Employee empowerment is a strategy that small business managers can deploy to add value to the business. This strategy is aimed at cultivating the power and ability of employees in their jobs. A business is a business by people working in it though they differ in many ways their contribution to the success of the organization is very important. However, these people are not often recognized as value contributors in the success of the business and for this reason they do not intend to add value to the business and they become demotivated to do their jobs properly. People are the business storehouse of knowledge and they are central to the organization's competitive advantage. Well educated, coached, and highly motivated people are critical to the development and execution of strategies, especially in today's fast-paced market, where top management can no longer assure the business competitiveness in isolation. In the business world, almost all businesses are doing the same, small businesses should strive to do things differently, and the only way that they can achieve that uniqueness is through instilling frankness and liberty to employees so that they act as if the business also belongs to them. The reason behind this success is the strategy the business is using to get into the heart of its customers, and this strategy is “employee empowerment”. People are the business's most underutilized resource; involvement in an organization is no longer a one-way road. In today's corporate environment a manager must work towards engaging the organization forcefully enough to achieve its objectives. New knowledge-based enterprises are characterized by flat hierarchical structures and a multi-skilled workforce. Managers assume more leadership and coaching tasks and work hard to provide employees with resources and working conditions they need to accomplish the goals they have agreed to. In brief, managers work for their staff, and not the reverse and this makes employees feel valued. Small business owners should tap into a new dimension of utilizing employee empowerment strategies in their businesses as these are proficient and are not costly. This paper investigates employee empowerment strategies that can be used by small, medium and micro enterprises (SMME's). An important reason for this investigation is that small businesses have incompetent skilled labour force due to the fact that they operate under a limited budget from which it would be difficult to get skilled workers who will demand higher salaries, as a result they need to put their energies rather on equipping and educating their employees through empowerment, which could at the end make them feel valued and part of the business. It is imperative to firstly assess the current situation of small business commitment to employee empowerment strategies; to what extent do they use employee empowerment strategies in their businesses In terms of the empirical study it was determined that small businesses were not aware of the concept of employee empowerment, but are in actual fact practicing employee empowerment strategies that have been theoretically revealed, according to the researcher’s observation, they were not aware of the impact of employee empowerment in the organization and that they can be implemented into the business. Therefore, by introducing the concept of employee empowerment and the strategies that can be used in small businesses, SMME's can enhance their services to customers, increase productivity and contribute to the welfare of employees to add value to the individual, the business and the country.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:9344 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Pandle, Nolubabalo Leeanne |
| Contributors | Kemp, N D |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MTech |
| Format | x, 104 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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