An Overview of Employee Empowerment

Abstract

Empowerment has been in the forefront of quality improvement efforts. Presented will be an overview of employee empowerment, the enlargement of employee jobs giving them the responsibility and "authority to make decisions about their work without supervisory approval" while still creating value for the customer(Boone & Kurtz 1998). The do's and don'ts of this two-edged sword will be evaluated. Many companies have faltered by not supporting empowerment with an appropriate facilitating infrastructure. A discussion will focus on these caveats. Finally, some successful and unsuccessful implementations of employee empowerment and their outcomes will be presented.