Employee Empowerment and

Participation

Involvement and
Participation
Employee involvement is a range of processes
designed to engage the support, understanding and
optimum contribution of all employees in an
organisation and their commitment to its objectives
Employee participation is defined as a process of
employee involvement designed to provide
employees with the opportunity to influence and
where appropriate, take part in decision making on
matters which affect them

Employee empowerment
Employee Empowerment is
Employee Involvement that
matters.
It is a controlled transfer of
authority to make decisions
and take actions.
It means giving employees
responsibility and authority
to make decisions regarding
all aspects.

Empowerment is the key

to motivation &
Productivity.
It enables a person to
develop personally &
professionally.

Employee Empowerment

Primary goal of
employee
empowerment is to
give workers a
greater voice in
decisions about
work-related matters

Their decision-making
authority can range from
offering suggestions to
exercising veto power over
management decisions
Possible areas include: how
jobs are to be performed,
working conditions,
company policies, work
hours, peer review, and how
supervisors are evaluated

Benefits of empowerment

Increased employee education and training

Employees participate in creating their own goals
Increased employee contribution
Increased respect among employees
Increased power equals lower absenteeism and
better productivity
Employees have more satisfying work
Less conflict with administration and managers
Employees are more likely to agree with changes
if they participate in decision making

Costs of empowerment
Employees can abuse the increased power given
to them
It is too much responsibility for some employees
All employees must "buy in" to the concept for it
to be effective
There is an increased cost to the organization for
training and education
It is time consuming
There may be increased conflict or power struggle
between employees due to group work
Some employees may not be knowledgeable
enough to make business decisions

Ways to empower employees

Management by objectives
Concept of MBO was introduced by Peter Drucker in
1954
It is a process whereby the superior and the
subordinate managers of an organization jointly
identify its common goals, define each individuals
major areas of responsibility
Based upon the assumption that involvement leads
to commitment

Ways to empower employees

Management by
objectives

Define
organization
goals

Performance
appraisal

Defining
employee
objectives

Providing
feedback

Continuous
monitoring of
performance
Performan
ce
evaluation

Ways to empower employees

Advantages of Management by
objectives
Improved performance, morale and motivation
Greater sense of identification
Maximum utilization of Human Resources
No role ambiguity
Improved communication and organizational
structure
Device of organizational control
Career development for employees
Result based performance evaluation

Ways to empower employees

Disadvantages of Management by
objectives
Lack of support of top management
Resentful attitude of subordinates
Difficulties in quantifying the goals and objectives
Costly and time consuming
Emphasis on short term goals
Lack of adequate skills and training
Poor integration
Lack of follow up

Ways to empower employees

Suggestion for effective
implementation of MBO
Top management support and communication
Clear goal setting
Participative goal setting
Overall philosophy of management
Decentralization of authority
Revision and modification of goals
Orientation and training of executives
Integration of MBO programme

Ways to empower employees

Job enrichment
It refers to the vertical enlargement of a job by adding
responsibility and opportunity for personal growth
Concerned with designing jobs that include a greater
variety of work content, require a higher level of
knowledge and skills, give workers more autonomy
and responsibility
It further leads to career growth of the employees

Ways to empower employees

Advantages of Job enrichment
It makes the job interesting to the employees
Helps in reducing the rate of employee turnover and
absenteeism
Motivates the employees intrinsically
Skills of workers are increased
Task enforcement is made easy
Creativity of the employees increase

Ways to empower employees

Disadvantages of Job enrichment
It may not be easy to enrich all jobs
Adding challenges to a highly skilled job may not
necessarily bring satisfaction for highly professional
ones
Employees may not have the requisite capability
It is a costly affair

Ways to empower employees

Job enlargement
Job enlargement refers to adding a few more task
elements horizontally
It focuses on enlarging jobs by increasing tasks and
responsibilities. It may not necessarily call for the
acquisition of higher level or new skills

Ways to empower employees

Advantages of Job enlargement
Avoids monotony
Improves workers satisfaction
Decreased production costs and increased quality
It also improves the workers efficiency at work

Ways to empower employees

Disadvantages of Job enrichment
Workers may require training
Productivity may fall during the introduction of new
system
Workers argue for increased pay because of
increased work load

Ways to empower employees

Job rotation
A worker moves from one job to another, at the same
level, that has similar skill requirements
It reduces boredom and monotony, broadens
employees experience
However, work gets disrupted because employees
take time to adjust, training costs are increased, there
is no appreciable change in satisfaction

Ways to empower employees

Self managed work teams
Quality circles
Brainstorming
Nominal Group Technique
Suggestion Boxes