LECTURE NOTES

ON

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND EMPOWERMENT 2018 – 2019

MBA II YEAR III SEMESTER

DR.M.NEERAJA, PROFESSOR

CHADALAWADA RAMANAMMA ENGINEERING COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS)

Chadalawada Nagar, Renigunta Road, Tirupati – 517 506

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND EMPOWERMENT

II MBA III Semester :

Course

Code

Category Hours/Week Credits Maximum Marks

CHB Foundation L T P C Internal External Total

- - - 4 40 60 100

Contact

classes:50

Tutorial

Classes:15

Practical classes: Nil Total classes:65

Course Objectives:

To familiarize the students about the relevance and significance of not only attracting but more

importantly retaining talented people in organizations with a special focus on career

management, benefits administration, managing workforce diversity, and health and safety

administration.

UNIT - I Employee Engagement and Empowerment Classes: 10

Employee Engagement and Empowerment: An overview – Definition, objectives, Scope – Key

Players in Engagement and Empowerment-, - HRM and Employee Engagement and

Empowerment – Recent trends.

UNIT - II Theorising Employee Engagement and Empowerment Classes: 10

Theorising Employee Engagement and Empowerment: Maslow’s Need Hierarchy, Herzberg’s

Two-Factor Theory, Theory X & Y, Achievement Motivation Theory, Expectancy Theory, ERG

Theory, Socio-Technical Theory, Job Characteristics Theory, LMX Theory, Theory Z, and

Social Cognitive Theory – Recent trends.

UNIT - III Employee Empowerment Classes: 10

Employee Empowerment: Key elements: Power, Information, Reward and Knowledge

(PIRK) – Process of Employee Empowerment – Benefits of Employee empowerment - Levels of

CHADALAWADA RAMANAMMA ENGINEERING COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS)

(Affiliated to JNTUA, Approved by AICTE, New Delhi and Accredited by NAAC ‘A’ Grade) Tirupati – 517506, Chittoor Dt. Andhra Pradesh.

Employee Involvement: Enabling, Involving and Encouraging - Principles of Employee

Empowerment- Recent Trends in Empowerment.

UNIT - IV Employee Engagement Classes: 10

Employee Engagement: Meaning - Types of Employee- Components and Engagement -

Elements of Engagement–Engagement framework: People, Reward, Company practices, Work,

quality of life, Opportunities– Consequences of engagement – Roll of Top Managers in

Employee Engagement - Employee Engagement using Social Media- Recent Trends in

Engagement.

UNIT - V Employee Engagement and Empowerment: Basic Issues and

concern

Classes: 10

Employee Engagement and Empowerment: Basic Issues and concern- Best Practices - Key

Improving Performance - Impact on Organisation Performance- Engagement Strategies – Drivers

of Employee Engagement - Recent Trends

References:

1. C. Argyris, On Organisational Learning, Blackwell.

2. Christopher Rice& Fraser Marlow, The Engagement Equation: Leadership Strategies for an

Inspired Workforce.

3. Cotton, J. L. – Employee Involvement: Methods for improving performance and work

attitudes. CA: Sage.

4. Dale, H. Besterfield, Carol, Besterfield, Glen, H. Besterfield & Mary Besterfield – Total

Quality Management. London: Prentice Hall.

5. DBM Fetterman, Foundation of Empowerment Evaluation, Sage.

6. E E Lawler III, The Ultimate Advantage: Creating High Involvement Organisation, Jossey

Boss.

7. Gary Yukl – Leadership in Organisations. Singapore: Pearson.

8. Gerald, R. Ferris & Ronald, M. Buckley – Human Resource Management: Perspective,

context, functions & outcomes. Prentice Hall Inc.

9. Ian Beardwell & Len Holden (Eds). - Human resource Management: A contemporary

perspective. UK: Pitman Publishing.

10. J B Mondros and S M Wilson, Organising for Power and Empowerment, Columbia

University Press.

11. Jim Haudan, The Art of Engagement: Bridging the Gap Between People and Possibilities.

12. John Storey (ED.) – Human Resource Management. USA: Routledge.

13. Kevin Kruse, Employee Engagement for Everyone: 4 Keys to Happiness and Fulfillment at

Work.

14. Lawler, E. E. III - High Involvement Management. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

15. Lawler, E. E. III - Ultimate Advantage: Creating the High-Involvement Organisations. San

Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

16. Mark Royal and Tom Agnew, The Enemy of Engagement: Put an End to Workplace

Frustration-- and Get the Most from Your Employees, Amacom.

17. Michael Armstrong – A Handbook of Human Resource Management and Practice. London:

Kogan Page Ltd.

18. P. Block, The Empowered Manager, Jossy Boss.

19. Simon L. Albrecht, Handbook of Employee Engagement: Perspectives, Issues, Research and

Practice; Edward.

20. Stephen, P. Robbins – Organisational Behaviour: Concepts, controversies & applications.

London: Prentice Hall.

21. William H. Macey, Benjamin Schneide), Karen M. Barbera, Scott A. Young, Employee

Engagement: Tools for Analysis, Practice, and Competitive Advantage, Wiley-Blackwell.

