Define and Discuss the Characteristics of the Empowered Employees

Concept of Empowerment

✔ Empowerment is the opposite of helplessness or dependency. An empowered person does not feel incapable of doing things that he considers important for the well- being of his organisation. There are no constraints that he perceives to be externally imposed. In other words, being empowered implies that the person acts from a state of autonomy, doing what he knows is the right thing to do under a given set of circumstances.

✔ It is understood that empowerment is dependent upon two factors:

An individual’s personal choices; and
The organisational climate that can either encourage dependency or foster autonomy.

Empowerment Defined

✔ According to Webster’s Dictionary, the verb empowers means ‘to give the means, ability or authority’. Therefore empowerment in work setting involves giving people the means, ability and authority to do something they have not done before.

✔ An operation definition of empowerment: “Empowerment is an environment in which people have the ability, the confidence, and the commitment to take the responsibility and ownership to improve the process and initiate the necessary steps to satisfy customer requirements within well-defined boundaries in order to achieve organisational values and goals.”

Job Enrichment Vs. Job Empowerment

Job enrichment is aimed at expanding the content of an individual’s job. But job empowerment focuses on expanding on the context of the job such as its interactions and interdependencies to other functions of the organisation.

General Principles for Empowering Employees

The following general principles may be used to empower the employees.

Tell people what their responsibilities are.
Give them authority equal to the responsibility assigned to them.
Give them authority equal to the responsibility assigned to them.
Provide them with training that will enable them to maintain standards.
Give them knowledge and information.
Provide them with feedback on their performance.
Trust them and create trust worthiness in the organisation.
Allow them to fail but guide them and counsel them when needed.
Treat them with dignity and respect.

Conditions to Create the Empowered Environment

The three conditions required to create the empowered environment are:

Everyone must understand the need for change.
The system needs to change to the new paradigm.
The organisation must provide information, education, and skill to its employees.

Characteristics of Empowered Employees

Some important characteristics of empowered employees, identified by Hubert Rampersad, are that:

✔ They feel responsible for their own task.

✔ They are given a free hand in their work.

✔ They balance their own goals with those of the organisation.

✔ They are well trained, equipped, creative, and customer oriented.

✔ They are critical, have self-esteem, and are motivated.

✔ They are challenged and encouraged.

✔ They monitor and improve their work continuously.

✔ They find new goals and change challenges.

Therefore, it is important to empower individuals and teams at all levels of the organisation to achieve the continuous improvement process.

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