FREE ESSAY ON EMPOWERED EMPLOYEES

EMPOWERED EMPLOYEES

Empowered Employees a New Team Concept
By Mary Hellinghausen and Jim Myers
One of today's biggest buzzwords is Teams. Most companies are leaning toward a team
concept. One way to enforce teams is by empowering employees. Many companies striving to
edge their competition are turning to the empowered employee teams initiative.
Most businesses want to achieve total customer satisfaction by anticipating and solving a
problem before it occurs. Thus a new kind of team has emerged with the goal of insuring
customer satisfaction from the start. Empowered teams are built with empowered people
whom have the authority and autonomy to make significant changes within the organization.
Instead of one individual making decisions, the group or team makes decisions
collectively with the middle manager position eliminated or acting as the coach. The use
of these empowered teams is to solve problems, lower costs, increase quality, and
ultimately improve customer satisfaction.
Throwing people together does not always mean they should be called a team. They must
first be made up of the right people who understand and can define a task. The strength
of the team depends on proper training, timing, and communication. The idea to change the
cooperate culture must have full support from senior management. Before a team is
created, the project to be completed must be defined, identify how much of empowerment is
needed, and recruit the best people to work on the problem.
The article mentions companies like McGraw-Hill, Motorola, and General Electric are
examples of companies who empowered teams. McGraw-Hill, for example; defines a team
composed of a staff member, designer, grammarian, production line personnel, and editor
who serves as the team facilitator. Recruiting the right people insuring they represent
the cross-section of disciplines required is very important. One person missing out of
this formula can ruin a team.
Motorola, a 1998 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Winner, has developed a culture
of high standards. They conquered initiatives such as Six Sigma, Designing for
Manufacturability, and Cycle Time Reduction. They are living proof that empowered people
from the lowest position to highest position changes an organization dramatically. Six
Sigma is a measure of quality performance on defects. It equates to 3.4 defects per 1
million opportunities. Empowered teams were a crucial element of the initiative success.
General Electric Aircraft Engine Division (GEAE) brought in a team of Motorola
facilitator's to help them setup empowered teams for their supplier improvement program.
The 300 million-dollar investment is starting to deliver 600 million to 700 million
dollars in savings. The teams covered all aspects from manufacturing, engineering, to
outsourcing. GEAE's end result was improved products, service, and most importantly
customer satisfaction.
Within every team, a cross-functioning method must be used for the team to be successful.
If one of the team members is hard to get along with, they still can be beneficial to the
team. Everyone's input is important, the output of the team is greater than any
individual's output. A strong facilitator is also needed on the team. The facilitator
guides rather than leads. Usually middle management, this person is set equal to the
other members of the team. The facilitator must recognize and understand each member's
participation, as well as, coordinate the reporting progress.
In order for team to be successful, senior management must be committed to recognize the
team should be put in charge. This is done only when senior management defines a specific
goal for the team to strive for. Too much management can kill a team. The team might
spend more time on reporting the progress than the task that needs to be completed.
Middle management is the biggest obstacle for teams. To be successful, middle management
must surrender its power and let the team empower themselves. Setting time limits are
also important to the team success. Never let a team go beyond six months, everyday
should be treated as an important day.
Training is also important for team to succeed. According to Eric Sakurai, a trained team
member of GEAE mentions: GEAE is requiring higher-quality products from its suppliers and
is willing to help them reach Six Sigma quality by providing the necessary training.
Everyone in the organization including all suppliers must work together to improve
customer satisfaction.
Team rewards can be based on either individual performance or the team as a whole. This
doesn't always mean monetary rewards; it could be peer recognition or even dinner with
senior management.
Implementing a team takes time and a lot of effort, but the benefits are immeasurable.
Results from empowered teams show the following:
? dramatic results occur with committed and creative teamwork
? employees become more confident and motivated through the team process
? a stronger company is produced
By empowering teams, companies can keep one step ahead of the competition while producing
products to suit their customers' needs (Hellinghausen, Myers 21-3).
What drew my attention to this article is that I'm a firm believer of empowering
employees and setting up teams. For an organization to be successful, everyone should be
involved--from shop personnel to upper management. Teams should not be unbalanced and,
from my own past experience, management has not understood this team concept called
empowerment. I agree with the article when stating that too much management can ruin a
team. Management seems to be more concerned about measurement reports rather than
completing the task. Not only does this ruin the teams' morale but also wastes valuable
time. Middle management must understand that teams are not for them to lead but rather to
coach. In organizations that I have work for, this seems to be a problem. A lot of times
these teams are nullified due to loss of concentration and a breakdown of communication.
The end result always stands true organizations must strive to satisfy the customer. To
achieve this, empowering employees in teams is a good solution.
Resources
Hellinghausen, Mary and Jim Myers, Empowered Employees a New Team Concept . Industrial
Management. Sept-Oct, 1998: p. 21-23.