Employee empowerment is the most critical aspect of successful business today and is not yet a popularly understood concept. For an organization to be responsive, agile and decisive, empowerment at every level is the key. Empowerment makes the difference when a sales person decides doing that little bit extra for customers. Empowerment makes the difference when the split second decision by worker saves the production line from a possible breakdown. Empowerment makes the difference when people try to locate opportunity for improving their work processes. And still managers do not know how to make empowerment a reality in their area of work. They are not sure of what capabilities are desirable in them selves and subordinates to make empowerment happen.

Team empowerment
A common concern with managers is that the workers lack capability to take enough responsibility. Team empowerment provides an opportunity for managers to extend the concept when the people do not have highest levels of individual capability to make a difference in the work area. Team empowerment may start with workplace management responsibilities like house keeping. To take the concept further managers must help people to assume responsibility for process improvements. Empowerment can be taken to higher planes by involving people in decision making that affects the compensation and benefits (changes in incentive schemes etc.), and making them part of disciplinary process to effectively fight indiscipline in the company.

Information and confidence - the heart of empowerment
In a typical organizational setup, jobs such as safety and housekeeping are team responsibility by default. Here the managers do a good job when they emphasize the importance of safety, cleanliness and housekeeping to the people responsible and also make them understand the related aspects to such an extent that the job no longer needs any supervision. Manager is confident of the capability of the people doing the job. The role of manager is to keep the motivational levels high.

In contrast, process improvement is generally considered a shared responsibility in many organizations. Managers guide people in identifying opportunities for improvements and also help them in devising a viable solution. Many a times managers give the solutions and resources and leave the implementation to the people below, who are then onwards supervised to the satisfaction of the manager. Managers feel that providing ideas, solutions, resources and supervision is their prime responsibility. It is this thinking that comes in the way of empowering the workers completely. Managers are not fully confident of the capability of the people responsible for improvements.

When it comes to the activities like budgeting, maintenance, production schedules and other important decisions, it is managers and managers alone. They use all kinds of analytical tools to aid them. Planning, budgeting and controlling are the most important tasks that managers typically perform. Empowering people in this area is one aspect that managers cannot think of, though once streamlined it is just a matter of filling a format for maintenance and scheduling.

Shift in managerial role
A closer look at above cases makes it obvious that it is information availability and capability which is the biggest factor influencing empowerment. A manager must coach his people on ways of looking at work, so that opportunities for improvement become obvious. Workers may even be trained and developed to develop solution through brainstorming where leaders may play a facilitating role. Well developed and skilled workers with positive attitudes need no supervision. It is managers’ role to see that people have sufficient process information and knowledge, so that they are able to take appropriate decisions on process improvements. Similarly once a set process for planning and budgeting is established it is only a matter of availability of business information. Dissemination of business information to managers at lower levels helps is empowering them to make suitable contribution in planning and budgeting functions.

With improved skills, attitude and knowledge workers are ready to assume higher responsibility. At this stage it is manager’s mindset emerges as bottleneck. Managers wonder how they are going to make the difference in the organization with empowered teams around. In the exercise of empowerment it is managers as much as employees who have to undergo the change in their mindsets. Managers are the most important change target, as their roles change from supervising, controlling, report generation and troubleshooting to coaching, special projects, futuristic thinking and helping people to make the right decision. Leadership skills must shift to learning, analysis, collaboration, knowledge sharing, communication and inspiration. Shift in Leaders’ or managers roles can be summarized as shown below: