Is Empowerment a Valuable Tool for Increasing Efficiency and Essay - 4

Is Empowerment a Valuable Tool for Increasing Efficiency and Effectiveness in Today's Organisations - Essay Example The paper tells that the purpose of empowerment is to get employees to take responsibility for producing results rather than merely â€Å"following rules and regulations without producing tangible results†. It includes various factors such as re-engineering and re-designing existing delivery processes to make them less error-prone, more efficient, effective, and timely. Re-organization of the company’s operations to eliminate wastage of resources and personnel and replacement of earlier methods of working with information technology are also reforms that empower the workforce. Replacement of old tasks with high technology equipment or new approaches would require staff training for new responsibilities. Any anxiety on the part of workers should be addressed by human resources personnel to help employees increase their skill sets, and when any jobs become obsolete the employees should be helped to find comparable jobs within the organization. Employee empowerment has bec ome an increasingly popular concept in organizations because of growing global competition and rapid technological change. These require intensive organizational changes in employee management, for increasing organizational competitive advantage in the expanding market. Employee empowerment is a significant change initiative because it is critical to organizational innovation and effectiveness. The key element in empowerment is that it increases the level of motivation of an individual employee at the lowest possible organizational level when he is delegated with authority to make decisions. There are two distinct definitions of empowerment. As a relational construct, empowerment refers to one’s power and control over other employees, and to the transference of such power from management to an employee with less decision-making authority.