31 Employee Empowerment
Dr. Puja Waalia Mann
1.0 Introduction
Consider yourself to be a manager at a luxury Hotel. You have a customer in the late night hours who has booked a room online. The payment was made using a credit card and the room confirmation was made online. However, due to some technical glitch, the booked room was shown as vacant on your Hotel software and the room was lent out to a new walk-in customer a few hours ago for a duration of two days. On confronting the customer you are able to understand the whole situation. However, at this hour of night you are not able to seek your senior’s advice on how to deal with the situation. What should be you reaction in managing the situation? For an experienced manager such a service situation would have been already prepared for and he would have already instructed the staff to be trained to manage such glitches. But for service organizations who plan every part of service delivery extremely carefully, it may be difficult to foresee any overbooking. Often the service personnel confronting the customer is expected to use his wisdom in taking a final decision. Most of the times to avoid any customer grievance caused due to inconvenience, the service personnel would offer him a premium room, as compared to the one which was booked by the customer at the same price to please the customer. If the service personnel is trained to react in this way, it is a foresighted service management, if it was a decision taken by the service personnel, it will be known as employee empowerment
1.1 Learning Objectives
In this module, you will learn:
a) Meaning of Employee empowerment
b) Approaches to Employee empowerment
c) Advantages of Employee empowerment
d) Disadvantages of Employee empowerment
1.2 Key Words:
Employee empowerment, service personnel empowerment
1.3 Introduction to Employee Empowerment
Employees of a service organization are the only face between the marketer and the customer till the time the service delivery is completed. It is the employees who facilitate the interface between the organization and the market. Service organizations spend huge amounts in creating a Brand by consistently striving to create and sustain a strategic advantage in the highly competitive market. But eventually it is the delivery of ‘satisfaction’ from the employee to the customer that builds or kills the Service Brands. In addition, the customers are also increasingly taking a center stage in the creation and delivery of services to define the performance standards. Thus it is significant to understand the role played by the employees and the customers in the Service delivery.
Employee empowerment is a systematic process of giving a certain degree of freedom or autonomy to the service personnel for taking certain decisions regarding specific urgent service delivery situations. This is a formal process of letting the employees down the line take decisions is certain situations while confronting the customers. This method of sharing some power with the employees for taking some decisions which need a quick solution to the customer’s complaints is known as Employee Empowerment. This way of decentralizing the decision making power at the lower levels of the service organization facilitates a quick judgment of the customer problems and are in a better position to gauge the damage a delayed decision may cause for the goodwill of the service organization.
Fig 1.1 Conger and Kanugo’s Stages of Employee empowerment
In most of the service marketing encounters, the delivery personnel would be the only interface between the Customer and the organization and hence these employees make a significant contribution in the development of the organizational competitive advantage. It rests upon the Service delivery employees to ensure that the interaction between them and the customer is consistent with the desired positioning of the Service encounter as conceived by the top management to make the building of the competitive edge exercise successful. Front end executives are considered as the most important asset for any service organization and hence the most capable in achieving and sustaining the competitive advantage. Therefore, it is all the more a reason to ensure that they are given certain authority in taking decisions related to service delivery to enable smooth service sale.
1.4 Need for Employee empowerment
An empowered Human Resource (HR) would also be instrumental in influencing the Service quality. In Service industry it is extremely important to understand the needs and wants of the customers to be able to service them with the suitable offering. There are five dimensions of Service Quality according to Wilson et al (2008) viz Reliability, Responsiveness, Empathy, Assurance and Tangibles. An empowered HR has to understand these dimensions and deliver the same during the service encounter by carefully understanding the needs and wants of the consumers. The quality of service delivery by the HR will have a direct impact on the overall service delivery and Quality perception of the organization. If the Service staff is not trained or is not in sufficient numbers to handle the customers, it is likely that the service delivery would be not upto the desired level of consumer satisfaction. Let us take an example of a Restaurant. A consumer would generally come to the restaurant to be served courteously the desired meals. If the service staff is not trained to be customer –centric in his approach or is not trained to be sensitive to the needs and expectations of the customers, he may end up dissatisfying the customers despite the fact that the food quality may be good. The overall service level of the customer lowers if the service staff is not encouraged to be customer – conscious or service minded.
Fig 1.2 Levels of Employee Empowerment
Further, it is pertinent for the service delivery employees to be viewed as playing an important role in creating customer values through their interactions. Therefore it is important for the organization to empower these employees while presenting a service, reinforcing a Brand image and ensuring customer satisfaction by coming up to the expectations of the customers at each encounter. The interaction of the frontline employees with the customers will have the lasting impression regarding the reputation of the organization and the perception of the quality of services provided. If the front line executive of an Insurance organization presents the different types of policies to the target customer but is not empowered to offer few customized solutions, however, insignificant they may be, it is very likely that the customer will not buy policy from this organization, despite the fact the company has a very appropriate plan meeting the target customer’s needs. Hence if the frontline employees are empowered to address the needs and expectations of the customers, the customer carries a positive impression about the organization resulting in developing its positive image and reputation.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. “Employee empowerment in Service Marketing is useful to accomplish organizational goals.” Do you
agree? Why/ Why not?
