Employee Empowerment and Productivity: Issues of Trust

Much of the literature written concerning the problems with empowering the workforce concentrates on issues of trust. Issues of trust can arise on either the management or the employee side of the relationship. Managers can be hesitant to lose the control that they have earned in the workplace, while employees can lose their sense of security by being forced to make decisions they feel they aren’t prepared or authorized to make. Additionally employees may feel they aren’t being compensated to make certain decisions and if employees feel that the commitment of management isn’t genuine, they will often feel less empowered. Management attempting to empower their workers in an unplanned or hesitant manner, where managers aren’t fully committed to the empowerment process, can cause misgivings and actually lead to a loss in productivity rather than the anticipated gain. The following literature survey, as outlined in Sekaran, (2003, pp. 65-69), will concentrate on these issues of trust from both the management and the employee side.
Ford and Fottler, (1995), described five different levels of employee empowerment in an organization as a five stage process ranging from those employees with “no discretion”, those with no decision making power, through “task setting”, “participatory empowerment” and “mission defining employees” to “self-management” employees, those who are given control over the content and the context of their positions. They also distinguish between “job content”, the tasks and procedures of a particular job, and “job context”, the reason an organization needs the work performed, maintaining that “content” is easier to confer upon workers and “context” takes training. The authors suggest that employee empowerment is not
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appropriate for all positions or all employees within a firm, and when it is appropriate empowerment should be awarded incrementally to employees by competent managers, “after both employees and managers become comfortable with empowerment in job content, increasing levels of empowerment in job context could be added by increasing the level of decision-making authority”, (p. 26). The authors that managers need to assess their corporate culture, including their employees and themselves, and question whether they are willing to give up their authority and do they trust their employees enough to empower them.
In 2000, Stainer & Stainer posture that empowerment can form a sound basis for employee satisfaction, total quality management, and increased personal and organizational productivity”, (p. 288). The authors caution that empowerment must be managed in an “ethical climate”, that allows employees to reach their full potential. Stainer & Stainer write that empowerment must be a planned process and that empowerment that is not a controlled process “may lead to high risks” (p. 289). In their work the authors remark on the importance of trust in the workplace as well, stating that “in order to successfully empower, managers must have confidence in their subordinates”, (p.289). The authors maintain that empowerment can be perceived as a device to manipulate employees into performing increased workloads in an unethical organization and that some employees are going to be resistant to empowerment for this reason. Stainer & Stainer conclude their paper maintaining that empowerment must not be used as a gimmick in the workplace, but that an actual shift in corporate governance must occur for empowerment to be ethical.
Boggs, Carr, Fletcher, and Clarke, (2005), caution that it is “illogical to encourage supervisor to embrace empowerment by disempowering themselves”, (p. 621). They describe a group of employees they call “broken-promise group members” as those that “felt like they took part in decision making less than they had expected” (p. 622). They conclude by stating that overpromising and under delivering on empowerment can have a negative effect on members and may decrease participation and productivity, and indication that trust had been broken. They suggest that rather than deliver “broken promises”, it is better for managers to promise less empowerment.
Miscikowski & Stein, (2006), distinguish between “operational data”, which is concrete and captured in operational analysis and “operational knowledge”, which is abstract, not captured by analytical tools. (p. 44). They describe employees as reluctant to embrace empowerment as a result of a lack of an organizations operational knowledge, preferring to defer operational decisions to managers. The authors write that empowerment requires subordinates to “step outside of their traditional roles and make quality decisions previously made by managers”, (p. 45), and that this is a barrier to empowerment. Miscikowski and Stein state that tools and
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training are needed so that employees can access operational knowledge, and even these may still not be enough due to lapses in knowledge resulting from their unfamiliarity with organizational knowledge.
In his 2009 article Richard Pech also expounds upon the importance organizational trust in managers who empower employees. Pech states that managers “fear greater employee involvement in decision making will reduce the power of and need for many of those well-earned management positions, (p. 28). While managers may be willing to divest some minor elements of control, they can be defensive and invariably hold onto control by enforcing strict terms over employee involvement. The behavior of these defensive managers can be destructive on organizations and productivity by eroding their employees trust. Managers inevitably have control in an organization; employees who want more control and wish promised empowerment and are thwarted become disengaged and unproductive. Pech goes on to state that in this scenario, employees who disengage are doing so as a biological stress response and this can result in stress related health issues, (p. 28). In this respect, employees disengage defensively in order to protect themselves. Pech elaborates through case study that “tightly controlled employees feel vulnerable and threatened, and will adopt a self-protective stance by disengaging from the organization”, (p. 29).
The above articles illustrate the importance of trust for both managers and subordinates in maintaining or increasing productivity in an organization. Although employee empowerment can be a powerful tool in increasing productivity by giving employees more control, if empowerment is not instituted carefully in a graduated process, then it can lead to a loss of the productivity it seeks to gain. Additionally there may in fact be instances, specifically dependent upon an employee’s position, where subordinate empowerment, or decision making, is inappropriate. Alternatively, if management is defensive about relinquishing control, or if they fail to trust suitable employees adequately to allow them to self-manage, again trust can be lost and productivity will suffer. Both managers and their employees can develop issues resulting from mistrust of each other and the organization by poorly implemented empowerment programs. Although there are many risks, these studies conclusively support employee empowerment initiatives and indicate that it is up to educated and well trained management to decide how and when to implement these programs in order for an organization to reap the potential rewards.

References:

Boggs, Leanne, Carr Stuart C., Fletcher, Richard B. & Clarke, David C. (2005), Pseudoparticipation in communication networks: the social psychology of broken promises. The Journal of Social Psychology, 145(5), 621-624. Retrieved from Business Source Premier database.

Ford, Robert C. & Fottler, Myron D. (1995), Empowerment: a matter of degree. Academy of Management Executive, 9(3), 21-29. Retrieved from Business Source Premier database.

Miscikowski, Douglas K. & Stein, Eric W. (2006), Empowering employees to pull the quality trigger. Quality Progress, 39(10), 43-48. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global database.

Pech, Richard, J. (2009), Delegating and devolving power: a case study of engaged employees. Journal of Business Strategy, 30(1), 27-31. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global database.

Sekaran, Uma. (2003). Research Methods for Business: A Skill Building Approach (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons.

Stainer, Alan & Stainer, Lorice. (2000), Empowerment and strategic change: an ethical perspective. Strategic Change, 9(5), 287-296. Retrieved from Business Source Premier database.