Empowering People in the Workplace

Empowering People in the Workplace

James C. Sciascia

University of Phoenix

November 14, 2005

Empowering People in the Workplace

Managers are studying in-depth for different ways to implement empowerment techniques into their organizations. The term empowerment is making its way in today's corporations because all levels of management are cutting back the number of employees in their organizations. Management is reducing the volume of employees while the volume of work is increasing. A manager's ability to empower his workforce is expected in order for him to succeed. However, most managers have a hard time with empowering their employees. If empowerment is a challenge to implement in an organization, then read on.

Most organizations have a knowledge base from their employees' experiences, individual expertise, and work processes. In order for management to create empowerment in their organizations, they must look at the knowledge base concerning the skills and abilities of their workforce. Management must know what areas he wants to delegate and be sure that employees have the skills and abilities to perform the various tasks within the company. The employee needs to know how much power is delegated to him/her and have a clear understanding of what is expected of him/her (Houtzagers, 1999).

Another advantage of empowerment in the workforce is when individuals feel that they are powerless. This may come about when organizations are restructuring or when a company downsizes. It is critical for management to find out why there is a sense of powerlessness. Once these conditions are defined, empowerment strategies and tactics can be put into place to counter act the fear. According to Appelbaum, Bethune, & Tannenbaum (1999) "this state can only succeed if the strategies and tactics directly provide personal efficacy information to them" (p.109). This can only be successful when the employee is responsible for specific actions. Self-efficacy theory offers lots in the understanding of such changes on employees and actions taken with their training, communication programs, feedback systems, and goal settings. For example, that employee would be responsible for the bottom line decisions on a project, making him feel secure and competent in his job (Appelbaum et al., p 109)

Organizations today are struggling to make their business plans work due to the change and uncertainty of today's market. Management is focusing on the proper utilization of their workforce as the key to maintaining their advantage in this changing environment. Empowerment of their workers is the answer in keeping them competitive with the amount of employees most businesses have. What they have left is a leaner and trimmer organization with fewer managers who must share their daily tasks to keep up with the increased workload and fewer employees. Proper utilization of empowerment by management cannot just start by delegating a bunch of tasks. The first objective is to come up with a goal and then plan on what is to be delegated or assigned to the employee. The second objective is to designate a person for that assigned task. This objective is a very important step but also the most difficult for many managers. This then followed with very detailed instructions and any needed training is important to their success. Lastly, monitoring their progress and providing feedback in a timely manner is important to ensuring success and proper completion of the task (Appelbaum et al., p 109).

Some of the disadvantages of empowering employees would be when the employee you empowered on a project abuses the power given to them. One way to ensure this does not