UNIT-1

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND EMPOWERMENT

Employee engagement and empowerment have become popular buzzwords throughout the

business world, but what do they mean and how can they affect your company? This article will

try to clear the mud for you and maybe show you why those two terms can be very important to

your organization.

Employee empowerment

Employee empowerment is a term used to express the ways in which staff can make their own

decisions without consulting superiors.

These decisions may vary in effect depending on the level of empowerment your organization

wishes its employees to have. Employee empowerment usually begins with training, which can

transition an entire company toward an empowerment model where employees are trusted to

make responsible decisions that benefit the company as a whole. Or, it could merely mean giving

employees the ability to make some decisions on their own, but still putting parameters in place

to govern those decisions. With greater responsibility, employees feel appreciated and will work

for the greater good of your organization. By offering employees choice and participation on a

level that actually affects daily production, your employees are more a part of the company, and

view themselves as ambassadors and will work to justify your trust with enhanced performance.

Employee engagement

Employee engagement is the concept that when employees have choices, they will act in a way

that benefits their company's interests. An engaged employee is a person who is fully involved

in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work. Less than 30 percent of all employees actually feel

engaged in their jobs, according to a 2008 Employee Engagement Report. Highly engaged

employees believe they can positively affect the quality of their organization's products or

services. Those engaged employees work with passion and feel a strong connection to their

company.

Employee Engagement types

Employee Engagement refers to the emotional attachment an employee has with the

organization. An employee is said to be highly engaged, if he is fully absorbed or encouraged to

perform his task beyond what typically is expected in his job role.

An organization is a collection of individuals who come together and work towards the

realization of a common objective. Larger the number of people working together, larger is the

size of the organization and vice-versa. However, for an organization to flourish, it is important

for the employees to operate at their full potential, which unfortunately is not the case in most

of the organizations.

Employee engagement is not an exact science. At the core of employee engagement are

some values. These values determine the why, how and what of that company. Not all

employees in an organization utilize their full potential. There may be many reasons responsible

for the same. They may not associate with the goal of the company, they may have problem

with their team, the boss or the subordinate or it may be a general problem of attitude.

An organization is a collection of a large number of individuals striving towards the

accomplishment of a common objective. Ideally, every employee must work to their full

potential to further the organization’s reputation and interests, but however this is not the case

in most of the companies.

Based on the level of commitment, the employees can be classified into the following three

categories −

Actively Disengaged Employees

This is the first category of employees, who are unhappy and resentful and spreads unhappiness

in the organization. Such employees are bad for the organization since they are always

provoking and convincing the other employees to leave their jobs and move out of the

organization. However, these employees last longer in the firm and remove the prospective

employees whom they perceive will attain higher position or move to the next job level in the

near future. They do so, to get ahead in their jobs by removing the potential candidates.

Engaged Employees

The engaged employees are those who work with full passion and are emotionally attached to

the organization. They are innovative and provide new ideas to move the organization forward.

Such employees are optimistic and spread positivity among the co-workers. They personalize

the goals and objectives and always work for the betterment of the organization.

Not Engaged Employees

This is the category in which majority of the employees in the organization fall. These are the

ones who seek directions from their superior and do only that work which has been asked for.

Such employees do put in their time, but not passion and energy into their work. They like to

receive only one instruction at a time and lacks innovativeness. These employees can hold

either a negative or positive attitude towards the organization.

Thus, an employee can fall into either of these categories depending on his emotional

attachment to the firm. The emotional attachment refers to the strong emotional bond employee

shares with the organization.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT PROCESS

We can segregate the entire process of Employee Engagement into the following five categories

−

Prepare and Design

The first step in the process is about discovering the specific requirements of your organization

and deciding the priorities. After that, a customized design of carrying the whole process can be

designed. It is recommended to seek advice of an expert management consultant to increase the

chances of getting it done right at the first attempt.

Employee Engagement Survey

Design the questions of the employee engagement survey and deploy it with the help of an

appropriate media. It can be either in printed form or set online depending on the comfort level

of the employees and your questionnaire evaluation process.

Result Analysis

It is the most important step in the entire process. It is the time when reports are to be analyzed

to find out what exactly motivates employees to perform their best and what disengages and

compels them to leave the organization. The results and information can then be delivered

through presentations.

Action Planning

‘How to turn the results of the survey into an action’ is a challenging question that organizations

need to deal with utmost care. Coaching of line managers as well as HR professionals is very

important to tell them how to take appropriate actions to engage employees. They should also

be told about the do’s and don’ts, so that they can successfully implement the changes.

Action Follow-up

Action follow up is necessary in order to find out if the action has been taken in the right

direction or not and if it is producing the desired results.

Communication and project management processes are the backbone of the entire Employee

Engagement Process. Communication involves plan follow-up, providing timely information

and involvement of each level of organizational hierarchy.

PHASES OF AN EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT CYCLE where preparation is done much

before an employee joins the organization.

The Attract Phase

The first phase of the employee engagement cycle is attracting the best talent from the industry.

