Development and implementation of an employee empowerment plan for sustainable competitive advantage

Abstract

Many organizational change and development interventions have centered around the concept of employee empowerment. Employee empowerment is usually understood as ‘getting workers to do what needs to be done rather than doing what they're told’. Organizations during the last few decades have been propagating employee empowerment for organizational effectiveness through practices like Participative management, Quality of work life, Profit sharing, the Quality circle movements etc. Employee Empowerment is presently recognized as one means by which managers can effectively manage organizations, which are characterized by a greater variety of influence channels, a growing reliance on horizontal structures and peer networks, a blurred distinction between managers and workers and a diminished attachment of employees to organizations. It has been established through researches and studies that empowerment influences both satisfaction and performance of employees. Employee Involvement and Empowerment has been used as a strategic business tool to enable fast decision making for greater business results through decentralization of powers, building a salutary and unified work culture and environment for peak employee and organizational performance. In a nut shell these are the factors which either individually or in combination are responsible for sustainable competitive advantage. The present paper is a combination of review of literature available in the area of empowerment research and the insight of the author as a practicing professional. The author has tried to suggest a step by step designing and implementation approach for employee empowerment in any organizational context.