A Measure for Employee Empowerment in Indian Work Setting.
| Author | Srivastava, Shalini |
Introduction
Change is constant and to make this constant phenomenon visible, it is pertinent to make one of the most important stakeholders, viz., the employees empowered. Robbins (2001) mentioned that empowering employees is one of the major issues which the organization faces in day to day working. But empowering employees synchronizes with one of the principles given by Henry Fayol in "14 Principles of Management" which speaks of 'authority and responsibility'. It means that if employees are given authority, they will feel more responsible and thereby, will lead to augmented involvement (Schreuder & Theron, 1997). The reason for thinking of empowering employees emerged from organizations witnessing the potential of this employee up scaling their performance by being encouraged to handle the uncertainty (Cooks, 1993; Lepree, 1995).
Success of any organization depends upon its manpower's say, stay and strive. To make this happen, it is essential that the employees remain motivated, contended and passionate towards their work. Be it Herzberg's maintenance factors or motivational factors, both have a decisive role in the accomplishment of an employee in particular and of organization in general. But, for employees it's very essential that they are empowered in their respective domain because empowerment motivates a person towards excellence. Lack of empowerment results in demotivation in terms of monetary discontentment or handcuffed in taking decisions. Empowerment in literal sense means authority to make decisions which may directly or indirectly affect their performance (Mills & Ungson, 2003).
Organizations and managers in today's extremely aggressive marketplace must ensure that they have various practices planned to provide employees the proficiency, competence and inspiration so as to create a win-win situation for both employees and the organization. Empowering employees for optimal performance and job contentment is one of the ways to attain this. "Employees should be empowered because it is through empowerment that an organization will develop a culture which reflects employee commitment in order to survive, grow, compete and face challenges posed by globalization with confidence" (Sahoo et al., 2010:50).
Understanding Empowerment
Sinha (2005) defines the term empowerment as augmenting the participation of employees in organization related procedures and decision-making. In the present competitive era, organizations which are able to bridge the gap between knowledge and ignorance are at the pinnacle of success (Abdollahi & Naveh Ibrahim, 2011). These organizations have left no stone unturned in channelizing the human resource in right direction. Transforming organizations towards excellence needs empowering employees to the maximum in terms of liberalizing them to take decisions (Robbins, 2001; Schreuder & Theron, 1997). The outcome of empowerment is engagement resulting in creativity and strengthening risk taking ability (Cooks, 1993; Lepree, 1995). If we speak of empowerment, it is entirely alien to the concept of "bureaucracy" which is an outlook of exceedingly restricted, barely concerned, rigid culture of rules and regulations. In order to take competitive advantage of the rich manpower, organizations are continuously striving to manage workforce in fruitful endeavors. Organization's philosophy in empowering employees can be clearly seen in the level of communication they provide, the opportunities for personal growth, encouraging and involving them in the decision making, recognizing the efforts by rewarding them and promoting them toward their career growth.
Empowerment means allocation of authority and command (Burke, 1986); it can be considered as decentralization of decision making (Kanter, 1983) and participative management (Likert, 1961; McGregor, 1960). Researchers have envisaged empowerment as a condition of heightened motivation (McClelland, 1975). Empowerment allows employees to exercise better control at work whilst benefitting from augmented autonomy by helping them assume diverse roles and responsibilities in the organization. Menon (2001:161) defined empowered state "as a cognitive condition characterized by perceived control, competence, and goal internalization". Empowerment "enhances feelings of self-efficacy among organizational members through the identification of conditions that foster powerlessness and through their removal by both formal organizational practices and informal techniques of providing efficacy information" (Conger & Kanungo, 1988: 474).
Perspectives on Empowerment
Empowerment literature, presents two diverse approaches to study employee empowerment (e.g., Koberg et al., 1999; Liden & Arad, 1996; Spreitzer, 1995; Thomas & Veltbouse, 1990): (a) "Structural or relational empowerment" and (b) "Psychological or motivational empowerment". Structural empowerment focuses on "management practices" and the Psychological empowerment accentuates on an "employee's psychological strengths". Structural empowerment is defined as "redesigned structures or management practices wherein superiors distribute responsibility and information to their subordinates, as well as allow employees to participate in decision-making processes" (Taejun & Faerman, 2010: 35). Employee empowerment can be linked with reinforcement theory by B F Skinner. Every organization wants maximum productivity which is possible by employees' performance. An employee's performance in turn depends upon their efficiency as well as motivation. If employees are given positive reinforcement (Catania, 2001) in terms of extrinsic rewards like salary, promotion, empowerment, they will feel more enthusiastic towards their work.
Empowerment in Indian Context
Indian researchers like Pareek (2000), Diwedi (2000) and Pattnayak (2001) have found that "empowerment is yet to come off age in India". Diwedi (1995; 1998) illustrates that the idea of empowerment is widely entrenched in Indian values and has been prevailing in both the scientific (from the 1940s) and industrial (from the 1950s) work conditions in India. Pareek (2000) developed a "power enhancement scale" based on "empowerment as a basis for power sharing". According to Diwedi (2000) empowerment is a notion, an idea and an organizational program. As a notion, empowerment is bestowing the decision-making to employees; as an idea it means permitting the self managed teams and individuals to attain organizational and personal goals through the shared vision; as an organizational program it entails providing an outline and giving authorization to the employees so as to build up and develop their abilities and comprehension to their full potential. Singh and Bhandarkar (2002) point out that empowerment is more than mentoring or coaching and it is more of self management. Bhatnagar (2012) found that psychological empowerment leads to engagement and innovation and lowers the turnover intention of employees. Choudhury and Giri (2013: 635) define empowerment "as a process which has...
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