2. Define employee empowerment, with the help of an example.
3. As a consumer, what benefits can you get if a service firm empowers its employees? Describe with the help of an example.
4. Explain the significance of Employee empowerment in services marketing.
1.5 Theoretical approaches to Employee empowerment
Employee empowerment is a process of making the service personnel the power to take decisions relating to customer buying situations demanding urgent reaction. There are broadly speaking three theoretical approaches to the topic of employee empowerment
a) Socio- Structural perspective
The first approach to understanding the employee empowerment is the socio structural approach which focuses on designing or redesigning the organizational structure, policies and practices with the aim of providing power and authority to the employees which influences the way of working of the employees.
b) Psychological perspective
The second approach is the model that lays emphasis on improving the effectiveness of personal interaction with eth service customers by developing their level of self confidence, skill and competency along with the understanding of the consumer buying behavior of the services.
c) The Critical perspective
The third and the last approach to employee empowerment is a challenge to the idea that employees should be deliberately given some power. Rather, it contends that the employees should be allowed a free hand in customizing their service interactions and obviously there should be less controls.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
5. Write a short note on:
a) Socio- structural approach to employee empowerment
b) Psychological approach to employee empowerment
c) The Critical approach to employee empowerment
6. What do you understand by theoretical approaches to employee empowerment? Why is a study of these approaches useful to a service manager?
1.6 Benefits of Employee empowerment
There are a few advantages which are provided through the concept of adopting employee empowerment in the service organization.
a) Enhanced organizational responsiveness
One of the most obvious advantages of employee empowerment is the fact that the degree of responsiveness towards the needs and wants of the consumers is improved if every employee considers it as his responsibility to take care of the consumers. Such proactiveness on the part of the employees creates an organizational responsiveness which can facilitate the consumers without any delay in the delivery of expected solution to their need.
b) Managed service recovery
The reaction of a consumer to a service failure is largely dependent upon the time since the consumer is dealing with the organization. This is where the degree of empowerment given to the employee would be instrumental in managing the service recovery. Often the service expectations of a new consumer is high as compared to the one who has been dealing with the organisation since sometime. A new consumer may be looking towards a good deal even in the service recovery else will be quick to switch the service provider. Since, the older consumers had already experienced the service quality, they may be easy to be pleased with the service recovery efforts due to personal interaction. Consumers who wish to continue dealing with the organization in future would also have lower level of service performance expectations. Service recovery in case of older consumers or in case of consumers wishing to be associated with the organization in future will be easy to satisfy during the service recovery. This is not to suggest that the service personnel should not take the service recovery efforts of an older consumers on a priority, this only suggests that they would be easy to be convinced about the uncontrollable nature of a service failure.
c) Introduction of change
a) A service organization will have to consistently upgrade its service creation and service delivery system to offer quality services to its consumers. For doing so a number of changes may be desired from time to time including the upgradation of technology, increased dependence on Information Technology and improvements in the service delivery processes necessitating refreshers training for the service staff. All these tasks are feasible to be smoothly implemented in the event of the presence of the concept of employee empowerment. Creation of an open and trustworthy atmosphere is also possible in the organizational culture promoting employee empowerment. The employees should feel confident to share their views with their immediate seniors as well as with the top authorities for the purpose of improving the service quality or reduction in the customer waiting time leading to development of congenial environment with employee empowerment.
d) Improved productivity
A responsive organization and an ever willing service personnel to facilitate the customer at every step of service purchase and service delivery will eventually lead to the improved service productivity in that organization.
e) Heightened employee commitment
In any organization if the employees are empowered they feel motivated in performing their duties, which in turn is very crucial in increasing the commitment and loyalty of the employee towards the service organization. This ensures their contribution towards the attainment of the organizational goals. Employee commitment is facilitated with having empowered employees in the organization. The level of belongingness and motivation is directly proportional to the degree of empowerment offered to the service staff. When the employees feel that they are authorized to facilitate and expedite the customers service delivery, they become more creative and enthusiastic to satisfy the consumers, which is the aim of the organization also.
f) Building Corporate Brand Image
Employee empowerment commences with treating the service staff with respect. Efforts are made to convince them of the organisational practices and strategies so that in turn they are able to convey the same to the target consumers with conviction. In this process, employee empowerment facilitates the Corporate Brand building.
