The process in which employees gain control over the factors that affects their performance in autonomous ways is called empowerment. Empowerment gives the employees a sense of power and boosts up their self-confidence. There are 5 ways to empower employees. First of all, employees are provided with required training, coaching and guidance to acquire mastery over their jobs. Secondly, employees are allowed some discretionary power over their performance and take accountability for the results. Thirdly, they are made to follow their peers who have been successful on the job. Fourthly, they are showered with encouragement and verbal appreciation to gain self-confidence and finally they are helped through an honest and caring approach of task assistance and role definition to release off their tension and anxiety. Empowerment makes the employees feel competent and valued in the organization and as a result their performance as well as their satisfaction level goes up. Participation process refers to the type of management in which employees are made to participate in organizational goals and problem solving through a number of applications and programs that augment their feeling of empowerment and these programs include training in empowerment process, suggestion programs, total quality management program, self-managing teams and employee ownership of a firm. In autocratic management, managers employ tactics of manipulation over the employees who feel weakened by the arbitrariness of those in authority whereas in participative management employees get to share their ideas and activities in a team environment. Studies have shown that participative programs are beneficial for both the organization and employees who feel satisfied with their job and managers.
A job satisfaction survey is a very effective way of providing the employees with an opportunity to give feedback and report their feelings about the job and work environment. Any corrective action taken on the basis of their feedback make them feel assured of their opinions having value in the organization. The job satisfaction survey results are very important for the managers to develop strategies to deal with the unhappy employees and better the work environment. In view of the significance of survey results, it is important to frame the survey questions carefully. Usually two types of questions are used - closed-end and open-end. Open-end questions permit employees respond to the questions in any way they want. The unstructured approach makes employees share their inmost thoughts and feelings and their personal opinion sends a powerful message to the management especially if unanimously employees point towards a particular problem. In contrast to open-end questions, closed-end questions make employees respond from a predetermined list of responses. Five basic type of closed-end questionnaire includes categorical, multiple choice, numerical, ordinal and likert-scale. Closed-end questions are easier for the employees to give response to and easier for the management to analyze statistically. Apart from survey results, there are other ways of getting to know the feelings of employees such as exit interviews, waste and scrap reports, medical and training records and direct behavioral indication like grievances and absenteeism.
Informal leadership refers to leadership that emerges from within the group. Informal leader is not an authoritative figure; rather he is an employee whose reputation and experience makes him a person worth listening to. Informal leaders manage and influence the members of the informal group and help the formal leaders in their objectives. Informal leadership often gives rise to the concept of groupthink in which everyone is led by idea of following the majority of opinions. Since an informal leader usually has good control over majority of the members within the group, groupthink is in line with the opinion of the group leader. The dominant members within the group with their authority and confidence disregard the views of others and weaken the group product. When a group begins to act as if it is infallible and above the law and that no matter what it has total support for the course of action it pursues, the groupthink takes birth leading to deterioration in group decisions and judgment. In order to deal with the problem of group think, a team building process should be adopted. In this process, all the team members express their grievances about the group with the assistance of a skilled facilitator. Once the problem is identified on the basis of the data provided by the team members, relevant data regarding the problem are collected from individual groups through interviews and surveys and their feedback is then analyzed. Actions plans are developed to solve the problem and members are encouraged to examine and monitor their own actions. Through this team process a group assesses and makes effort to improve its effectiveness.
Changing organization culture is a three-phase process - unfreezing, changing and refreezing. Unfreezing involves getting rid of old ideas and practices to help new ideas assimilated into the system. Changing is the process which involves adopting new methods, ideas and technologies. Often employees while learning new things face disorientation and confusion and hence managers need to ensure through refreezing approach to make the employees use the new technologies rather than reverting to the old ones. Apart from the difficulty in implementing the three-phase process of change, changing organizational culture involves other challenges too. All the changes made involve some costs. Introduction of new technology alone is not sufficient as employees need to be trained on how to use the technology and sometimes the challenge goes beyond economic factor becoming a matter of social and psychological inhibition. Therefore, a proper cost benefit analysis is mandatory before implementing changes. Furthermore, employees may show resistance to accept the change and often this resistance is emotionally driven as employees begin to develop insecurity and low self-esteem over the changes. In order for the changes to become successful, a proper strategy of management tools, leadership tools and if required power tool of coercion and punishment have to be implemented.
Work Cited
Survey Questions, Super Survey Knowledge Base, Retrieved on 10th June 2013 from <http://knowledge-base.supersurvey.com/survey-questions.htm>
Cherry, Kendra. What Is Groupthink?, Retrieved on 10th June 2013 from <http://psychology.about.com/od/gindex/g/groupthink.htm>
