Empower Your Employees and Gain Increased Productivity, Morale

April 19, 2011
Workers who feel empowered by their employers are more productive and have higher morale, regardless of their industry, a new study suggests.

“Empowerment is an effective approach for improving employee attitudes and work behaviors in a broad range of industries, occupations and geographic regions,” said lead researcher Scott Seibert, professor of management and organizations in University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business.

According to Seibert, the study results indicate that properly implemented empowerment initiatives can lead to higher job satisfaction, lower turnover and reduced stress among workers. Empowered employees also are more innovative and perform better at their jobs.

Seibert and coauthors examined more than 140 previous studies on psychological empowerment in the workplace published since 1995 that involved thousands of workers. They found that the studies sometimes tend to exaggerate the value – or lack thereof – of empowerment. Some claim it will revitalize an organization with “lightning-like” speed, while others dismissed it as a “chimera” and point to high failure rates at organizations that tried it.

Even so, Seibert said the previous studies identify certain organizational characteristics and leader behaviors, as well as employee traits, that can to lead to successful empowerment initiatives.

An effective empowerment initiative should have include:

· High performance practices: Managers share information, decentralize authority, involve workers in decision-making, provide training opportunities and pay well. Seibert said high performance management makes workers feel a strong part of their organization and that they matter to the company’s success.
· Socio-political support: Managers make their employees feel like a valued part of the organization and encourage employees to recognize each other’s importance.
· Leadership: A manager who inspires, provides strong feedback and is a good role model enhances workers’ feelings of competence and helps employees find meaning in their work.
· Work design characteristics: Managers encourage training and provide individual workers with challenging work assignments.

“Managers in these studies reported that empowered workers were more innovative and more willing to take the initiative to solve problems on their own,” Seibert said. “Employees said they were more engaged in their work when empowered, that they felt like they had an influence and an impact on the business around them.”

These work improvements apply to improved team performance as well as individual performance, and that they tended to be strongest in the service sector, Seibert added.

The study also revealed the following information about work force empowerment:

· Men and women generally have similar reactions to empowerment.
· While empowerment has an impact across national borders and different cultures, its impact seems to be greater in Asia than in North America, perhaps because empowerment is more effective in collectivist cultures or that work arrangements in Asian businesses are more conducive to empowerment initiatives.
· Employees who have positive self-evaluation characteristics are more likely to feel empowered, and people who feel more empowered to begin with will react more strongly to empowerment initiatives.

The study will be published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Sponsored Recommendations

3 Essential Elements for a Strong Safety Culture

March 13, 2024
Organizations globally have increased their attention on safety culture: trying to figure out what it really is and the aspects that are necessary to develop and sustain it. And...

Making the Case for Occupational Health Software

March 13, 2024
Deciding to invest in Occupational Health (OH) software can be a challenging leap for many organizations. This article will equip businesses with insightful strategies for effectively...

Fighting the Flu: Solutions for the Workplace

March 13, 2024
Seasonal flu continues to wreak considerable havoc both on individual wellness, as well as on our business continuity and productivity. Explore these solutions for protecting ...

Preventing SIFs with Digitization: Reduce Serious Injuries and Fatalities with Technology

March 13, 2024
This eBook discusses the origins of SIF prevention, outlines principles, models and tools available to EHS leaders to better detect and address SIF potential in their business...

Voice your opinion!

To join the conversation, and become an exclusive member of EHS Today, create an account today!