The alterations and fluctuations of the market scenario have aggravated the necessity for better and improved organizational accomplishments that proceed to establishments being more poised for challenges and contingent situations. Thus, the demand for change in the mindsets of organizations and managers is growing manifold. The whole organization should engage and involve in broad-based thinking, visualizing, and nurturing with subsequent maximal utilization of the information and innovativeness of the managers. Towards this end, an ideal strategy is to empower employees, thus making them both autonomous while executing their individual duties in their own domain and also holding them liable for the result of their actions. Hence, empowerment helps the corporation to flourish and achieve zenith of progress in globalized world. Empowerment aims at the following objectives:
A: Individual Objectives
1. Enhance job satisfaction: The logic behind empowerment stands on the underlying belief that if the personnel are armed with skills, resources, and authority, and also provided with the opportunity, responsibility, and accountability, will be motivated in their organizational actions. This makes them more competent and satisfied. Thus, a vital objective is satisfied employees.
2. Facilitate innovativeness among employees: Effective and systematic application of the principles of empowerment among the employees make them independent thinkers and also autonomous decision-makers adept at moulding themselves to changing business scenarios. This in turn fosters a creative climate that drives them to implement innovative ideas.
3. Enhancing employee performance: Empowerment interventions aims at the enhancement of staff activities through delegation of power, participatory management, encouragement, and free and fair reward management. This has a favourable influence on individual performance. Such employees utilize the opportunity provided to fully embrace their potentialities for enhanced performance.
4. Ensure employee loyalty: Empowerment practices lead to a sense of mutuality and faithfulness of the working people and build commitment. Empowerment seems to satisfy two fundamental human requirements – acceptance and ownership. It makes the employees realize their importance as valuable assets and also their necessity for organizational success. Empowerment also signifies the management’s confidence in the staff being able to influence the enterprise’s goal accomplishment capability. It gives the personnel security, who then confidently provide their unique contribution and also realize their own value. They regard their selves as the foci of all activities.
5. Improve the employee morale: The empowerment process make the work meaningful for the employees, and results in organizational goal achievement. They feel positive about themselves and their job. This enhances their morale. When top management acknowledge and ratify the decision of empowered employees, they feel achievers. This may encourage them towards peak performance.
6. Freedom in decision-making: Due to empowerment, employees become independent decision-makers. They feel themselves in control of the whole dimensions of their job. The result is more autonomy at the workplace with more pronounced loyalty. The efforts that they exert are much more than the job expectations by the organization.
7. Free flow of information: Empowerment practices ensure free access of essential information to the personnel. Access to useful information makes them independent decision-makers negating the need for guidance from their respective bosses at every instant. The outcome is enhanced self-efficacy.
8. Improvement in the quality of goods manufactured and services rendered: Empowerment practices in work settings exerts a substantial thrust towards enhancement of employee commitment, towards acceleration of the quality of the items, and also in service excellence. Empowerment is the apparatus that empowers an officeholder to contemplate the requests of his job and to surpass the employment necessities. Thus, for an individual, success through persistent efforts is realized, which ultimately yields a better result for the organization.
9. Increase in managerial effectiveness: Empowerment renders an important conclusive result on the enhancement of managerial effectiveness. Managerial effectiveness is a quality that ensures that the organizational leader can complete or even exceed work role expectations. Since empowered managers consider themselves competent and capable of influencing both their employment activities and also its conditions in a more profound and significant manner, the behaviour is seen proactive. They are competent enough to anticipate problems and act independently and so are also seen as effective.
B: Organizational Objectives
1. Improve customer satisfaction: Empowered employees take quick and very fast paced decisions, sometimes without consulting their bosses. The end result is high customer satisfaction because they competently gratify the customers and provide solutions for their complaints and concerns instantaneously by themselves. The end result is the business firm earning itself a fame regarding prompt and effective goods and services delivery in the relevant market.
2. Enhance teamwork: Empowerment enhances teamwork in organizations. Such individuals are more driven and cooperative. If empowerment principles are applied across the organization, the targets are reached with ease.
3. Increase organizational effectiveness: Empowerment of employees’ aim to increase organizational effectiveness. As for example, empowering employees are known to improve efficiency and diminish assembly line cost in a transmission plant.
4. Improve the profit margin: Empowered employees are known to provide exceptional customer service in several competitive markets and thus improve the company profits by facilitating repeated business.
5. Promote the firm image: Employee empowerment aims to put up a good company image in front of the world by promoting good rapport between organization and the clients.
6. Reduces work-load corporate heads: Employee empowerment through authority delegation, responsibility, and facilitation of independent decision making among employees intend to accomplish a decrease in the remaining workload burden of the top hierarchy. It brings in competitiveness and induces change in organization.
7. Enjoy competitive advantage for a prolonged time frame: Research scholars have identified the personnel to actually bring in true competitive advantage which is retained over time in any organization. This happens when employees actively and wholeheartedly indulge in the corporate operations. Thus, it is highly essential to accomplish competitive advantage and its sustainment.
8. Promote innovativeness: Empowerment is actually cited to be the critical variable which enables the enterprise to embrace innovative strategies. It brings forward the strategy necessary to usher in significant improvement in organizational performance. It also alters pre-existing enterprise frameworks and forms. It induces flexibility in organizations, which increases their proficiency to acclimatize to the dynamic external environment.
9. Word-of-mouth publicity: Empowered employees spread the word. Employee belongingness and pride are boosted by the change program which is brought about by empowerment. Among potential employees, word-of-mouth information raises awareness. Satisfied and empowered employees boast to others about how great their organizations are and how lucky they feel to be working there.
10. Reduce Job stress: Research study has also established an actual active reduction in work induced pressure of staff occurring simultaneously to empowerment. A contented and satisfied workforce is the result which effectively creates a lively and pleasing work culture.
For Citing this article use:
- Ghosh, A. (2020). Employee Empowerment and Employee Satisfaction An Empirical Study on Banking Sector in West Bengal.
