Objective

Discuss about the Impact of Employees Empowerment On Organizations Performance for Dominos Australia Case Study.

The research deals with the impact of the empowerment of the employees on the business performance of the organizations. The research focuses on the innovation, quality, and fair business transaction. Employee empowerment is recognized as the essential factor for an organization to be successful. There is a direct link between the level of the employee empowerment, employee performance and commitment towards the organizations. The empowerment would enable the employees to be more responsive and flexible which could lead to the improvements in both the organizational and individual performance in the long run. 

According to Gilbert et al., (2016), the business performance of an organization depends on the performance of the employees working in the organization. According to a recent survey, the Australian food retail market is undergoing structural change in an effort to accelerate the share gains and minimise the impact of the discounters. Dominos, being the largest pizza chain in Australia has secured over $588,000 back pay for the underpaid pizza delivery drivers around Australia as a part of collaborative initiative (Fairwork.gov.au, 2016). Underpayments have been found at the stores in every State and Territory where almost $200,000 is being held in trust for workers who are not being located. This situation has led the company to implement appropriate strategy for the improvement of the workplace practices.

The Australian retail market has undergoing structural change and is experiencing falling profits and lower returns in the recent years (fairwork.gov.au, 2016). According to the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), the Australian food market represents wholesale revenue of less than 30 billion in 2015 (Gilbert et al., 2016). Thus, the needs to be an effective change management strategy in the business organizations such that to revive the food industry in the market.  

The research topic is based on the empowerment of the employees and its impact on the performance of Dominos. The employees working in the organization would be the best to describe the performance of the organization if their status in the organization is enhanced in the workplace. This is the main reason why the researcher needs to collect the primary data related to the research study.

• To examine the impact of empowerment on organizational performance
• To evaluate employee empowerment strategies in Domino’s
• To examine the issues related to implementation of employee empowerment strategy in Domino’s
• To provide suggestions regarding employee empowerment in Domino’s

• What is the impact of empowerment on organizational performance?
• What are the important employee empowerment strategies in Domino’s?
• What are the issues faced by Domino’s in implementing employee empowerment strategy?
• How can Domino’s improve its employee empowerment?

Employee Empowerment

Employee empower is all about providing some amount of responsibility and autonomy in organizational decision making process. According to Ghosh,  (2013), Employee empowerment provide adequate level of value to the employee for which they want to be loyal towards organizational success. On the other hand, Verhulst and Boks, (2014) opined that implementation of employee empowerment strategy assists the managers in getting diverse set of ideas from talented employees. It ultimately increases creativity in organizational process and thereby creates competitiveness in the market. According to Elloy,  (2012), certain level of power and freedom given to the employees encourage them to accomplish work accurately and perfectly. On the other hand, Ghosh,  (2013), suggested that employee empowerment enhances self-determination and personal effectiveness of the employees. It has been found that Coca Cola has successfully implemented employee empowerment strategy through delegating some authority to their employees (Verhulst & Boks, 2014). In this way, they have become successful in creating flexible and productive work environment in the organization.

Research questions

Organizational performance is the measurement of actual output of the organization towards its intended goals and objective. According to Men and Stacks,  (2013) organization performance is highly dependent on the way employees perceives the organizational goal. The employees are motivated to increase organizational performance, when it shows some of their personal concern. Organizational performance increases with the individual employee’s productivity. Therefore, employees need to have perfect balance between their abilities and willingness. The manager should seek to empower the employees through proper rewards, promotional opportunities and other benefits. According to  Namasivayam et al., (2014), employee empowerment increases the job involvement level of employees, which raises their performance level. On the other hand, Zeglat et al., (2014), opined that the value of organizational goal should be properly communicated within the employees getting their best out of them. It has been found that, Darrell Lea in Australia has maintained proper employee relation for increasing employee involvement within the organization (Verhulst & Boks, 2014). It has increased the product and service quality of the organization.

Maslow’s Need Hierarchy attempts to focus on fulfilling following five basic needs of employees towards empowering them:

Physiological needs

According to Gillet et al., (2012), psychological needs of the employees are provided through comfortable working condition, necessary breaks and reasonable working hours. On the other hand, Kovjanic  et al., (2012), opined that the manager should be extremely concerned with meeting the basic needs of the employees so that they can survive in the workplace.

Safety needs

Employees should have strong sense of security as well as well-being in their workplace, which provide them enthusiasm towards their job role. Effective manager should provide high level of job security and healthy work environment to the employees. It has been found that Dick Smith Foods in provide life insurance policy to the employee for securing their life. It has boost their employee morale to an unlimited extent.

