Introduction
The world, as a complex construction with its innumerable elements, is continuously moving. People, social institutions, organizations of diverse levels and types, communities are one of those elements that drive the world forward. At the moment, business organizations with their developed and shared values, capacities, internal and external policies constitute the world’s moving force. A leader and an employee, those in charge of the company performances, are the inherent elements the world needs to evolve. The leader, particularly in the business realm, is the one who performs persistence, confidence, determination, learning capabilities, and many other intrinsic qualities. However, an organization’s performance depends not only on its leader but, more importantly, on its employees and the company’s internal policy. Elaboration, promotion, and sustainability of employee empowerment in the workplace are vital for the company’s performance raise. In this work, the topic of employee empowerment in the workplace will be considered, and its use in the business area will be illustrated.
Main body
To consider employee empowerment, its elaboration process, complex structure, and influence on the company’s pathway, one has to consider the essence of leadership before. Many researchers elaborated the definition of leadership, and each interpretation includes the most common abilities. According to Manning and Curtis, the following qualities leaders possess “to an exceptional degree”: vision, self-confidence, stability, vitality, ability, concern for others, charisma, enthusiasm, persistence, and integrity (145). Essential leader qualities also include strong analytical abilities and determination to make hard choices. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the company’s performance scarcely depends on a leader solely. It is an organization’s community, its employees, who define the company’s performances in significant part. In an effort to increase performance, many researchers and operating leaders put into practice employee empowerment.
Employee empowerment conception, principles, and characteristics
A company’s sustainability and profitability performances, in major part, rest on the management strategies of its leaders, and administrator implementation. They may regard budget allocations, internal and external policies, exploitation of resources, and, in particular, employee empowerment. Empowering employees in the workplace suggests allocating responsibilities and duties among the workers in a manner that employees can feel responsible for the whole company. Manning and Curtis define the main principles of an empowered workplace. These are – trust in people’s abilities to achieve organizational goals, invest in people as the main resort, recognize their accomplishments, and decentralize decision making (146-147). When feeling ownership of the company, its performance, and trajectories, the workers commit more effort to increase personal performance and a company’s one.
The feeling of ownership on the employees’ behalf marks an empowered workplace that includes several characteristics. Organizations with empowered workplaces practice checking with everybody affected on decisions, and writing a performance plan and reviewing it with a leader (Manning and Curtis 147). They are working together on defining roles and responsibilities, as well as determining standards of employee effectiveness (Manning and Curtis 147). Sharing responsibilities enhance, as stated before, the feeling of ownership, which motivates workers to strive for better personal and organizational performances.
Employee empowerment practices
To provide better performance for a company, the leader should implement employee empowerment, not theoretically consider it. According to Manning and Curtis, the empowering of the employees includes recognizing and rewarding the employees who “make improvements to products, processes, and services” (147). The rewarding may be implemented by inviting workers to a special dinner or mentioning a worker in a speech at an annual event. The point is to enhance the sense of meaning in a worker and to distinguish them among their colleagues. Next, Manning and Curtis also advise scheduling a meeting with each of the direct reports once two or three weeks (147). During this practice, the leader and the employees discuss their work in progress, and the managers provide feedback and ask how others can contribute to their success (Manning and Curtis 147). If applied properly, these two practices contribute significantly to the company’s performance.
Further, the most important practice is making timely decisions with those involved. On diverse levels, the decisions that are to be made may be allocated to different workers and managers if they possess the necessary qualities and resources to make them (Manning and Curtis 147). This practice, therefore, constitutes the core value of employee empowerment. Decision-making requires an employee to learn more about the job or its particular area; it also requires working on one’s time management and learning skills. Thus, shared decision-making may significantly boost one’s personal performance and a company’s performance as a whole.
Conclusion
If appropriately applied, empowering employees may be one of the critical points in increasing the organization’s performance. Be it financial sustainability, market, or shareholder performances, they all rely not only on the leaders’ – managers, administrators, or department chiefs – activity but also on the workers’ one. Such practices as scheduling a meeting once a week to provide feedback to the workers, or organizing a special dinner for the distinguished workers are of importance. To allocate the decisions to be made among those workers who are enough qualified is also an essential practice. The crucial point is to enhance the sense of significance and the feeling of ownership to the employees.
References
Manning, G., and Curtis, C. B. Art of Leadership. McGraw-Hill Education, 2019.