Define of Empowerment
Empowerment can be defined as the process, by which we can increase the capacity of an individual or a group in order for them to make their own choices which will lead to increased productivity in an organisation and also has to remove any barriers that limit the process of empowerment. Empowerment helps remove the conditions that cause powerlessness while enhancing employee feelings of self-efficacy. It also authorizes employees to cope with situations and enables them to take control of problems as they arise. the process that provides greater autonomy to employees through the sharing of relevant information in the provision of control over factors affecting job performance. Empowerment unleashes an individual’s potential and enhancing his abilities to nurture growth in the organisation, it gives authority to an individual to take action and take control of his work by making decisions on his own. The organisation should therefore make an enabling environment which helps the employee to undertake their tasks in an empowered manner by removing any barriers that limit the process of empowerment.
Empowerment involves Valuing employees, sharing information and visions of the organisation, giving Direction and goal sharing with workers, enhancing Trust, Involvement of workers in decision making, training workers, provision of emotional support to workers and proper communication channels in the organisation.
Five broad approaches to empowerment are
- Helping employees achieve job mastery – giving proper training, coaching, and guided experience that will result in initial successes.
- Allowing more control – giving them discretion over job performance and then holding them accountable for outcomes.
- Providing successful role models – allowing them to observe peers who already perform successfully on the job.
- Using social reinforcement in persuasion – giving praise, encouragement, and verbal feedback designed to raise self-confidence.
- Giving emotional support – providing reduction of stress and anxiety through better role definition, task assistance, and honest caring.
Importance of empowerment
- Positive environment: Employee empowerment leads to the creation of a positive environment in the workplace; this will lead to increased productivity and efficiency in the workplace.
- Creativity: Empowerment involves letting employees make decision on their own and also solve problems, this increases their creativity and also improve the working environment.
- Productivity: Empowerment ensures that the employees perform their tasks in the most effective way that saves time and energy, as a result the employees become more productive.
- Motivation: Employee empowerment will motivate workers which will in turn increase employee productivity, increase commitment by employees and as a result the employee will more satisfied with work.
- Team work: Empowerment will encourage team work and as a result there will increase motivation to undertake tasks
- Conflicts: It will reduce conflicts between managers and workers; also reducing the cost of production in the organisation resulting to increased competitive advantage of the organisation over its competitors.
- More skilled workers: the employees become more skilled through education and training offered by the organisation, this will lead to increased employee productivity and increase competence as a result of training offered.
Disadvantages of empowerment
- Increased costs: an organisation has to invest in the training and education of its workers and as a result there will be increased costs.
- Abuse of power: Some of the organisation workers may abuse the power given to them, this include making decisions that may not be in line with the objectives of the organisation and may use the power to meet their own needs.
- Time wastage: organisation where time may be spent in groups and committees that are important in the process of empowerment and this will reduce the total time the employees spend undertaking their tasks.
- Conflicts: every worker may tend to acquire power on what should be done and how it should be done, for this reason therefore empowerment may result to conflicts among workers.
- Decisions: The employees may not have the ability to make appropriate decisions that are important in the organisation, therefore the decisions made by the employees may be biased.
FAQ's
What is the Process of Empowerment?
The act of delegating power and authority to a subordinate so as to facilitate him to achieve the goals of the manager. Empowerment is a process by which we increase the capacity of an individual or group in order to enable them to make choices and for them to transform their choices into the desired actions. Empowerment gives authority to an individual to take action and take control of his work by making decisions on his own. These actions help build collective and individual assets and improve and as a result the efficiency of use of these assets is improved. In an organisation empowerment is important in that it helps remove the feeling of powerlessness through enhancement of self-efficiency of the individual. It therefore enables the individuals to coupe with problems that face them.
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