employees and allowing employee freedom to access relevant information are some of the acts that can be done to employees to achieve empowerment. As is often the case in most organizations, empowerment that is effective, practical and of good quality always begins from the top management. Employee empowerment is one of the most powerful tools that contribute to achievement of organization objectives; and as Kumar, Sahoo, & Das (2011) put it, “employee empowerment changes an organization’s model, whether it can be a restructuring or change in job responsibilities”. Therefore, the top management should be responsible for developing, building an accordingly implementing policies regarding employee empowerment. Positive impacts of employee empowerment Increased employee trust and commitment Organizations are established to achieve set goals and objectives. According to Ramesh, Kumar, & Martin (2014), achievement of the organization’s objectives is a measure of success. To ensure that that an organization achieve its goals, it is important that its employees feel motivated. In an organizational setup, the management should create an environment where trust and commitment is allowed to thrive. Employees should be committed towards the achievement of objectives and therefore to achieve this goal, employees should be empowered. Therefore, employee empowerment contributes to the heightened trust and commitment in an organization. Increase motivation level Empowering employees create an environment in an organization where employees feel safe, free and motivated. Motivated employees, according to Ramesh, Kumar, & Martin (2014), have the enthusiasm to work and feel a sense of belonging. Learning is said to be a process and before perfection is achieved or reached a number of mistakes are normally committed. Management should recognize that employees are in a learning ladder and are susceptible to making a lot of mistakes, probably unknowingly. How management handles such instances will either motivate or demotivate employees. Employee empowerment therefore helps in creating a culture of learning and helps reduce mistakes besides allowing employees become responsible for their actions. Expression of beliefs In the process of undertaking routine duties, employees usually experience ups and downs. Infact, Tjosvold, Wong, & Feng Chen (2014) assert that in an organizational setup, issues and problems normally arise between the management and the employees. However, how the management handles these issues and problems can either build or destroy an organization. Management has a responsibility of developing the best way of addressing employees’ grievances if at all organizational objectives are to be achieved. It is important that a platform is established in an organization where employees’ beliefs are expressed. Employee empowerment helps create an environment and platform where employees’ beliefs, grievances and concerns are addressed. Employee loyalty Employees like and want to be attached to successful organizations. Employees, being the greatest asset that an organization can either build or destroy an organization. Employee loyalty, according to Pradhan, Kamlanabhan, Thulasiraj, & Muraleedharan (2014), is a product of management’s commitment towards meeting the needs of employees. Loyal employees feel proud of an organization, want to be attached to the organization and feel obliged to align their own personal goals with those of an organization in order to ease the achievement of overall organization goals. Employee empowerment is in a position to perform the magic of making employees become loyal to an organization, by creating an environment where employees feel they belong to the organization Negative impacts of employee empowerment More often, decision making is centralized in an organization, with the management viewed centrally as agents of decision-making. Centralized decision making discourages participation from employees. Since empowering employees ensures that power is shared between the top management and employees, it encourages decentralization. Decentralization of power, according to Lorinkova, Pearsall, & Sims (2013), encourages participation from employees and creates and environment where employees feel loved and their views considered. In their study, Baird & Wang (2010) linked employee empowerment to organizational performance and highlighted on critical factors that are associated or linked to higher levels of empowerment in an organization. Similarly, the same authors also noted that lack of management support can times hinder successful implementation. In as much as employee empowerment leads to increased management performance through decentralization of decision making role, employee empowerment could negatively impact an organization. When decentralization form of decision making is employed in an organization, decision making procedure becomes long and complex and instances of doing wrong and untimely decisions are high Additionally, in as much as all employees want to be empowered, some fail to accept additional responsibilities that accompany the empowerment. The empowerment process necessitates that employee to be empowered be identified. Therefore, identifying who to empower among the employees becomes a challenge since not all employees want to shoulder extra responsibilities. This refusal to shoulder responsibilities becomes costly to the organization in the long run, consequently leading to reduced productivity. Drivers of employee empowerment There are a number of factors that drive an organization towards employee empowerment. Firstly, there is the need to encourage innovation and creativity in an organization. Employees feel that their contributions are valued when an organization empowers them. Employee empowerment encourages employees to work towards achievement of organization goals. According to Kazlauskaite, Buciuniene, & Turauskas (2011), employee empowerment helps an organization come up with creative and innovative ideas that can help an organization develop and improve its