Empowerment concepts and applications

Empowering Workers Exploring Examples and the Pros and Cons

Infusing jobs with accountability and ownership of results by giving employees the accountability, authority and responsibility of making their own decisions in response to both internal and external customer demands forms the foundation of empowerment. For any empowerment strategy in an organization to be successful, an entire series of internal systems must be in alignment with the specific objectives that empowerment is seeking to accomplish. Empowerment can revolutionize a company's culture, yet the supporting processes, systems (both electronic and manual), recognition and reward systems, and shift in managerial attitudes must all align with empowerment efforts if they are to succeed. A significant finding from this research of empowerment that there must be a high level of ownership specifically at the systems level throughout companies for an empowerment strategy to work effectively, according to Aguirre, Calderone, Jones (2004). Empowerment is most visible when customers are getting exemplary performance, yet it's important to realize that for that moment of truth to emerge there needs to be a high level of system synchronization throughout any organization.

Of the significant body of research completed on empowerment, the consensus is that this managerial strategy of placing responsibility and accountability for decisions at the lowest level of the organization. It is not the abdicating of responsibility for a job description but more of an accentuating and clarifying of them when taken from the perspective of the customer. Empowerment gives the lowest level employees in an organization an opportunity to contribute in a much more meaningful way than ever before. When empowerment is well executed, both customer loyalty and employee morale become stronger and more positive over time.

Empowerment Pros and Cons

The intent of this section is to define the pros and cons of choosing to pursue an empowerment strategy. Clearly the strategy of pursuing an empowerment strategy cannot be done in a vacuum; it must be a concerted, synchronized strategy company wide if it is to be successful. For the organization, the following are key positives or "pro" arguments for pursuing an empowerment strategy. First, there is a much higher level of customer focus at the line level, a higher level of problem solving and problem prevention at the customer level as well. There is a significantly higher level of respect and trust, including collaboration, between work units, and tighter cross-functional coordination (Ransom, 1994) as well. Lastly and most significant as it speaks to the system-wide synchronization of the company pursuing empowerment, there is a significant level of front-line coordination across the entire organization when decisions are made on behalf of customers. This speaks to the fact that empowerment processes are well defined and in place before the actual empowering of front-line employees is launched.

At the employee level there is considerably higher levels of motivation and morale (Kappelman and Prybutok, 1995, p. 12). As will be seen from a columnist writing about an accordance of empowerment at the Orlando Convention Center (Columbus, 2007) excellence in empowerment also leads to the greatest levels of performance organization wide. With these strengths and the ability to serve customers more effectively, there is also a higher level of accountability for decisions, and increased personal discipline to achieve on behalf of customers. The focus on the customer becomes nearly an obsession in these organizations, as the processes developed to support empowerment are finely tuned over time.

With all these positives it's clear that many organizations can't wait to get started with their development efforts. Yet for organizations to be successful with empowerment, systems (both electronic and manual) need to be synchronized and processes to reward and guide empowerment is critical. A negative or "con" of empowerment then is the need for enabling significant culture change. Called change management, it is clear that those inside an organization responsible for making empowerment permanent, ownership at the system level (Aguirre, Calderone, Jones, 2004) have analyzed. As a result of change management being a major consideration, it is critical to spend heavily on training and ongoing focus on results obtained. A second major disadvantage is that it requires all members of an organization, even those not directly in contact with customers, have an entirely new skill set. If these skills are not available, an organization needs to create them through training. As a result of this intensive level of training and development, it's also clear that an organization needs to create and define an entirely new power bases to ensure consistency of empowerment processes and responses. It requires a strong disciplined approach to create empowerment strategies that work over time. Further disadvantages include the middle managers' loss of control, a shifting balance of power in the manager's relationship to their subordinates, where subordinates have much greater control over their jobs. When empowerment is very successful there is not a need for that many middle managers in an organization, which could lead to lay-offs, and the entire level of managerial authority is not as tightly controlled as it has been in the past, prior to empowerment being undertaken.

Examples of Successful Empowerment Strategies

Crystallizing the critical success factors of empowerment, industry columnist Louis Columbus for CRMBuyer.com (2007) defines best practices in this area as the intersection of a passion for service and the ability to quickly respond to customers' needs. In his column, Columbus defines an experience with the Orlando Convention Center where a customer service representative responded to a voice mail in 70 minutes with a multitude of options to solve an exhibition question and even worked out getting approvals on the request. Impressed, the columnist e-mailed the senior management of Orlando Convention Center and explained how incredible the service had been. Again there was a quick, courteous and thankful response. The Orlando Convention Centers' level of empowerment is now considered one of the strongest in the convention center industry as a result of putting those customer service representatives with a passion for service in key customer-facing positions. The culture of the Orlando Convention Center is also supplanted with many different reward and recognition systems to further sustain and support this level of performance.

Another example of empowerment was observed by Glenn Ross, columnist for AllBusiness.com, specifically in a Four Seasons Hotel, which is a hospitality organization renowned for its service, (Four Seasons 2006). Ross writes about how a couple complained of cobwebs in their room, and the desk attendant immediately gave them the two nights free they were about to pay for. Stopping what could potentially be two customers who would not return is worth thousands of dollars to the Four Seasons, and conversely, being able to create lifetime loyalty with a single act of kindness is also worth more than the mere cost of two nights. Marriott's passionate pursuit of service is played out thousands of times a day for the same reasons. Recently Columbus (CRM Buyer, 2007) took a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Orlando, Florida and arrived at 6am on a Monday morning. The hotel this columnist had checked into had oversold itself and actually laughed at the columnist when he asked to check in at 6am. Walking next door to the Marriott the columnist quickly was checked in and given a room in ten minutes - all before the night attendant even knew Columbus was a frequent traveler. Between Hampton Inn, the one who stood him up, and Marriott, who instantly took care of the request, it was clear which organization had the higher level of empowerment. While Columbus has yet to write about this episode it is posted on blogs he contributes to.