The Case for a Three Dimensional Employee Empowerment Model Part II

The Inherent Problem with the Traditional Two Dimensional Empowerment Approaches

Through the two dimensions of empowerment climate and time, increased employer empowerment efforts do cause employee work units to begin to behave in a more empowered manner and achieve higher levels of performance,  but far from an optimal level.  

In the Seibert, Silver and Randolph study, empowerment climate only explained 22 percent of the variance in work-unit performance; consequently, these organizations do not empower a high percentage of their employees.

Based on our experience, here’s how the two dimensional approach plays out over time.

As depicted above, once a change catalyst initiates the employer-driven empowerment climate change process; there are four types of employee adoption profiles that influence if and when, the change will be fully implemented and institutionalized.  

The employer facilitates an empowerment climate by changing structures, policies, procedures and practices, with hopes of creating a non-threatening environment that signals to their employees that behaving in an empowered manner is encouraged and desired.  

As a result of the employer’s actions, employees will generally assume one of the four adoption profiles, described by Hersey and Blanchard as ‘a follower’s ability and motivation’.

1.    Organization employees that are ‘early adopters’ i.e., those employees that want to change and can change, quickly began to behave in a more empowered manner.  They have the knowledge, skills and abilities to emulate the desired behavior and prefer to behave in an empowered manner.  They are also comfortable with leading change and migrating away from the majority culture.

2.    Employees that can change but don’t want to change, must be convinced that the new empowerment climate is real and here to stay, before they are motivated to modify their behavior, but will eventually adopt an empowered behavior.

3.    Employees that believe they cannot change but want to change, require training and other support to develop the knowledge, skills and abilities to behave in a more empowered manner;

However, without employee self-efficacy, employees will not internalize the training because they don’t truly believe they can change; consequently, they will not be motivated to change.  The two dimensional approach often does not provide enough support to fully modify this group’s behavior.

4.    Employees that believe they cannot change and do not want to change also require training and other support to develop the knowledge, skills and abilities to behave in a more empowered manner.  Those employees must also improve self-efficacy in order to embrace and internalize the training.  

Additionally, enough employees in the organization must adopt the empowerment behavior in order to create enough peer pressure to force this last group to adopt empowerment behaviors, or be out of step with the new empowerment culture.   The two dimensional approach does not provide enough of this support or enough employee adoption to fully modify this group’s behavior.

A graphic portrayal of the maximized, traditional, two dimensional model is depicted below.  The green area represents the percent of the organization’s employees that have adopted the new employee empowerment behaviors.  

This area is defined by an empowerment climate dimension on the vertical axis (y) and the time dimension on the horizontal axis (x); however, this area is only a small percentage of the total organization’s workforce represented by the area of the entire cube.

For example, if the cube represented a work force of 50,000 employees, only a relatively small percentage, 25% or so, would behave in an empowered manner as a result of only their employer creating an empowerment climate;

Consequently, the cube is not saturated with the color green which represents the organization’s percentage of employees that have adopted the new employee empowerment behaviors.  

Traditionally, management practices have centered on managing human resources issues utilizing four different functions; company management, human resources, unions and the ombudsperson.  

In a perfect world, any of these functions can provide the employees in our respective workforces the knowledge, skills and abilities to motivate behavioral change.  In reality, each of these functions has struggled to determine the most effective and efficient way to support the workforce.  

Additionally, they have loss much of the moral authority needed to inspire and motivate employees.   More and more, those leading initiatives have ulterior motives that may, or may not, align with the best interest of the employee.  WorldCom, Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, Global Crossing, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, etc., are recent reminders of how far some executive management teams and their “friendly” Boards are willing to go to achieve personal and business objectives that are not in the long-term interest of the organization and employees.

Consequently, it should come as no surprise that many HR professionals, union members and ombudspersons have fallen victim to this trend.

For this and other reasons, employee self-efficacy behaviors should be valued and nurtured in organizations as an important element of any employee development initiative.  As employees, we need to assume more responsibility and accountability for our work-life and recognize our ability to significantly influence our work experience through increased self-efficacy.

As employee self-efficacy relates to employee empowerment, employees should not solely rely on their employers to initiate employee empowerment practices; they should choose to behave in a manner that encourages their employer to remove obstacles to employee empowerment.  The fact is, many employers don’t, or aren’t effective when they try to empower employees.  

It is within each employee’s control to master behaviors that empower themselves.  These employee behaviors will result in an increased number of empowered employees, but a self-efficacy approach by itself, generally will not achieve the same level of employee empowerment as an employer-driven approach, or a combination of the two.  

What is the Three Dimensional Empowerment Model?

The three dimensional empowerment model recognizes the power of employee self-efficacy; what Seibert, Silver and Randolph called psychological empowerment, as a stand-alone strategy or as a supplement to the ‘employer climate’ approach.  

For any empowerment initiative, the three dimensional employee empowerment model demonstrates the optimal effect over time, of combining the employer-driven ‘empowerment climate’ and psychological empowerment, which includes self-efficacy.

A graphic representation of the three dimensional empowerment model is depicted below.  In this model, the green area representing the percentage of the organization’s employees that have adopted the new employee empowerment behaviors is much larger than the green area of the traditional two dimensional model.  

This is because the area is now defined by an empowerment climate dimension on the vertical ‘y’ axis, an employee self-efficacy (psychological empowerment) dimension on the ‘z’ axis, and the time dimension on the horizontal ‘x’ axis.  

By including a self-efficacy dimension, we are exponentially increasing the effect of the empowerment climate because it effectively mobilizes the previously mentioned ‘can’t change but want to change’ and ‘can’t change and don’t want to change’ employee groups. When these groups’ needs are addressed, the percentage of the organization’s employees that will adopt the new employee empowerment behaviors is a much larger portion of the organization’s overall workforce, as represented by the area of the entire cube.

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