Employee Empowerment the Key to Improving Performance

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Employee Empowerment the Key to Improving
Performance Promoting Innovation Stephen Wood

• The Future of Manufacturing in Ireland
  Conference the Role of Partnership
• Royal Hospital Kilmainham, 28 June 2007

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Progressive Productive workplaces(Bertie
Ahern TD, 2006)

• Profitable, effective, adaptive and proactive
  firms
• Innovative culture, and a capable, engaged and
  motivated workforce
• High job satisfaction and employee well-being

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Nine types of Performance
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Nine types of Performance
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Key Actions

• Empowerment
• Genuine Teamworking
• Training and Development
• Managing Role Expectations
• Visions and Leadership which connects with
  peoples identities
• Operational management methods with clear
  guidelines that foster role clarity

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The IWP 22-year Study Research Evidence

• Centred on the 7 most popular practices in our
  earlier studies
• Compares effects of people-oriented practices
  with operational practices
• Data on when practices are introduced
• Matched with 22 years of data on value added per
  employee
• 308 UK manufacturing companies
• Respondents were mainly CEOs and HRM Directors
• Each respondent given definition of practice and
  asked if introduced and, if so, in which year
• Focus on gain in productivity from introduction

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The IWP 22-year studyThe Practices

• HR practices
• Empowerment
• Intensive employee development
• Teamworking
• Lean methods
• Total quality management
• Just-in-time
• Supply-chain partnering
• Integrated computer-based technology

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The IWP 22-year Study
Individual practice productivity effects
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TQM
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The IWP 22-year studyThe Results

• Empowerment is the only practice that has
  significant effects on performance in all
  companies 7 greater levels of performance in
  companies that empower employees
• Intensive training has a significant effect in
  some but not all firms
• Team work has a synergistic relationship with
  other practices.
• The operational (lean) management practices had
  some impact when used in a teamworking
  environment
• Human resource practices that have most impact
  are ones that are the least used, though their
  use is growing

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UK National Study High Involvement Management
Performance

• Enriched jobs have most significant impact on
  labour productivity across the economy
• Teamworking, functional flexibility, training and
  development for employee involvement, and idea
  capturing impacts on productivity but only in
  combination with TQM
• High Involvement Management and unionism not
  antithetical

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HRM in UK Call Centres

• Task discretion is -ly associated with labour
  turnover
• Task discretion ly associated with
  suggestion-making customer satisfaction
• Performance monitoring is ly related to customer
  satisfaction absence (bad effect)

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Global Call Centre study 17 country study

• Task discretion is universally -ly associated
  with labour turnover and labour costs
• Performance monitoring is -ly associated with
  call abandonment rates
• Performance monitoring ly associated with labour
  turnover

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Why Empowerment is Crucial

• Without autonomy, there is no proactivity
• Empowerment develops broader horizons
• Empowerment maximises on-the-job learning
• Empowerment inspires confidence and high
  self-esteem
• Empowerment increases well-being

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How to Achieve Empowerment Proactivity

• Job design
• Manage expectations and encourage idea generation
• Team responsibilities and reward systems
• Creativity training and tools
• Staff development reviews performance
  monitoring focussed on the right things
• Create a positive non-blame climate
• Survey feedback method updated so it is focussed
  on behaviours and orientations and not
  satisfaction

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Definitions of the management practices used in
the IWP study

• Human resources practices
• Empowerment Passing considerable
  responsibility for operational management to
  individuals or teams (rather than keeping all
  decision-making at the managerial level)
• Extensive training Providing a range of
  development opportunities for all employees
  (rather than training people occasionally to meet
  specific job needs)
• Team-based working Placing employees into
  teams with their own responsibilities and giving
  them the freedom to allocate work between team
  members (rather than having everyone work as
  individuals)

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Definitions of the management practices used in
the IWP study

• Operational practices
• Total quality management Seeking continuous
  change to improve quality and making all staff
  responsible for the quality of their work. (Such
  practices include Kaizen and Continuous
  Improvement)
• Just-in-time production Making products or
  providing services in direct response to internal
  or external customer demands (rather than
  building in advance to maintain stock levels)
• Advanced manufacturing technology Linking
  together computerized equipment to enable
  enhanced integration (such as CADCAM,
  Computer-Integrated Manufacturing and Flexible
  Manufacturing Systems)
• Supply-chain partnering Developing strategic
  alliances and long-term relationships with
  suppliers and customers (rather than negotiating
  on a short-term basis)