How to empower employees: using training to enhance work units’ collective empowerment

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine, theoretically and empirically, whether an employee training program can enhance the collective perception of empowerment of work units within an organization. The authors hypothesized that training participation relates to empowerment by enhancing the potency, meaningfulness, impact, and autonomy of the employees. Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected data at two time points, before and after the training intervention. Over the two periods, the sample consisted of an average of 2,383 employees nested in 36 work units of a large multinational company. Findings -The results indicated a positive relationship between training participation and increased levels of collective psychological empowerment, with differential effects on the dimensions of empowerment. Practical implications -This study provides evidence of the positive relationship between training and empowerment, suggesting training effects across levels of analysis. The results indicated dimensions of empowerment that are more and such that are less prone to training. Such knowledge may help to inform organizations in developing training strategies. The authors provide recommendations for a respective training program. Originality/value -This is one of the first studies to investigate the relationship between training participation of individual employees and shared empowerment perceptions within their work units, adding an important antecedent to the research on empowerment. In addition, the authors propose ways of how individual employees can affect shared perceptions among work-unit members. The study offers insights into the development of empowered work units, the vertical transfer of training across levels of analysis and implications for training programs. Manpower, 2015, 36, 3, 354 -373 Purpose -The purpose of this study was to examine, theoretically and empirically, whether an employee training program can enhance the collective perception of empowerment of work units within an organization. We hypothesized that training participation relates to empowerment by enhancing the potency, meaningfulness, impact, and autonomy of the employees.

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“…An extensive training of newly established TTO staff via relevant workshops and short courses to ensure efficient functioning of the office as stated by participants in this study is partially supported by various studies [36][37][38][39]. These studies demonstrated the effectiveness of staff empowerment at work place via relevant workshops or courses.…”

The relationship between empowerment and effectiveness of staff (case study: national bank staff in Guilan province)

“…2016, 8(2S), 1272-1286 1274 criteria (Wright, 2007 by Vogtlin et al in 2015 tilted as "how can we empower staff", they followed this hypothesis that training participation related to empowerment is correlated with increased power, effort, and independence of staff. The results showed a positive relationship between training participation and raising the psycho-social empowerment with different effects of empowerment dimensions (Voegtlin et al, 2015). Appropriate behavioral models of employees and directors create a strong incentive for staff.…”

A Study on Employee’s Motivation towards Employee Performance in Private University, Selangor, Malaysia

“…Also increases of satisfaction with work. Besides, he says that training consequences on productivity of the worker are included also by excess of expectations, cross training of the personnel, training of employees for promotion, preservation of safe working environment and reduction of mistakes (Voegtlin, Boehm, & Bruch, 2015).…”