1. Total Quality Management Bus 432
Ali albdour (Ph.D)
Text Book:
Quality Management for Organizational Excellence: Introduction to Total Quality, by Goatish, D. and Davis, S., Published by Prentice Hall, 6th edition. (2010).

2. Employee Empowerment
Chapter 8: page 160

3. Employee Empowerment Defined
Employee involvement and empowerment are closely related concept, but they are not the same. In total quality setting, employee should be empowered:
There are important differences between involvement and empowerment. Involved employees are asked to their input, but they are not given ownership of their jobs.
Empowered employees are given ownership of processes they are responsible for the products or services generated by those processes.
Empowered employees- employees with ownership-take pride in their work and the resulting products or services produced by it.

4. Employee Empowerment Defined
Ownership creates a sense of urgency to continually improve processes and services and to strive for customer delight because my “signature "is on the work.
An empowered employee will care as much of even more about the quality of the work than the supervisor of the CEO.

5. How Employee Empowerment is achieved?
Motivated employee who feel a strong of ownership-employee who are physically, intellectually, and emotionally in their work.
Management must provide an open, nonthreatening, creative environment that encourages employee involvement; expect employee to think; recognizes employee value; and rewards employee ownership of processes, products and services.
Facilitating empowerment is an important responsibility of management in a total quality environment.

6. Management tool or culture change
The management strategies developed over the years to improve, quality, cost, service, and response time would make along list. Is empowerment just another of these management tools?.
Employee who have been around long to see several management innovations come and go may be reluctant to accept empowerment if they see it as just another short-lived management strategy
Successful implementation of empowerment requires change in corporate culture- a major new direction in how managers think and work. The division of labor between mangers and workers changes with empowerment

7. Rationale of empowerment
The rational for empowerment is that is represent the best way to bring creativity and initiative of the best employees to bear on improving the company’s competitiveness
Human beings are not robots and automats. While working, they observe, think, sense and ponder. It is natural for a person to continually ask questions as the following:
Why is it done this way?
How could it be done better?
Will the customer want the product like this?
Asking such questions is an important step in making improvement. As employees as questions, they also generate ideas for solutions, particularly when given the opportunity to regularly discuss their ideas In a group setting that is positive, supportive and mutually nurturing

8. Empowerment and motivation
One of the most motivating action a manger can take is to ask the opinions of employees.
Empowerment is sometime seen by experienced mangers as just another name of participatory management.
There is an important distinction between the two:
participatory management: is about getting employees to help themselves, each other, and the company.
This is why empowerment can be so effective in helping maintain a high level of motivation a among employees. Is help employees develop a sense of ownership of their jobs and of the company. This in turn, leads to greater willingness on the part of employees to make decisions, take this risk in an effort to make improvement, and a speak out when they disagree.

9. Resistance from Employee and Unions
Resistance to change is natural. Even positive change can be uncomfortable for employees because it involve new and unfamiliar territory. However, when recognized for what they are, skepticism and inertia can be overcome.
Unions can be another source of resistance when implementing empowerment. Because of the traditional adversarial relationship between organized labor and management. Unions resist an idea not originated by their own organization. However, union’s greatest concern is likely to be how empowerment will affect their future. If union leaders think it will diminish the need for their organization, they will throw up roadblocks.

10. Resistance from management
Even the employee and unions support empowerment, it will not work unless management make a full and wholehearted commitment to.
Some of reasons behind management resistance to empowerment are as following:
Insecurity
Personal value
Ego
Management training
Personality characteristics of managers
Exclusion of managers
See pages

11. Management’s role in empowerment
Management’s role in empowerment can be stated simply. It is do everything necessary to ensure successful implementation and ongoing application of the concept.
The manager’s role in empowerment consists demonstration the following types of support behaviors”
Exhibiting a supportive attitude
Being a role model
Being a mentor
Being a trainer
Being a facilitator
Practicing management by walking around
Taking quick action on recommendations
Recognizing the accomplishment of employee

12. Implementing empowerment
Steps in implanting empowerment
1- create a supportive environment
2- target and overcome inhibitors
3- Putting the vehicles in place
4- assess, adjust and improve

13. Put the vehicles in place
A number of different types of vehicles van be used to collecting input from empowered employees and getting in into decision-making channels.
Brainstorming
Normal groups technique
Quality circles
Suggestion boxes
Walking and talking
See pags

14. How to recognize empowered employees
Talking initiative
Identifying opportunities thinking critically
Building consensus
See page 171

15. Avoiding empowerment traps
Organization should avoid falling into following traps
1- defining power as discretion and self-reliance
2- failing to properly define empowerment for manger and supervisors
3- assuming employees have the skills to be empowered
4-Getting impatient
See page 172