A job change that entails no major changes in responsibility or authority levels is a ______.

Quality Glossary Definition: Employee empowerment

Employee empowerment is defined as the ways in which organizations provide their employees with a certain degree of autonomy and control in their day-to-day activities. This can include having a voice in process improvement, helping to create and manage new systems and tactics, and running smaller departments with less oversight from higher-level management.

A key principle of employee empowerment is providing employees the means for making important decisions and helping ensure those decisions are correct. When deployed properly, this should result in heightened productivity and a better quality of employee work and work life.

How Does Employee Empowerment Work?

Employee empowerment varies based on an organization's culture and work design. However, empowerment is based on the concepts of job enlargement and job enrichment. Job enlargement differs from job enrichment in that job enlargement is horizontal expansion and job enrichment is considered vertical.

• Job enlargement: Changing the scope of the job to include a greater portion of the horizontal process.
  • Example: A bank teller not only handles deposits and disbursement, but also distributes traveler's checks and sells certificates of deposit.
• Job enrichment: Increasing the depth of the job to include responsibilities that have traditionally been carried out at higher levels of the organization.
  • Example: The teller also has the authority to help a client fill out a loan application, and to determine whether or not to approve the loan.

As these examples show, employee empowerment requires:

• Training in the skills necessary to carry out the additional responsibilities
• Access to information on which decisions can be made
• Initiative and confidence on the part of the employee to take on greater responsibility

Employee empowerment also means giving up some of the power traditionally held by management, which means managers also must take on new roles, knowledge, and responsibilities. However, this does not mean that management relinquishes all authority, delegates all decision-making, and allows operations to run without accountability. It requires a significant investment of time and effort, especially from management, to develop mutual trust, assess and add to individuals' capabilities, and develop clear agreements about roles, responsibilities, risk taking, and boundaries.

What Does an Empowered Organizational Structure Look Like?

Employee empowerment often also calls for restructuring the organization to reduce levels of the hierarchy or to provide a more customer- and process-focused organization.

Employee empowerment is often viewed as an inverted triangle of organizational power. In the traditional view, management is at the top while customers are on the bottom; in an empowered environment, customers are at the top while management is in a support role at the bottom.

Employee Empowerment resources

Driving Higher Workplace Performance: Using Analytics, Dashboard Metrics, and Soft Skills to Improve Results When assigned the task of improving warehouse performance for a Western Canadian industrial distribution center, a lean Six Sigma Black Belt discovered the differences between "human" and "automated" business processes.

Get Staff Involved in Quality Initiatives (Quality Progress) By challenging employees to solve quality problems, a company saved more than $3.5 million the first year.

If You Give Your Employees a Voice, Do You Listen? (Journal for Quality and Participation) Making it easy for your employees to share their feedback is the first step. Being willing to respond quickly to their input builds commitment.

Empowerment in Total Quality: Designing and Implementing Effective Employee Decision-Making Strategies (Quality Management Journal) This paper provides a conceptual definition of empowerment and offers an implementation strategy for total quality management managers.

Adapted from The Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Handbook, ASQ Quality Press.

Human Resource Management

Activities that mangers engage in to attract and retain employees and to ensure that they perform at a high level and contribute to the accomplishment of organizational goals.
Processes and systems that we engage in to attract employees to ensure they perform at a high level.

Strategic Human Resource Mgmt

the process by which managers design the components of a HRM system to be consistent with each other, with other elements of organizational architecture, and with the organization's strategy and goals.
Management designs the supporting structure within the reporting area so that it supports our strategic agenda. EX: hiring someone and laying off another at the same time.

Overview of the Components of HRM:

-- Recruitment and Selection -- Training and Development -- Performance appraisal and feedback -- Pay and Benefits -- Labor Relations

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)

- equal right of all citizens to the opportunity to obtain employment regardless of their gender, age, race, country of origin, religion, or disabilities.
- equal employment opportunity commission (EEOC) enforces employment laws.
Key Areas that HR Management oversees is EEO.

Challenge for Managers regarding Legalities of HRM

- eliminating sexual harassment - dealing with employees who have substance abuse problems - managing HIV+ employees and employees with AIDS.

Major Equal Employment Opportunity Laws Affecting HRM

- Equal Pay Act - Title VII of the Civil Rights Act - Age Discrimination - Pregnancy Act - Americans with Disabilities Act - Civil Rights Act - Family and Medical Leave Act

all the activities that managers engage in to develop a pool of candidates for open positions. 

process by which managers use to determine the relative qualifications of job applicants and their potential for performing well in a particular job.
Before Recruitment & Selection - Managers should focus on Human Resource Planning and Job Analysis

What determines Recruitment and Selection needs?

