Empowerment of Employees

Description of Empowerment of Employees. Explanation.

Definition Empowerment of Employees. Description.

Empowerment of employees is the process of distributing power, decision-making responsibilities, discretion and/or resources to subordinates, employees or workers.

Nowadays, knowledge-based enterprises are characterized by a flat hierarchical structures and a multi-skilled workforce.

Managers assume leadership and coaching tasks and provide employees (knowledge workers) with the resources and working conditions they need to accomplish the goals they've agreed to. In brief, managers work for their staff, and not the reverse. Empowerment is the oil that lubricates this process.

Empowerment can contribute to the performance of organizations in a number of ways:

1. Motivate (knowledge) workers to work harder.

2. Improve the level or competences of employees.

3. Decrease the need for indirect staff (when direct staff takes on certain responsibilities previously performed by indirect staff).

Compare also: Bottom-up Approach  |  Centralization and Decentralization  |  Leadership Continuum  |  Leadership Styles  |  Hawthorne Effect  |  Employee Attitude Survey  |  Self-Directed Team

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End of description Empowerment of Employees. An explanation.