Pros and Cons of Empowering Workers

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the pros and cons of pursuing an empowerment strategy within an organization. The paper first outlines how an empowerment strategy is implemented and then takes a look at both the positive and negative aspects of such a strategy. The paper also presents examples of successful empowerment strategies.

Outline:
Summary
Empowerment Pros and Cons
Examples of Successful Empowerment Strategies

From the Paper:

"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."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Aguirre, Calderone, Jones (2004) -10 Principles of Change Management. Resilience Report, Booz, Allen Hamilton. New York, NY. Accessed from the Internet on June 17, 2007: http://www.strategy-business.com/resilience/rr00006?pg=all
• CRMBuyer.com (2007) - The Revolution Your Customers Want. CRMBuyer.com. Louis Columbus. May 18, 2007. Accessed from the Internet on June 16, 2007 from location: http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/57444.html
• Four Seasons (2006) - Employee Empowerment Contributes To The Customer Service Experience. August 17, 2006. Glenn Ross. Accessed from the Internet on June 16, 2007 from location: http://www.allbusiness.com/sales/customer-service/3876268-1.html
• Gore (1990) - World Class Courtesy: A Best Practices Report. Al Gore, Vice President of the United States. Accessed from the Internet on June 16, 2007 from location: http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/papers/benchmrk/courtesy/book.pdf
• Kappelman, L. and Prybutok, V. (1995), Empowerment, motivation, training, and TQM program implementation success, Industrial Management, May/June, pp. 12-15.

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