If you work in a business organization, you would have certainly heard your bosses discuss the term employee empowerment and also wonder in hushed tones if this would have an impact on the bottom line of the company. Unfortunately, just like your seniors, many others believe that employee empowerment is a goal or at best a tool that is to be used to increase growth and profits of a company. The truth is, employee empowerment is an entirely new leadership and management philosophy, one that successful businesses have been employing for years now. This philosophy is about how people with the right kind of experience and knowledge can be made to contribute to the continuous enhancement and success of their organization.

Most smart businesses and smart managers have realized the value of this principle for some time now and have tried to involve their employees in all aspects of planning and execution. This way not only does the employee feel more involved with the company but also feels more committed and loyal to the organization. In fact, slowly, an environment, in which people choose to work in different areas, contribute ideas and stay motivated, can develop.

There is no specific way in which this principle is to be implemented and depending on what employees and their managers feel comfortable with, one can try various methods. For example, if there is a decision that needs to be taken, in the new employee empowered environment, the manager may act in the following ways-
* The manager may take sole responsibility about the decision and inform the staff about it. This kind of approach is best taken when there are regulatory matters to be decided like implementing government rules and regulations, decisions regarding safety issues and generally any issue that does not require any specific input from the employees.
* Some decisions on the other hand, need to be made primarily by the manager but requires sufficient employee commitment for it to be successfully implemented.
* In the third case, the manager meets with all employees who have a stake in the matter, invites input from them about what decision to make and why but the final authority rests with the manager. These situations can always be a little tricky since the employees may be under the impression that they are being asked for their input only because they are to be involved in the final decision making as well. Coming to know that they are to play no role in the decision-making may leave them dissatisfied. Before meeting with the employees, the manager should make it clear to them that the authority of making the final decision rests only with the manager.
* Last but not the least, there will be situations where the employee will not only be required to provide an input but also have to make a decision along with the manager. Ideally, by then everyone would have arrived at some sort of consensus about what the decision should be.