Empowerment: Trust vs. control

Your hotel can improve operational efficiency, increase employee productivity, and improve guest satisfaction through empowerment. Empowerment requires managers to give up some control, even when they cannot give up accountability, and to place a great deal of trust in their subordinates and respect their judgment. Moreover, empowerment requires many managers to redefine their own role in the organization. Empowering your employees means that you have given your managers and workers the authority to make decisions without first checking with a supervisor. Empowerment has often been cited as a means to improve guest satisfaction, but it also is a mechanism for changing the system (i.e., the policies, procedures, and rules; equipment and supplies; and the physical plant). Any procedure that routinely requires a supervisor's approval should be examined-in many cases that approval is almost never withheld. The author gives examples of how empowerment has worked in both instances to the benefit of hospitality operations.