Employee Empowerment and Potential Maximization

Employees must feel valued and that their ideas are respected in order to take ownership of their jobs. By giving employees a foundation from which they are contributing to the decisions of the company, their potential is maximized and the company will find greater success. The keys to empowering employees are communication and recognition.

Definition

Employee empowerment means giving employees the freedom to be actively involved in decisions that involve their functions within the company. The goal of employee empowerment is to engage employees so that they feel valued and more motivated to perform their duties to a high standard in order to contribute to the company's overall well being.

Frederick Herzberg

Frederick Herzberg was a psychologist best known for his work in the psychology of management. Herzberg's work demonstrated that employee satisfaction plummeted as a result of poor relationships with supervisors, but that satisfaction rose with "achievement, recognition, meaningful work, responsibility, advancement and growth," according to an article in "Psychology Today." Employee empowerment grew out of Herzberg's research, which encouraged managers to build relationships with their employees in order to build trust and to give employees more motivation to do their jobs well.

Reward and Motivation

According to Herzberg's research, employees who were recognized for their work and rewarded with more responsibility and advancement were more likely to produce strong work and remain committed to their jobs over a long period of time than those who are rewarded for their work with more money, extra vacation time or free travel. "Psychology Today" writer Chris Musselwhite explains that this phenomenon occurs because rewards create short-term productivity and the expectation of more rewards. On the other hand, recognition gets employees to feel more ownership of their functions, which is motivation to continue to do good work in the long run.

Methodologies

There are a number of different employee empowerment methodologies for business managers to utilize. The "Twenty Foot Process" stipulates that those within 20 feet of an issue should contribute to the decisions that affect that issue.

The Kaizen philosophy is a Japanese management technique that focuses on making incremental improvements over a long period of time through communication and the involvement of employees from all levels of a company.

The GROW model stands for Goals, Reality, Options and Will. This model encourages management to listen to the ideas of employees and to act as coaches rather than bosses.

Communication

The common theme of the various philosophies of employee empowerment is using communication to maximize potential. In his book "The No Asshole Rule," Robert Sutton describes cases where employers agreed to allow their employees to participate in surveys about how they felt about the management styles of the senior-level partners. When the feedback was negative, the partners opened themselves up to communication by way of further surveys, open-door policies and humor. Communication creates an environment in which employees feel their opinions are respected without fear of losing their jobs or getting into trouble.

References

• Thinking Managers: Employee Empowerment: Management giving power to the people
• "Psychology Today": Motivation = Empowerment; Chris Musselwhite; 2007
• "The Twenty Foot Process"; Steven Boydston; 2005
• Value Based Management: Kaizen Method
• Mind Tools: The GROW Model
• "The No Asshole Rule"; Robert I. Sutton; 2007