1.7 Limitations of Employee Empowerment
Having discussed about the advantages of employee empowerment, let us take a look at some of the limitations the concept may have.
a) Non- uniformity in decisions
There may be occasions where different employees may have taken a different perception of the similar situation and hence taken different decision. Such non uniformity of decisions may develop to be a cause of grievance amongst different consumers. This could be another reason to result in decreased organizational efficiency and performance.
b) Difficulty in Coordination
If every service personnel at the lower hierarchical level is given the authority to take his own decisions in his wisdom, there may be conflicting decisions or different decisions in similar consumer situations. This could be a major cause of concern for the coordination function of the organization.
c) Managers and Employees conflict
In the absence of a clear cut boundary of decision making and the liberty of employee using his wisdom in taking decisions, there may be a conflict between the senior managers and the lower line service personnel.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
7. What do you understand by the alignment of Organisational goals with employee empowerment in services?
8. Describe the role played by employee empowerment in bringing about changes in the service organization.
9. How can coordination be sacrificed due to Employee empowerment?
10. Why is it important for employees to be empowered to enhance the organizational responsiveness?
11. What are the possible disadvantages of the employee empowerment to the consumers?
12. “Employee empowerment is a double edged blade.” In the light of this statement discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the concept of Employee empowerment in a service organization.
3. Conclusion
Service delivery is the interaction of the service systems, service employees and the service buyer in any service buying situation. The role of all three variables is important in improving the quality of service delivered to satisfy the needs of the customers. The employees play a very important role in the delivery of the services as they are the face of the service organization. The employees understanding of the customer’s needs and wants and the offering of the appropriate solution to the customer by making him appreciate its importance to satisfy his needs is significant to decide the level of satisfaction of the customers. Service marketing is increasingly being co-created and co-produced with the customers. This makes the customer-employee interaction indispensable. Herein lies the importance of employee empowerment, where personnel try to emphasize on its quality dimensions through customer orientation. The customer’s interaction is the highest with the front line service employees. Hence the front desk staff should be empowered to deal with the consumers not only reflecting the organizational perspective but also the customers perspective. Hence, in the process of empowerment, employees are not only trained to represent the organization but are also attempted to be convinced about the service they are selling. It seeks to develop an organizational system where each individual trusts the services they are marketing and feel equally responsible for achieving the organizational targets in the right spirit.
4.0 Summary
Service marketing is the marketing of intangible package of benefits offered to the customers for the satisfaction of needs and wants. In the process of Service delivery the Service staff as well as the customers play an important role. Employees are the face of the Service organization. They are trained to be empathetic to the needs and wants of the customers and offer them a service to meet the customer’s expectations. Consistently meeting and exceeding the needs of the customers contribute in the development of the Brand of the Service organization. Many a times, a situation in the customer service delivery may require an employee to take certain decisions based on their wisdom and the evaluation of the situation at hand. This is where, an empowered employee may act as a ‘just in time’ stitch to save the service quality level of the service encounter. Every Service provider aims to serve the consumers with the best of their efforts and satisfy them as per their expectations. However, there may be situations in which the consumer is not able to satisfy his needs for which he is paying. There may also be a dissatisfaction amongst the consumers if they do not receive what was promised to them at the time of negotiations. Occurrence of a service failure is not uncommon even in old and big service organizations. These may be due to human or technical reasons, which may be controllable or sometimes uncontrollable. An intelligent service provider always develops a mechanism to foresee such a service failure and designs a service recovery mechanism to satisfy the consumer quickly and efficiently so as to retain him. However, in the absence of the same, an empowered service personnel is able to save the situation and earn the loyalty of the customers.
An empowered employee who is connected with the service Brand is likely to be more motivated and in turn, more productive in getting close to achieving the organizational objectives. Further, employees at all hierarchical level generate a feeling of commonness and belongingness. There may be hurdles in implementing this concept in organizations like lack of top management support or lack of managerial competencies to put the concept into practice. There are instances, where the organization practice employee empowerment yet not in the right spirit. The employees may be informed about the organizational policies and vision but they may not be involved in the decision making process or they may not even be convinced with the decisions taken by the top management. In such cases, employee empowerment does not give the desired results as the expected level of belongingness and motivation may still be missing amongst the employees. Therefore, for the concept of employee empowerment to be successful, it should be implemented in the same spirit as can truly share authority with the employees.
Learn More:
a) Aaker, D. and Joachimsthaler, E. (2000), Brand Leadership, Free Press, New York.
b) Keller, K. (1998), Strategic Brand Management, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
c) Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., (2007), Marketing an Introduction, Prentice Hall, South Asian Edition
d) Hubbert, A.R. (1995), “Customer co-creation of service outcomes: effects of locus of causality
attributions”, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University.
e) Mills, P.K., Chase, R.B. and Margulies, N. (1983), “Motivating the client/employee system as a service production strategy”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 301-10.
f) Noble, C.H., Rajiv, K.S. and Kumar, A., (2002), “Market Orientation and alternative strategic orientations: A longitudinal assessment of performance implications”, Journal of Marketing, Vol 66 No 4, pp. 25-39
g) Sureshchandar, G., Rajendran, C. and Anantharaman, O., (2002), “The relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction – A factor specific approach”, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol 16 No 4, pp. 363-379
h) Wilson A., Zeithaml V.A., Bitner M.J., Gremler D.D. (2008) Services Marketing, McGraw-Hill Education