ABSTRACT
Over recent years, empowerment and subsequently engagement have been popular stratagems for employers to enhance worker performance. Empowerment basically offers some discretion to employees to make task-based decisions without immediate reference to higher management. Autonomy is associated with job satisfaction, which, in turn, is assumed to feed into commitment and performance. Problems have been identified: empowerment often accompanies downsizing, leading to extra effort without added pay; training is not always offered and staff are blamed for consequent errors. Also, empowerment exercises tend to be seen as another fad where little pre-existing trust exists between employees and management. Junior managers, fearful of becoming downsized casualties, may show little enthusiasm in training subordinates to take over their responsibilities.
More recently, engagement has become the managerial word du jour. More complex than empowerment, it seeks to generate a culture of close individual–organisation identification by creating a sense of mutual commitment. The main problem is that engagement as a concept is cloudy and problematic, with faddy overtones and no clear identity. The role of EPV is unclear, with little room for union contributions.
