Employee empowerment

Employee empowerment refers to the manner in which companies provide their employees with anything and everything they need to succeed. This involves far more than simple resource allocation Keenoy (2013: 198). According to CIPD, companies that are interested in empowering employees should act on the following;

·  Give employees a voice by regularly soliciting and acting on their feedback, provide them opportunities to grow through more autonomy, additional responsibilities, or even an entirely new role.

·   Recognize employees frequently to increase their engagement and confidence in their own abilities.

·   Provide employees with the tools, training, and authority they need to excel. A company’s leaders, HR professionals, and fellow employees all play key roles in establishing a supportive, empowered environment. All parties need to establish mutual trust, feel comfortable taking risks, and establish clear expectations and guidelines. Without this collaboration, truly empowering employees is impossible.

“When someone is empowered, they have the ability to accomplish something and they know it, giving them the confidence needed to succeed Keenoy (2013: 198)”.

Employee engagement prescriptions as ‘motherhood and apple pie’ and suggested that the term engagement could be replaced by job involvement, empowerment, high performance management or ‘any of the other putative solutions’ to the problem of getting employees to be more productive McGregor’s (1960).

To help people get the most out of learning and development, we need to get their minds and hearts involved so they feel empowered

and act with a Can do Attitude. So they engage in activities and passionately

 work for their future resulting in the betterment of the organization. Apart

 from this empowered employees tend to take responsibilities and act wisely

 because they know that their actions have a large impact on them and the organization

 as a whole (Beverly Kaye).

So if the proper individuals are been identified and trained and motivated, they will engage in the organizational activities and try to innovate. So Employers have the ability to make a Employee better or Break an Employee.

“ This is a must - have for the shelf of all professionals who are charged with bringing change to their organization and actually seeing a return on investment! ” (Beverly Kaye).

A learning culture, according to Reynolds (2004: 9), is a "development medium" where workers will commit to a range of good discretionary behaviors, including learning." He recommended that to produce a culture of learning, Organizational procedures must be created and give the workers a feeling of purpose in the workplace and give them opportunities to act upon their commitment, and offer practical assistance for learning.

 

References:

Armstrong, M and Baron, A (2002) Strategic HRM: The route to improved business performance, London, CIPD

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2013) HR Profession Map, http://www.cipd.co.uk/ hr-profession-map-download.aspx [accessed 25 January 2013]

Kaye, B., & Jordan - Evans, S. (2008). Love ‘ em or lose ‘ em: Getting good people to stay (4th ed.). San Francisco: Berrett - Koehler.

Keenoy, T (2013) Engagement: A murmeration of objects? in (eds) C Truss, R Deldridge, K Alfes, A Shantz and E Soane, Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice, London, Routledge, pp 198–220

McGregor, D (1960) The Human Side of Enterprise, New York, McGraw-Hill

Reynolds, J (2004) Helping People Learn, London, CIPD

Reynolds, J, Caley, L and Mason, R (2002) How Do People Learn?, London, CIPD