This phase involves creating a positive impression about the work culture and employee career

as a potential employer.

The Acquire Phase

The acquire phase involves more than one aspect. It includes −

The way these potential candidates are interacted while advertising a position.

Keeping the promises that were made while hiring them.

Providing the new joiners, a right kind of work culture.

The Advance Phase

Continuous moving of the talent is the last but an unending phase. It not only involves

promoting the employees to a higher designation along with salary increments, but also growing

them in other tangible and intangible ways.

As mentioned earlier, employee engagement is not only about attracting, acquiring, and

retaining the best talent but also advancing their experience and personality.

ELEMENTS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

The term Employee Engagement has been defined by various researchers. A commonly agreed

upon definition of employee engagement would be physical, psychological or emotional

involvement of the employee while at work.

Four things are important when we talk about Employee Engagement, which are −

Commitment

Motivation

Loyalty

Trust

All these elements play a vital role in determining the fate of an organization. Besides this,

twoway communication to discuss challenges, potential consequences, vision and values and

organization’s future should be established. In fact, communication is the backbone of any

organization without which it cannot survive for long.

Apart from this, organizational culture, a well-established and duly followed reward system

including compensation, benefits, stock exchange options and recognition and personal growth

and satisfaction of employees are also important factors in improving the levels of employee

engagement.

INSTALLING ENGAGEMENT AND EMPOWERMENT

There are several steps that will help to empower and engage your employees. The top five are

covered here.

1. Perception of job importance - If your employees feel that their jobs are important, they will feel

valued, and you will have employee loyalty.

2.

Clear expectations - Clear expectations, basic materials, and equipment must be provided or

negative emotions such as boredom may result. Employees will become more focused on getting

through the day than about how to help the organization succeed.

3.

Regular feedback from superiors - Feedback is the key to giving employees a sense of where

they're going. Many companies are lacking in this department. This feedback has to be positive as

well as constructively critical.

4.

Use a suggestion box - Allowing your employees a say in what is being done in the work place

will strengthen their pride in their job and let them feel as if they have an affect on the company's

operations.

5.

Effective communications - Employees want to know what is happening in the workplace.

Accepting that employees wish to feel involved in what they are doing is the first step in creating

a more productive work environment.

Employee engagement and empowerment represent powerful ways to enhance productivity and

profitability. Valued employees are happy employees; and happy employees are what drive

business success.

UNIT-2

THEORISING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND EMPOWERMENT

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his

1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” in Psychological Review. Maslowsubsequently

extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity.The Two Factors:

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivators

Frederick Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, also known as Motivation-Hygiene Theory or intrinsic

vs. extrinsic motivation, concludes that there are certain factors in the workplace that can cause

job satisfaction and a separate set of factors that can cause dissatisfaction. It is critical to

emphasize that this is not a linear relationship: the factors that cause satisfaction do not

necessarily negate those that cause dissatisfaction; one does not necessarily increase exactly as

the other decreases.

Extrinsic Motivators (Hygiene Factors)

Extrinsic motivators tend to represent more tangible, basic needs—i.e., the kinds of needs

identified in McClelland’s “existence” category of needs in his ERG Theory or in the lower

levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Extrinsic motivators include status, job security, salary,

and fringe benefits. Managers must realize that not providing the appropriate and expected

extrinsic motivators will sow dissatisfaction and unmotivated behavior among employees.

Intrinsic Motivators (Motivation Factors)

Intrinsic motivators tend to represent less tangible, more emotional needs—i.e., the kinds of

needs identified in McClelland’s “relatedness” and “growth” categories of needs in his ERG

Theory and in the higher levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Intrinsic motivators include

challenging work, recognition, relationships, and growth potential. Managers must recognize that

while these needs may be outside the more traditional scope of what the workplace should

provide, they are absolutely critical in empowering strong individual and team performance.

Expectancy theory is about the mental processes regarding choice, or choosing. It explains the

processes that an individual undergoes to make choices. In the study of organizational

behavior,expectancy theory is a motivation theory first proposed by Victor Vroom of the Yale

School of Management.

ERG motivation theory Alderfer. Clayton P. Alderfer'sERG theory from 1969 condenses

Maslow's five human needs into three categories: Existence, Relatedness and Growth. Include all

material and physiological desires (e.g., food, water, air, clothing, safety, physical love and

affection). Maslow's first two levels.

Sociotechnical systems (STS) in organizational development is an approach to complex

organizational work design that recognizes the interaction between people and technology in

workplaces. The term also refers to the interaction between society's complex infrastructures and

human behaviour.

The Job Characteristics Theory (JCT), developed by Hackman and Oldham, is widely used as

a framework to study how particular job characteristicsaffect job outcomes,

including job satisfaction. The five job characteristics are skill

variety, task variety,task significance, autonomy, and feedback.

The leader–member exchange (LMX) theory is a relationship-based approach to leadership that

focuses on the two-way (dyadic) relationship between leaders and followers. ... It suggests that

leaders select the best and make offers and members of team accept or not.

