Question

In a 1 -2 page paper define the term 'empowerment' as it relates to organizations. What are some of the benefits and challenges of empowering your work force? Do you personally, think empowerment is used effectively in companies today? Why or why not? Include a title page and a reference page (if used) in your paper but these do not count towards the page minimum.

Answer 1

Empowerment is simply the processing of enabling individual employees to adapt to new behaviors in such a manner that will help them achieve their individual aspirations as well as the goals and objectives of the organization in a systematic and optimal manner. An organization is about individual employees, team work and their collective efforts. Thus management in an organization has to focus on both the individual employees as well as the collective enterprise. As individual employees are nurtured and allowed to grow they start contributing, in a more dynamic manner, to the growth of the organization. This leads to creation of synergy and the organization as a whole is benefitted in the long run. Empowerment of employees leads to mutual accountability and this in turn increases the commitment level of both individual employees as well as the organization.

Empowerment within an organization has to be done within a cultural change framework. The change process has to be transformative and the focus will be on the following - self-awareness, vision crafting, transformation, and growing edge. The question that is asked with regards to self-awareness is where am I now? The question that is asked with regards to vision crafting is where do I want to go? The question that is asked with regards to transformation is what needs to be changed in order to get there? The question with regards to creating a growing edge is what should be my next step?

The management of an organization, while empowering its employees, should develop self –responsibility of the employees. Authentic communication should be an integral part of the empowerment process and thus will lead to development of trust and building a culture based on care and trust. Empowerment strategy should focus on two pivotal areas i.e. learning and growing and development of interpersonal skills.

The rate of change in the market place is accelerating and competition has become highly aggressive. This makes it all the more important for organizations to attract, retain, and advance top talent. In this context it has become mandatory for organizations to enable their employees to adopt the critical new traits that are necessary to keep pace with the increasing level of competition in the market place. There are several symptoms of a disempowering organization. Some of these symptoms are presence of a blaming mentality throughout the organization, presence of a tangible fear in the decision making process, lack of participation by employees in the decision making process, prospects of new ideas being not taken seriously, presence of distrust and cynicism, presence of apathy and constant burnout of employees, lack of appreciation for hard work of employees and interpersonal issues remaining unresolved.

There are several organizational benefits that a company derives from empowerment. First of all its ability to attract, retain, and advance top talent increases manifold. Secondly an organization is able to develop and sustain its competitive advantage. Thirdly it enables realization of individual potential of employees and this in turn increases organizational wide productivity levels. Fourthly it helps in bringing about a positive behavior change within the organization. Lastly it helps in enabling a cultural change within the organization.

Thus management of an organization should realize that the core of the matter is always about empowerment and changing the behavior of the people in a positive and sustainable manner. Strategy and systems are secondary, what is primary is the need to change people’s behavior and to empower them by focusing on what people do and making significant shifts in this aspect.

References:

1. Gershon D. (2007). Changing behavior in organizations: The practice of empowerment. Systems Thinker, 17. Retrieved from https://www.empowermentinstitute.net/index.php/docman-default-enabler/organizational-empowerment/1-changing-behavior-in-organizations-the-practice-of-empowerment/file
2. Kasanoff B. (2016). 10 powerful ways to empower your employees. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucekasanoff/2016/03/24/10-powerful-ways-to-empower-your-employees/#38eab1c67427
3. Willis S. (2018). When empowering employees works and when it doesn’t. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/03/when-empowering-employees-works-and-when-it-doesnt