systems. Secondly, there is a need for increased productivity. It is very true that empowered employees contribute to increased productivity because of the freedom of decision making they enjoy. According to Fernandez & Moldogaziev (2013), a team of empowered employees collectively work together and contribute to improved organizational productivity. Thirdly, there is a need to retain employees. It is fulfilling to be part of an organization where employees are allowed to exercise autonomy in the manner in which they work. With increased duties and responsibilities in an organization, employees need to be empowered to enable them extra responsibilities. Therefore, what drives an organization towards employee retention is the need to retain employees and reduce employee turnover. Tensions regarding change Change in an organization is very important, as it encourages innovation which in the long run contributes to increased productivity. However, in as much as change is important and healthy in an organization, it must be properly implemented, lest it be resisted by employees. According to Kosar, Object, & M. Mehdi Raza Naqvi (2015), employee résistance to change occurs in instances where employees feel threatened by the introduced changes. Kemal, Demġrcġ, & Erbaġ (2010) asserts that to prevent resistance to change, employees must be well prepared and their worries eliminated. It is the duty of the management to prepare employees regarding the intention to introduce change in order to eliminate instances where change is resisted. Since employee empowerment leads to shared power, it is one form of change. It is important therefore that the management accordingly prepare employees to be empowered to enable them accept to shoulder the extra responsibilities that accompany employee empowerment. Opportunities and challenges Employee empowerment, according to Kumar, Sahoo, & Das (2011) is an opportunity for growth for employees, besides also creating an avenue for an organization to achieve its objectives. As employees grow, the organization grows too. It is important that an organization work on improving its existing products and also work on introducing other new products. An avenue in an organization should be created where new ideas are encouraged and allowed to thrive. Employee empowerment creates this avenue by allowing employees come up with new ideas, providing an opportunity for an organization to be innovative. This creates a lot of opportunities for an organization, resulting to growth in the long run. However, employee empowerment comes with challenges that include chances of resistance to change. Additionally, the delegation of power leads to widened base of decision making, making the decision making process long and complex. Conclusion Remaining relevant in today’s ever changing business environment is key to achieving organizational objectives, besides allowing an organization to enjoy competitive advantage. Successful organizations are organizations which have employees’ objectives to its core objectives. Through employee empowerment, employees’ objectives become aligned with those of the organization. It is important therefore that the organizations empower their employees, to make them motivated and contribute to increased productivity in the long run. Employee empowerment creates an avenue where change thrives, employees feel a sense of belonging and decision making becomes participatory. However, in as much as employee empowerment allows new ideas thereby bringing about innovation, there are instances where it impacts negatively on an organization. Employee empowerment, through shared power, creates complexity in decision making. Additionally, other employees can fail to shoulder extra responsibilities that come as a result of empowerment. All said and done, it is evident from the essay that employee empowerment enables an organization to achieve its objectives because it makes employees motivated, committed and dedicated to the organization. References Baird, K., & Wang, H. (2010). Employee empowerment: Extent of adoption and influential factors. Personnel Review, 39(5): 574–599. Conger, J. A. & Kanungo, R. N. (1988). The empowerment process: Integrating theory and practice. Academy of Management Review, 13(3): 471–482. Fernandez, S. & Moldogaziev, T. (2013). Employee empowerment, employee attitudes, and performance: Testing a causal model. Public Administration Review, 73(3): 490–506. Kazlauskaite, R., Buciuniene, I., & Turauskas, L. (2011). Organizational and psychological empowerment in the HRM‐performance linkage. Employee Relations, 34(2): 138–158. Kemal, M., Demġrcġ, & Erbaġ, A. (2010). Employee empowerment and its effect on organizational performance. Retrieved 14th Dec. 2016 from http://eprints.ibu.edu.ba/200/1/ISSD2010_Economy_Management_p142-p146.pdf Kosar, R., Object, object, & M. Mehdi Raza Naqvi, S. (2015). Psychological empowerment and employee behaviors: Employee engagement as mediator and leader-member exchange as moderator. JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS RESEARCH AND MARKETING, 1(6): 24–30. Kumar, C., Sahoo, & Das, S. (2011). Employee empowerment: A strategy towards workplace commitment, 3(11): 46–54. Retrieved 14th Dec. 2016 from http://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/EJBM/article/viewFile/714/613 Lorinkova, N. M., Pearsall, M. J., & Sims, H. P. (2013). Examining the differential longitudinal performance of directive versus empowering leadership in teams. Academy of Management Journal, 56(2): 573–596. Pradhan, P., Kamlanabhan, T. J., Thulasiraj, R. D., & Muraleedharan, V. R. (2014). Employee empowerment. Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Healthcare, 1(1): 53–62. Ramesh, R., Kumar, S. K., & Martin, S. (2014). Role of employee empowerment in organizational development, 8(2): 1241-1245. Retrieved 14th Dec. 2016 from http://www.ijsrm.in/v2-i8/15%20ijsrm.pdf Tjosvold, D., Wong, A. S. H., & Feng Chen, N. Y. (2014). Constructively managing conflicts in organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1(1): 545–568. Read More