For Ouchi, Theory Z focused on increasing employee loyalty to the company by providing a job

for life with a strong focus on the well-being of the employee, both on and off the job. According

to Ouchi, Theory Z management tends to promote stable employment, high productivity, and

high employee morale and satisfaction.

Social Cognitive Theory

Social cognitive theory (SCT), used in psychology, education, and communication, holds that

portions of an individual's knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others

within the context ofsocial interactions, experiences, and outside media

influences.

UINT-3

EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT

Meaning:

Empowerment is the process of enabling or authorizing an individual to think, behave, and take

action, and control work and decision-making in autonomous ways.

Empowerment has become necessary due to the following reasons:

1. Time to respond has become much shorter.

2. First-line employees must make many decisions.

3. An employee feels much more control in their life since authority is given to individual

decision-making.

4. There is great untapped potential among employees, which can be revealed through

empowerment.

Definitions:

1. According to Richard Kathnelson, ’empowerment is the process coming to feel and behave as

if one is in power and to feel as if they owned the firm’.

2. According to Bowen and Lawler, ’employee empowerment refers to the management

strategies for sharing decision-making power’.

Employee empowerment can be done by:

1. Seeking opinions from the employees.

2. Facilitating the employees to try their ideas.

3. Encouraging for sharing of resources and information.

4. Improving the communication skills of the employees.

Importance of Employee Empowerment:

1. The investment in employees can improve productivity, which can reduce the costs.

2. Individual employees experience a feeling of self-esteem, self-efficacy and self-confidence.

3. Employee empowerment also helps in making employees more self-reliant.

4. It allows independent decision-making by the employees.

5. Empowerment of employees helps a firm to assign different projects to hone the competence

of employees.

6. More freedom given to employees can be utilized for taking judicious decisions.

7. Assigning proper authority can improve the organizational effectiveness.

8. Independent decision-making can improve self-confidence among the employees.

9. It can boost up the morale of the employees.

10. The overall efficiency of an organization can be multiplied due to empowerment of the

employees.

Empowered employees has over the years, increased a sense of ownership within the

organization.

Happier than most employees in their companies, the empowered personnel will become more

proactive and show the desire to embrace changes.

On the other hand it has a few disadvantages too. In this post, we are going to discuss with you

the meaning of employee empowerment, advantages and disadvantages of employee

empowerment .

Everything that you are hoping to find out about them has been enlisted below. So go ahead and

read the post to discover more.

DEFINITION OF EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT:

Employee empowerment has given several employees some degree of responsibility and

autonomy for making decisions related to specific tasks of the organization.

It will also allow the decisions to be made at much lower levels of the organization where the

employees look at issues in a unique way and don’t have problem while facing their organization

at some level after a point.

ADVANTAGES OF EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT:

Some of the benefits of employee empowerment include the following:

1. Boosts productivity and reduces costs:

An expert from an educational foundation once said that employees usually have great ideas

when it comes to boosting p1roductivity and reducing costs.

But companies have to know how they must ask for such ideas and pay attention to the

employees as well.

Often it will take an employee who is stepping outside their territory and show the benefits of

empowering employees.

Employees who are confident about their input and think it has been valued, will listen to it, act

upon and will be likely to share the ideas, benefiting the employer and the employee.

2. Having better service:

Another expert who has written several blogs once mentioned that empowered employees are

those who can provide exceptional services.

He is also experienced in this field and thinks that empower employees do have the power to

make such decisions without taking help from the supervisor.

They also have the right to go and do something else, bend those rules and do what they can see

and fit if they know that it is the correct thing to do for their customers.

Apart from any other feeling, the empowered employees will be able to create the feelings of a

true customer service which will yield customer loyalty.

Companies which give their employees the freedom to make such decisions may end up

becoming more successful in the near future.

3. Can embrace change:

Empowered employees are always free to change and challenge the status quo that is considered

quite critical for companies that are changing fast and are driven by environment and technology.

Companies and employees are feeling comfortable about questioning their status quo, these

companies will most probably stay stagnant since companies may swiftly get past them.

By establishing an environment where the employees are feeling free to question, offer and

challenge new ideas may avoid such a problem and help the employers and employees in the

same process.

4. Improves the quality of work:

When you empower your employees, you make them feel like they have been participating in the

organization and helping it grow.

They also want to know what they are contributing towards and if the success of the organization

is growing or not.

The employees are hence given the flexibility and the freedom to help make a change in their

working environment. They feel empowered and deliver work of very high quality.

Not just that, empowered employees also take a personal ride in their work and do take the

responsibility for doing a good and proper job.

As a result of this, the organization will reap such benefits of employees by delivering higher

quality services and products.

5. Collaboration:

Since employees have been treated and empower as essential components within the

organization, they gain a lot of self confidence as well as their abilities to influence the

organization.

They will be a lot more comfortable when it comes to changing and giving each other new ideas,

collaborating with other people and in a manner that is honest and open.

Their behaviour will also promote and boost team work and increase involvement to support

the company wide goals which cannot be achieved in any work force that is not connected to one

another.

Collaboration will allow the organization to achieve a lot more than any individual can achieve

on their own.

