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DEFINITION, MEANING & ELEMENTS OF EMPOWERMENT
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1 Introduction 22 Definition and meaning of employee empowerment 43 The process of employee empowerment 114 Elements of empowerment 145 Bibliography 16
 
DEFINITION, MEANING & ELEMENTS OF EMPOWERMENT
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DEFINITION, MEANING AND ELEMENTS OF EMPOWERMENT
INTRODUCTION
A given definition in the Oxford English Dictionary translates the verb “empower”
with thefollowing meaning to give authority or power to; authorize and or give strength and confidenceto. With a more feasible description, empowerment could be understood as a democraticprocess, allowing non-empowered employees to say more in the decisions that are currentlymade by managers in traditional command and control structures. In general it can be said, thatemployee empowerment is a kind of philosophy about helping a company or an organization toreach its aims and sub-goals. In other words, employee empowerment can be interpreted byinvolving every member of the company in the decision making process to in the end increasethe success of the current business. Organizations that practice employee empowerment willbecome the norm in the near future. And against this, the traditional non empoweredorganizations will be left behind because of rising pressure in doing business from theircompetitors and a serious lack of flexibility.One of the best ways to understand a word or phrase is to look at the basics, such as the twowords used in employee empowerment. An employee is one who is working for a business oranother individual for pay. Empower can mean giving legal authority to act or promoting theactions of another by giving them the means to do so. Employee empowerment does not haveto be a formal strategy for business, though it has become just that in recent years. Forexample, an individual business owner may empower an employee simply by telling him or herthat he trusts the work will be done properly. When the task is completed, the owner ormanager must then support what the employee has accomplished, to complete the process.Employee empowerment construct incorporates employee self-efficacy; the belief thatemployees are capable of performing in a way that will result in a successful outcome in a
particular situation, to improve organizations’ employee empowerment initiatives’
effectiveness and efficiency. Over the past several decades, much has been written about thebenefits of empowering employees. Additionally, human resources practitioners andconsultants have demonstrated how employee empowerment improves organizationaleffectiveness and
 
efficiency. The intent of this writing is not to refute empirical data oranecdotal evidence supporting the virtues of employee empowerment. Its purpose is tochallenge conventional thinking and reveal new insights relative to the design andimplementation of employee empowerment initiatives that will eliminate the inherent
disadvantages in the conventional processes and increase the overall outcome’s effectiveness
and efficiencies.In the last couple of years, many organizations and companies were forced to radically reducetheir overheads, reduce their running business costs and to become way more efficient, inorder to stay competitive. A strategy for cutting costs usually requires a reduction in the
 
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number of employees and to make the whole organization more lean and streamlined which is
also known as “restructuring” or “downsizing”. But this however, in order to a reduced number
of members of staff, has an empowering effect to the employees remaining. There are differentpossibilities of employee empowerment like involving and permitting people to participate intraditional management processes like planning and decision making, enable employees tosolve problems or integrate employees into teams. All of these strategies could producemeasurable improvements in the company's or the organization's performance.
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