Human Resource Planning and Job Analysis

all activities managers engage in to forecast their current and future human resource needs.
As part of human resource planning, managers must make demand forecasts and supply forecasts.
Demand - Amt of people we need. Supply - availability of current employees.

to use outside suppliers and manufacturer to produce goods and services.
Managers contract with people who are not members of the org.
Two Reasons that Lead to Managers Outsourcing: - Flexibility and Cost

Identifying the tasks, duties, and responsibilities that make up a job and the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to perform the job. -- has to be done for each job in the org.

Observing what current workers do
Having workers and managers fill out questionnaires.

Looking outside the organization for people who have not worked at the firm previously.
Newspaper, open houses, on-campus, referrals, etc

Managers turn to existing employees to fill open positions. 

job changes that entail no major ranges in responsibility or authority levels or promotions. 

Advantages of Internal Recruitment

- Internal applicants are already familiar with the organization - Managers already know candidates - Can help boost levels of employee motivation and morale.

Managers find out whether each applicant is qualified for the position and likely to be a good performer. 

6 Tools to Help with Selection

- Background Information - References - Interview - Performance Tests - Physical Ability Tests - Paper & Pencil Tests

Teaching organizational members how to perform current jobs and helping them to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to be effective performers 

Building the knowledge and skills of organizational members to enable them to take on new responsibilities and challenges.
Tends to be used more with professional and managers.

Before creating training and development programs, managers should perform a NEEDS ASSESSMENT - to determine which employees need training or development. 

assessment of which employees need training or development and what type of skills or knowledge they need to acquire.

Classroom Instruction On the Job Training Apprenticeships

Classroom Instruction On-the-Job Training Varied Work Experiences Formal Education

- evaluation of employee's job performance and contributors to their organization.   -- Trait Appraisals   -- Behavior Appraisals   -- Results Appraisals
Subjective - attempt to get a quality - faculty here at the university are expected to publish research. rather than quantity, focus on quality.

process through which managers share performance appraisal information with employees, give employees an opportunity to reflect on their own performance, and develop, with employees, plans for the future. 

an appraisal that is based on facts and is likely to be numerical. EX: # of cars sold,

an appraisal that is based on perceptions of traits, behaviors, or results.
Quality.

Types of Performance Appraisal - Trait Appraisals

managers assess subordinates on personal characteristics that are relevant to job performance, such as skills, abilities, or personality. subjective

Performance Appraisal - Behavior Appraisal

managers look at how workers perform their jobs - actual actions and behaviors that works exhibit.
Subjective

Performance Appraisal - Results Appraisals 

what the employees accomplish more so than how they did.
Subjective

Performance Appraisal - If Done Well it Can:

- help employees improve their performance, pay, and chances for promotion - foster communication between managers and employees - increase employee and organizational effectiveness

Performance Appraisal - if done poorly then:

- cause resentment - reduce motivation - diminish performance - possibly expose the organization to legal action

What Can Performance Appraisal do for YOU?

performance measurement clarifying motivation through agreeing helpful aims and targets motivation through achievement training needs identification of person strengths career and succession planning team role clarification organizational training needs assessment appraise and manager resolving confusions and misunderstandings

An appraisal conducted at a set time during the year and based on performance dimensions that were specified in advance. 

An unscheduled appraisal of ongoing progress and areas for improvement. 

Who Appraises Performance?

- Supervisors - Peers - Subordinates - Self - Customers or Clients

After the Performance Appraisal. - Share performance appraisal info with subordinates - Give subordinates an opportunity to reflect - Develop plans for the future
manager puts you in a category.

Guidelines for Giving Effective Performance Feedback

- be specific and focus on outcomes that are correctable - approach appraisal as an exercise in problem solving - express confidence in a subordinate ability to improve - provide performance feedback both formally and informally - praise instances of high performance - avoid personal criticisms - agree to a timetable for performance improvements

includes employee's base salaries, pay raises, and bonuses. - determined by characteristics of the organization and the job and levels of performance.

Based on Membership in an organization
Include sick days, vacation days, and medical and life insurance
Benefits is a form of compensation

the relative position of an organization's incentives in comparison with those of other firms in the same industry employing similar kinds of workers. 

The arrangement of jobs into categories based on their relative importance to the organization and its goals, level of skills, and other characteristics. 

Factors Affecting the Wage Mix

Internal Factors - compensation policy; worth of job; employee's relative worth; employer's ability to pay.
External Factors: conditions of the labor market; area wage rates; cost of living; collective bargaining; legal requirements

Legally required - social security, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance
Voluntary - health insurance, retirement, day care
Cafeteria-style benefits plans: A plan from which employees can choose the benefits they want
Everything else other than legally required is up to the employer.

Is a job change that entails no major changes in responsibility or authority levels?

What are two types of recruitment?

What is the process that managers use to determine the relative qualifications of job applicants and their potential for performing well in a particular job?

Is the process that managers use to determine the relative qualifications of job applicants and their potential for performing well in a particular job quizlet?