6. Communication is boosted:

Employees do not like feeling as if they are the last to get to know when any important changes

have been made inside the organization.

In order to combat that, managers should be willing to work on themselves and communicate

within the reaches of appropriateness, the staff and keeping them informed when it comes to

environment and jobs.

The management has to be receptive when it comes to input of employees and gives them a

better sense of control over strategic and financial decision.

Once the culture takes root, the employees will become more comfortable and share their ideas

with management and improve the morale of the workplace. In return, the employees shall

become more receptive to any positive coaching from their managers.

7. A turnover that is reduced:

It has been understood over the years that people will leave their bosses and not the company

they are working for.

The reason behind this are the managers who put emphasis and focus on the process and their

results. The trait will get you more than any stifles empowerment.

The employees should also not feel handcuffed when it comes to being afraid of making any

bold moves.

The more these employees feel about their actions and have a positive impact on the

organization, the more they will feel connected towards their employees. This will also begin

with management and serve as the voice and face of the organization.

The more free a manager is when it comes to giving important decisions and tasks, she will focus

much less on the operations and strategy that will have to work on business planning.

8. Clients are much happier:

When the clients have been given a lot of power, they feel very happy and satisfied with their

position. They become more enthusiastic and feel better. This happens to be a key area when

financial improvements have been realized from empowering their employees.

The clients always communicate with the attentive and friendly staff, regardless of their

enterprise!

And the empowered personnel will take a much more personal approach with their clients and

focus on creative and better ways to solve problems that appear much less tied to the policy of

the company.

In turn, the company will feel increased concern and improve retention and loyalty.

Resilience:

Finally we are going to talk about resilience in this post. The way your employees respond to

such changes is the best and key ways to maintaining morale.When you allow employees and

make important decisions, it will affect the company and the changes shall be much less likely to

be shown as uncaring edicts.If the culture of employee and loyalty has been established, even

when larger changes have been embraced and accepted, the staff must feel management in all

their levels.

Other points:

There are several businesses that find enough productivity in their work as well as overall

performance and believe that employees will help them achieve the organizational goal in the

near future. The employee empowerment activities will also have a positive and good impact on

the quality of work, the satisfaction of employees, its costs and its productivity.The organization

will also provide its employees with flexibility and freedom and will make a difference and a

much higher quality of work from their employees.Employees in every organization are focusing

on the rate of employment, levels of satisfaction and have often been quite satisfied with the

performance themselves.

DISADVANTAGES OF EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT:

Here are some disadvantages that come with employee empowerment:

1. Abusing power:

Most empowered employees tend to abuse their power when they have been given the power to

make decisions the way they want to.

But there is a slight chance and a huge possibility of these employees and them taking advantage

of the empowered for better and even more personal gain.

This also means that the employees may become less responsible for efficient based decisions

they have made.

For example, the employee may want to spend some time on non work related things such as

breaks and committee meetings.

2. Interpersonal relations:

With empowering employees comes the complexity of interpersonal relations. They could bring

conflicts and misunderstanding between employees and their managers.

In any organization or culture that we belong to, we have a rigid and high hierarchy where the

managers have a tough time while trying to accept a better culture of empowering employees.

These conflicts could result on any environment where the employees as well as management

cannot have proper working relations.

Even when empowerment could provide you with subordinate employees as well as job

satisfaction, it could deprive their managers at the same time.

3. Additional costs of training:

Empowering employees may need you to have a proper training program for educating

employees regarding assertiveness, leadership skills as well as group dynamics.

Even though the training is beneficial, the extra costs as well as time could be incurred by the

business in order to make it happen.

Additionally, the training program will guarantee that the employee empowerment process will

get you positive results.

4. Poor knowledge and understanding:

Even though the capacity to make decisions could be considered laudable, it comes with a few

negative points as well.

Employees will not have enough knowledge regarding various decisions of business which can

undermine the success of company and may cause more interrelation conflicts.

Having little knowledge could be due to lack of enough training or maybe because an employee

could be competent when a task has been assigned.

For example, when a team leader is in charge of such sales and feels the need to contribute

towards the IT department, will operate and make poor decisions at the same time. The team

leader will also have conflict with the department employees.

5. Arrogance:

When employees have been given enough power, their confidence level is highly increased.

Though it could be a great thing to be confident, the sad part is that too much confidence is not a

great thing either.

Confidence levels in this case are far too high up and they also cross the line into becoming

arrogant. People who are arrogant are quite difficult to handle and don’t take up the direction

properly which does become insubordinate in the future.

When you are working with such a kind of environment, it could take a toll on all employees and

once again become all dissatisfied with the productivity levels and job.

6. Risks of security and confidentiality1:

One way that all employees empower is that the employees end up sharing information that is

not supposed to be shared with others.

The exchange of ideas which are free and the information which makes the employees feel very

important and appreciated will end up helping and empowering them a lot too.

However there is a lot of information that has been exchanged freely with people through the

company and has a boosted and increased risk when it comes to security and confidentiality and

is leaked to all parties that usually don’t have any access to that kind of information.

