EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT

• A 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
It is the process of passing the authority and
responsibility down the hierarchy .
The process can be made effective by

• Giving right mix of information about

quantity ,quality ,customer and feedback
• Sharing knowledge about work ,business
and total work system
• Giving power to take decision and
autonomy to act
• Attaching rewards to performance
 Respect for team
members
Self efficacy
Top management
attitudes to HR
Organisational
Open communication Commitment

Opportunities for
learning application Work environment
Satisfaction
Organization support
for innovation

Responsive superior Role satisfaction

Opportunities fro
self development Job involvement
Low formalization

Performance linked Engagement

feedback

Greater autonomy
What are some of the common myths about
empowerment?

• Everybody’s doing it.

• It’s easy.
• Every manager wants empowered employees.
• Every employee wants to be empowered.
• All the manager needs to do is leave the
empowered employees alone.
Chose the right managers.
• Why? • How?
– Not every manager is
capable of being a coach
instead of a boss.
– Facilitators are born, not
made.
– Controlling
micromanagers will
always slip back into
their old ways.
– Pick the wrong managers
and everyone will see
that you are only giving
lip service to the idea.
– Select leaders who are
already empowering their
colleagues routinely.
– Confront dictatorial
leaders.
– Give them a fair chance
to change, but make it
clear that their odds of
success are not good.
– Call attention to leaders
who are doing it right,
and encourage young
leaders to select them as
mentors.
Empowerment methods in
organizations
• Kaizen (Change –for the better)-
continuous improvement
• Workers participation in management
• Participative decision making
• Suggestion schemes
• Quality Circles
TOYOTA
• Toyota Motor Company empowers some
of its employees to identify and help
remedy problems occurring during product
assembly. An automobile coming off
Toyota's assembly line with a paint defect
is seen as an opportunity to delve into the
root cause of the defect, as opposed to
merely fixing the defect and passing it on
to distributors for resale.
The Toyota way
1. Toyota organized their workers by forming teams
and gave them the responsibility and training to do
many specialized tasks. Teams are also given
responsibility for housekeeping and minor
equipment repair. Each team has a leader who
also works as one of them on the line.
2. To eliminate product defects, they must be
discovered and corrected as soon as possible.
Since workers are in the best position to discover
a defect and to immediately fix it, they are
assigned this responsibility. If a defect cannot be
readily fixed, any worker can halt the entire line by
pulling a cord (called Jidoka).
3. Toyota operators are assigned primary
responsibility for basic equipment maintenance
since they are in the best position to detect signs
of malfunctions. Maintenance specialists
diagnose and fix only complex problems, improve
the performance of equipment, and train workers
in maintenance.
 Empowerment practices at
organizations
• Xerox, for example, was able to decrease the number of
customer complaints it received by 38 percent after
implementing continuous improvement methods
• Motorola reduced the number of defects in its products by 80
percent.
• Bajaj Auto introduced the
5S(SORT,SIMPLIFY,SHINE,STANDARDISATION,SUSTAIN)
concept to keep the place of work in the highest order of
cleanliness ,orderliness and hygiene
• ITC follows a suggestion scheme (an employee involved plan)
for continuous improvement –seeking suggestions in the areas
of productivity ,waste reduction,safe work practices and quality
of work etc
• Proponents of self-managed work teams claim they succeed
because they are customer-focused and promote sound
management practices like team-work, continuous learning,
and continuous improvement
KAIZEN

• “Improve constantly and forever the system of

production and service. Improvement is not a one-
time effort. Management is obligated to continually
look for ways to reduce waste and improve
quality.”
W. Edwards Deming
 What Does Kaizen Mean?

KAI
To modify, to change
+ ZEN
Think, make good, make better

= KAIZEN
Make it easier by studying it, and making the improvement through
elimination of waste.
The Nine types of waste

• Overproduction
9 • Delays (waiting time)
Wastes • Transportation
• Process
• Inventories
• Motions
• Defective products
• Untapped resources
• Misused resources
• Means small steps taken for gradual
improvement ,continuously carried out by
all employees with the following ideas
• Focus on implementation
• No investment /small expenses
• Followed in personnel policies /social life
and work place
AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT
• Energy saving
• Weight reduction
• Manpower saving
• Process waste reduction
• Inventory reduction
• Space saving
• Operation management
• Material storage and handling
• Quality improvement
• Safety and accident prevention