Empowering Your Organization

In the paradigm of management, empowerment is viewed as losing authority and control over people and resources. Generally, people resent being driven, controlled and being seen as part of company equipment. This breeds apathy in employees towards the organisation’s intents in the market place and destroys accountability.

In many ways, empowerment embodies principles effective managers and leaders have practiced for years. Two new driving forces in business, increased diversity and high-speed change, magnify the need for empowerment. Empowering people is now indispensable for effective personal productivity and maximum team success.

Organizations exist primarily to achieve their goals to make maximum profits from the sales of widgets. People in organizations from an coherent whole, identifiable, and work together on the different aspects of the shared organizational task in unified, coherent, mutually interdependent way. Organizations are rationally designed to achieve those goals that we can deploy human.

Organizational structure has been set up to facilitate all goal achievements. It is a way to motivate their employees and get them to work together. It also helps its employees to follow the organizations goals, and work together as a team. In order to do this, they need to have an organized structure to be able to run the company smoothly. A main foundation of every organization is to post their mission statement and goals everywhere so that their employees can see them. An organizational culture can consist of common shared beliefs and values that are established by the organization’s leader, and then communicated and reinforce through various methods, this helps shape employee perceptions, behaviors and understanding. Overall, organizational structure and culture can effect progress of many organizations in a positive and negative way.

The single most important component associated with managing a successful organization, entails the empowerment of employees. People that are empowered are able to make smart decisions without always having to rely on authority, to point them in the right direction. Creating an empowered organization involves interest in the workplace; minimal absence from work, high retention rates; loyal and motivated team members; as well as efficient results and effective communication amongst team members. In the book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Empowerment is an issue that is imperative to the change process. We touched on the idea of empowerment while exploring power, and politics in the workplace. Empowerment is important in regards to The Heart Of

Empowerment addresses the power inequality inherent in subordination. Food and Beverage manager Michelle Cook is above Executive chef Ritchie Gravy in formal authority but she is subordinate because Ritchie is in a relational position of power over her. Empowerment, therefore, concerns releasing the shackles placed on floor staffs by kitchen staffs who have power in Café Hip. In this case, as management is empowering the

Employee empowerment can be described as giving employees' accountability and ability to make choices about their work without managerial authorization. Good managers are expected to

When it comes to business as any organizations it requires a structure, based on the resources and demands organization can changed or modify their structure. The most common two structures are vertical and horizontal structure which we see every business organization in global market (Bateman & Snell, 2011). In today’s any business organization theirs and important trait is not only the structure, it is the functions within the organization. An organizing function in management highlights the practices individuals use to interact and work with each other. There are many business organizations that are very successful in their own

Moreover, the theory of empowerment recognizes that each individual has unique contributions to make to the agency, for collaboration in the day to day operations with motivated and satisfied employees. Additionally. Solution oriented theories ascertain the principles that both staff and clients look towards the future, relinquishing the past, after identifying what in the past holds chains to change in behaviors that beget a promising future.

When leaders conquer the ability of having subordinates work towards organizations goals and purpose this fosters a highly engaged work force leading to higher outcomes (Sagie & Koslowsky, (1994). This approach of recognizing and rewarding employees for their performance was first introduced by Victor Vroom in 1964 known as the Expectancy Theory. When employees are engaged they will exceed organizational expectations and function with a sense of ownership in their place of employment (Malik, (2012). Hema and Washington (2014) state, employee motivation is gained when subordinates are empowered; giving staff power and authority to make the choices without having to wait for management’s approval. Empowering of staff not only gives employee a sense of ownership it involves them directly with the goals and purpose of the organization. Balthazard, Cooke and Potter (2006), mention, that empowerment is to tap the creative and intellectual energy of everybody in the organization not just those of senior leadership. By empowering employees, organizations will be able to initiate decision-making down from senior leaders to frontline employees (Evans, 2013). Leadership must clearly communicate expectations and expected outcomes to everyone working in the organization. These expectations will need to be aligned with the organization goals and expectations (Szilagyi & Sims, (1974). There may be times when leaders will be required to define the organization’s culture when forming

Employee empowerment can be portrayed in myths and sagas of organizational cultures. Stories, values and norms of the past, both positive and negative give a bigger picture of attitudes and behaviors of employees and expectations, standards and language usage of the company which encourages and inspires employees to excel for better than previous organization employees (Higgins & McAllaster 2004). HRM achieve employment empowerment through regulation of advantages and disadvantages liable to the employees. For instance, gender segregation and disadvantage was eliminated through the Sex Discrimination Act through affirmative action (Macken 2004).

The candidates committed to the organization coupled with the willingness to work beyond the scope of work makes them ideal candidates for empowerment. Empowered employees work in concert with the organizational mission as management recognizes their ability and gains further trust in employee’s capability for sound decision-making and respect for boundaries. Empowered employees are problem solvers and are keen on the organization’s goals as objectives. A manager will choose an empowered employee because he or she takes initiative on projects and is capable of providing innovative ideas that can enhance productivity and product improvements. According to Anderson (2011), empowered employees tend to take more responsibility in their work knowing that what they produce effects the success and profitability of the organization. Managers identify empowered employees as assets to the organization and instrumental in achieving successful outcomes. Managers empower employees who they trust to follow specific instructions and effectively communicate organizational protocols. The empowered employee is an intrinsically motivated team builder not afraid to take controlled risks and assume responsibility.

The concept of employee empowerment has been discussed a lot in many academic studies and in the field of management profession for over decades. In fact, some organizations consider the idea of empowerment as the optimum strategy in order to have the competitive benefits in the world of professional business practices (Ghosh, 2013).

According to Rappaport (1984) the word ‘empowerment’ have been used in literature of almost all disciplines such as economics, education, management, marketing, organizational change process etc., but the perspective and the context in which it has been used is different in all disciplines. In recent literature that has been written on the topic of organizational management, the word empowerment has not been defined, in fact it has been explained in a much broader way by not confining it within boundaries. According to Zimmerman (1984) defining empowerment has been in debate and writers have different opinions about its description.