HIGH-INVOLVEMENT ORGANIZATIONS

Challenging the structures and values of traditional organizations, locating the right mix of

power, information, rewards, and knowledge (also known as PIRK) at all levels, encouraging

employee commitment to the success of the organization, and utilizing an employee-centered

approach as opposed to a control-oriented approach to management

The concept of the high-involvement organization stems from the principles of employee

involvement. The creation of a high-involvement organization is the result of a change in the

entire design of the organization through implementation of employee involvement strategies.

Employee involvement was introduced as a new philosophy of organizational management at a

time when mass acceptance of the traditional bureaucratic style began to erode (Lawler, 1986).

Used interchangeably with the terms empowerment and participative management, employee

involvement has replaced the phrase equality of work life that originated in the 1950s. The goal

of employee involvement is to enhance organizational performance and worker well being

through increasing decision-making power at all levels of the organization. (Cummings &

Worley, 2001). Workers are involved in reaching business goals. This is based on the belief that

employees will take more pride and interest if they are allowed to make meaningful contributions

to their work and influence decisions made about it (Aubrey & Felkins, 1988).

The high-involvement organization is one of the major applications of the philosophy and

practices of employee involvement (Cummings & Worley, 2001). Some of the hallmarks of the

high-involvement model are as follows: challenging the structures and values of traditional

organizations, locating the right mix of power, information, rewards, and knowledge (also known

as PIRK) at all levels, encouraging employee commitment to the success of the organization, and

utilizing an employee-centered approach as opposed to a control-oriented approach to

management (Lawler, 1986; Lawler, 1991; Lawler, 1992).

Power, Information, Rewards and Knowledge

When employees are given the appropriate combination and amount of PIRK, which are the four

key elements that promote employee involvement, the organization is on the verge of creating a

high-involvement organization. The idea is to ensure that significant amounts of PIRK are

located at all levels of the organization, and is moved down through the ranks to the lowest level.

The farther these elements are moved downward throughout the organization, the greater the

employee involvement. When employees are given the power to make decisions about work that

impacts the organization, up to date information about the company in order to make effective

decisions, an opportunity to build upon existing skills and learn new skills, and rewards that that

are linked to performance outcomes, they are involved in their organization. This, according to

Lawler (1986,1992) will yield employees that care more about their workplace and that put more

effort into helping their business succeed.

Lawler, in work conducted primarily in the private sector, confirms the importance of power

for improving organizational performance, arguing that it is a necessary but insufficient

condition. Employees must have power -- especially in the areas of budget, personnel and work

processes -- to make decisions that influence organizational practices, policies and directions. In

Lawler's framework of high involvement management, there are three other organizational

resources that need to be decentralized in order for employees to have the capacity to create high

performance organizations:

Knowledge that enables employees to understand and contribute to organizational

performance. Knowledge includes both technical knowledge to do the job or provide the

service; business knowledge for managing the organization; and interpersonal, problem-

solving and decision skills for working together as a team.

Information about the performance of the organization. Such information includes data

related to production (revenues, costs, sales, profits, cost structure); customer satisfaction;

and benchmarks with other companies.

Rewards for high performance, including adjusting the compensation structure to be

aligned with the behaviors, outcomes, and capabilities required for high performance.

Employees may be paid on the basis of the knowledge and skills needed in the work

environment to get the job done. There also may be performance-based pay that is

allocated on a group or team basis and may include, for instance, profit sharing, gain

sharing or group-based salary bonuses (Mohrman, Lawler & Mohrman, 1992).

PREREQUISITE ORGANIZATIONAL CONDITIONS FOR THE EMPLOYEES’

EMPOWERMENT

Literature review has pointed towards the following factors which are considered

organizational conditions essential for employee empowerment.

Clear goals and vision: One of the underlying features of employee empowerment,

having clear and challenging goals facilitates the empowerment of individuals. Capable

people feel they have comprehended the senior management perspective and strategies

and can perform the assigned responsibilities independently. This, without waiting for the

orders and instructions of the senior management (Tabora, 2000).

Performance Evaluation: If you do not evaluate anything, there will not be any

improvement. The purpose of performance evaluation is not to confer reward or

punishment but to help individuals to do their work better. In an empowered

organization, the individuals should participate in the evaluation of the performance;

“that is, there should be a reciprocal evaluation between the employees and the

managers.” (Saadat, 2011 )

Organizational Structure: Organizational structure, research shows, is associated with the

employees’ empowerment. In the empowered organizations, organizational structure is

designed to enable the employees to achieve desirable results from their works and not

merely discharge their obligations and receive bonuses for that particular act (Abdollahi&

Nave Ebrahim, 2011). This, unlike the bureaucratic structures and authoritarian methods

of management, where dependency in the employees and rejection of their opinions is

encouraged.

Reward System: Rewards are considered as policies supporting development and

promotion of empowerment. “For empowering the employees in a proper reward system,

every individual's share should be determined. Although rewards may enhance the

performance of groups or organizations, most individuals do not have clear understanding

of their actions which may have influence on the high levels of performance.”(Saadat,

2011).

Engaging employees is a critical agenda for HR and supervisors. The cut-throat competitive War

for Talent is making it imperative to engage and retain the performers. However, employee

engagement is no longer merely about conversations and connects with a reactive approach.

Organizations are turning to technology to create predictive steps to measure engagement levels

and correct behaviors in a proactive fashion. Here are some of the key trends that are changing

the very face of employee engagement in 2019.

1. Engagement levels are slowly improving: The latest report (2016), the State of the

American Workplace report places engagement levels at 33%, a slight improvement over

30% in 2013. A lot of this is because human capital strategies are becoming more

advanced and employee-centric, as organizations realize that they must invest in the right

outcomes. All in all, engagement is and will continue to be a priority.

2. Performance Management Technology is critical: Technology is proving to be an

enabler for the new-age workplace which is always-on. One such driver of engagement is

the changing nature of performance management, both in concept and technological

deliverance. Real time feedback platforms are fast being adopted, giving employees an

expression of voice. Vendors are coming up with new platforms related to 360 degree

feedback, pulse surveys, and KRA and KPI tracking. The companies that incorporate new

technologies and systems to bring these concepts to life, will succeed.

3. Data-focus: Employee engagement measurement is no longer about mere direct

conversations or yearly surveys. HR is turning to the vast data sources- organizational

data, social data etc. to understand their people better. Technologies like sentiment

analytics are finding application beyond marketing, and in the HR arena. Predictive

analytics algorithms are being developed to aid this.

4. Delayering: Leaders are realizing that a truly powerful and effective organization is one

where the power is with every employee. Large organizational structures are giving way

to nimble, lattice-type structures. Hierarchy and bureaucracy are being replaced by agile

teams that are flexible and responsive in approach.

5. Cultural shift: Most importantly, organizations are placing importance of building a

great culture to foster high employee engagement. HR is building a culture of openness,

transparency and constant connectedness to enable and empower employees to be

productive and happy.

The efforts to propel employee engagement are a mix of technology and human touch. A Gallup

survey indicates that engaged teams show dramatically less employee turnover and absenteeism,

17% higher productivity, and 21% greater profitability. The onus of making these statistics a

reality lies on the leaders and also on every employee.

TRENDS IN EMPOWERMENT

At the core of all of the trends in organizational structure is employee empowerment. The

traditional hierarchical structure took away most of an employee’s power to make decisions. The

movement is to trust the employee’s ability and to give him or her the authority to make

decisions, even mistakes. The benefit to organizations can be greater productivity, innovation,

and customer service. The responsibility of the organization is to clearly lay out the roles and

responsibilities to decrease ambiguity.

A good example of empowerment is flexible work arrangements (FWAs). FWAs include

reduced workload (part time), compressed work weeks, and remote work (telework). The most

important aspect of a FWA policy is that the organization believes that the employees and their

managers know best as to how, when, and where to complete their work. Remote work is

prevalent throughout most industries and can range from working from home on certain days

when needed to fully remote workers with no corporate office. These arrangements will work

only if the organization values productivity over face time.

Social empowerment

Political empowerment

Economic empowerment

Legal empowerment

TRENDS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT- TINY pulse

Employee engagement may not be the best term for the pratice of creating happier and more

productive employees, but the goals just stated are still top of mind for the most ambitious and

growth-minded companies going in to 2019.

Here are the 7 trends that we’re most excited about, that we think will change the landscape for

how employers connect and relate to their employees in the next year. Wherever possible, we’ll

highlight examples of pioneers leading the way, and support with data from our own recent

research(TINYpulse)

A focus on employee career pathing

Our research shows that not having a clear career path is one of the major culture drivers for why

your workforce may be unhappy. Increasingly, companies are recognizing that employees who

don’t have a sense that they can grow at an organization are likely to leave.

Going in to 2019, we’re certain that we’ll be seeing more companies that want keep their

employees around put their money where their mouth is, and invest in employee career

development. This is especially true for companies with a remote workforce. In fact, our

recent State of Remote Work found that of employees who work primarily out of the office, one

of the biggest complaints they have is minimal conversation around their career development.

If you’re someone who manages others, make sure you’ve thought about a trajectory for each of

your employees. Have you connected recently to talk about their career goals? Are you

facilitating reaching those goals so that your team can grow and develop their own core

competencies? If you’re not, prepare for those high performers to go find someone who will.

Engaging and hiring older employees

Unemployment is low, and especially for companies that require highly skilled individual

contributors, it can be hard to find the right fit for the job—even with millennials flooding in to

the workplace. It turns out, reengaging older workers who are non-participants in the job market

can even be up to 25% cheaper than poaching an employee from a similar company.

Older workers bring a unique value to any organization that they join. With many more years of

expertise and a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, seasoned employees also

act as mentors and role models for the younger more junior members of the team.

Especially since lifespans are getting longer and retirement ages are getting older, it’s important

to speak to the increasing number of people who want to keep contributing and coming in to the

office after 65. The trend to work later into life is only going to continue to grow as our

healthcare access and quality increases, its going to be more necessary than ever as birth rates

continue to decline.

Work-life balance becomes more than a dream

You may be asking yourself why work-life balance is on this list—it’s not a new concept, and

most organizations have some policies in place trying to support the practice (whether or not

they get used). But that’s exactly the point—spending money on amenities like ping pong or an

in-office keg to make work feel more like life is a practice that we’ll be seeing less of in 2019.

Instead of initiatives that try to bring fun into the workplace, we see an increase in the hiring

successes of companies that facilitate and incentivize work life balance. More and more,

employees are asking for the flexibility to work remotely, so that they can find the right balance

for their lives. And a whole demographic of people is headed into consulting or freelancing so

that they can be in control of their own time prioritization. Especially in the place of retirement.

If you’re hoping to snag these high performing employees who have the skills to self-regulate

and meet deadlines, then you’re going to need to offer them the flexibility to actually attain work

life balance. If you’re not supporting those behaviors, your employees might find themselves

much happier being self-employed.

Unlimited Paid-Time-Off

In that vein, it’s quite possible that unlimited pto becomes the standard in 2019. Where work life

balance is an old mantra with tons of research to back it up, unlimited pto is a young

experiment—but with tons of success coming for those who have tried it. Currently, less than

2% of companies in the US offer unlimited PTO, despite numerous benefits.

For one, companies that have unlimited pto programs generally only see that their employees

take one more day off a year than they would have otherwise. And not tracking pto means

companies save tons in paying out unused vacation time, and administrative hours.

Perhaps the best perk of having an unlimited pto policy, it means that it’s a quick task to identify

the people who are highly accountable and contributing at work, and those who are unengaged—

they’re going to take advantage and are perhaps even a long-term drain on the company.

It’s a policy we have here at TINYpulse that has instilled a culture of trust in the office, and

gives us time to recharge after weeks of working down to the wire.

Engagement becomes social, instead of hierarchical

Perhaps one of the biggest arguments for why term employee engagement is so terrible, is that it

focuses on the wrong things at every level. Employees are people, and focus on how to “engage”

them means that your attention is on their productivity and commitment, when it should be

focused on their experience.

As Aaron Hurst brilliantly asks us: “You are on your deathbed (many years from now, don’t

worry). You reflect back on your life and your career. Your conclusion? “I was engaged.” No

way.”

And it’s true, being engaging focuses on the wrong things—instead employees want to know that

they make an impact, and have meaningful relationships. And that means at work too. As this

Inc.com article explains, most of the key factors related to how successful and happy your

employees are fall into the category of their “social” experiences at work.

The best way to move the needle on this is to connect with your coworkers first and foremost as

people. What are their aspirations? Their challenges? Build the lasting relationships that will

make your team feel supported and cared for. They are more likely to support and care for your

organization in return.

More tools and functionalities to support employee success

All of these things culminate to one similar idea: “Are you giving employees the tools they need

to succeed?” If you’ve offered them the flexibility to work from home, or take time off when

needed, and you’ve got a career path for them to follow, are you making sure they have the

resources to be successful in their goals?

From your individual contributors in the tech field, to nurses and doctors, to hog farmers (yes

really!), every employee is going to have different needs to being successful. Often times that

might be more mentoring, or more specific direction with their goals. Or it could mean

identifying if there is specific software, or hardware, or tool that might make their jobs easier.

For instance, remote workers have stated difficulties with staying looped in at the office,

especially for all the in-person meetings that they have to video conference into. A Meeting

Owlvideo conferencing camera might make it easier to facilitate not only communication, but a

sense of belonging to the team, since even visually it gives you a seat at the table. Making life

easier for remote workers is important, since our research shows that companies that support

remote workers experience 25% less voluntary turnover.

It’s a good practice to occasionally check in with your team and ask: “is there anything you need

to be successful?” You may have ideas of how to help, but ultimately, an employee will know

what they need best, especially if they’re hitting roadblocks in their work.

The death of the annual survey, officially

Having a social engagement strategy means being more communicative with employees, and

inviting conversation about the concerns or suggestions that they have. In that vein, annual

surveys, which have been on the decline for years, are really the last lingering relic of a time

where feedback was barely solicited and almost never acted on.

If we want to be employers who are committed to collecting continuous, ongoing feedback, and

acting on it, then moving past the annual survey into something more real-time and iterative will

facilitate that.

At TINYpulse, we’ve done extensive research on the perfect questions, frequency, and length for

employee surveys to be successful at not only engaging employees, but also increasing a culture

of communication and community in the office.

The added benefits of something like rolling pulse surveys rather than one big annual survey

include: decreased admin costs to distribute and process the survey, real-time analysis (rather

than after months of synthesis), and a better understanding of your change-over-time.

And, be sure to read our other blog content: we've got a ton of insight on the best practices for

responding to feedback and creating solution-based conversations with your employees.

It’s exciting to see wide-spread change in the way that employers are thinking about increasing

engagement in the office. Generally, the focus is shifting towards meeting people where they are,

and providing them with the tools to be successful, rather than with token benefits that might

focus on making them happier.

If you’re going in to 2019 with a renewed effort to trust your employees, communicate with

them, and support them, chances are you’re on the right track!