Social needs

According to Hoogervorst et al., (2012), employees need high sense of belongingness and affection from their superiors and subordinate for adjusting with workplace. On the other hand, Uddin, Luva and Hossian,  (2013), opined that satisfaction of social needs creates intimacy and remove depression of work life. In this way, it motivates employees towards better productivity.

Esteem needs

According to Jerome,  (2013), employees need proper self-respect and recognition against the work they contribute towards organizational success. It empowers the employees to demonstrate high level of dedication in their job role.

Theoretical framework

Self-actualization needs

According to Jerome , (2013), Self-actualization needs of employees are fulfilled through achieving their full potential in the organization. It has been found that Lion Food and Beverage organization allows their employees in decision-making process for empowering them. In this way, they are able to get creative ideas in organizational process.

Managers can be able to promote organizational success through getting innovative ideas, suggestion and solution. This can only be possible through empowering the employees by delegating authority of giving opinion to organizational success. Employee can be empowered through getting proper support and assistance from the superiors. While, the managers will spend more time with their employees, they can understand employees lacking areas. Thus, the manager can provide suitable training to them to properly contributing towards organizational success. Apart from that, high level of trust and affection among the employees leads them to align themselves with organizational goals. In this way, organizational performance remains at peak.

Type of research

The research method can be categorised by the two segments viz., qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative research helps in improving the performance of the organizations by changing the corporate structure of the organizations and providing power to the employees working in the organisations. On the other hand, the quantitative analysis is for a huge number of respondents upon whom the survey is to be conducted on the basis of the research questionnaire being formulated on the research. Hence, both the quantitative and qualitative research methods are required to be implemented for the study.

The data collection method is comprised of the primary and secondary data collection process. The research study should be emphasizing on the primary data collection process in order to conduct the research. The research topic is based on the empowerment of the employees and its impact on the performance of the business organization (Dominos as our case study organization).  The employees working in the organization would be the best to describe the performance of the organization if their status in the organization is enhanced in the workplace. This is the main reason why the research study needs to implement the collection of the primary data related to the research topic. Moreover, the primary data being collected from the respondents would be indicating the research process to be more reliable and valid towards the readers.

The research approach can be comprised of two basic approaches including the inductive and deductive approach, which is used in most of the researches. According to Gioiaet al., (2013), the inductive approach includes the analysis of the data is conducted by using effective analytical tools and developing potential theories related to the research topic. While, the deductive approach follows the selection of theory, testing for hypothesis, data analysis and the implementation of the theories in order to analyse the data. The deductive approach ultimately requires the confirmation of the theoretical evidences as well.

Employee Empowerment

For conducting the research, a questionnaire has been formulated based on which the survey is required to be conducted from the respondents being selected for the research. The information being collected from the respondent are required to be inscribed in the form of graphs and tables such that to make the readers easily understand about the research process. Another instrument to be used in the data analysis section of the research process is the use of various software including the SPSS and Excel which should be used in both the quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Sampling is a crucial method, which helps in selecting the respondents for conducting the survey as required by the research study. Sampling plan refers to the selection of respondents in order to conduct the survey. The sampling method refers to selection of appropriate respondents for the research study such that to collect relevant information by implementing the data collection method. The sampling process can be comprised of two methods viz., probability, and non-probability sampling. The convenient sampling is used to reduce the deviation of the responses being collected from the candidates in the primary data collection process.

References

Elloy, D. (2012). Effects of ability utilization, job influence and organization commitment on employee empowerment: an empirical study. International Journal of Management, 29(2), 627.

Fairwork.gov.au,. (2016). Welcome to the Fair Work Ombudsman website. Fair Work Ombudsman. Retrieved 12 August 2016, from https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/news-and-media-releases/2013-media-releases/july-2013/20130731-dominos-proactive-compliance-deed-report

Fernandez, S., & Moldogaziev, T. (2012). Using employee empowerment to encourage innovative behavior in the public sector. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, mus008.

Fernandez, S., & Moldogaziev, T. (2013). Employee empowerment, employee attitudes, and performance: Testing a causal model. Public Administration Review, 73(3), 490-506.

Ghosh, A. K. (2013). Employee empowerment: a strategic tool to obtain sustainable competitive advantage. International Journal of Management,30(3), 95.

Gilbert, B., Stafford, C., & Sehgal, A. (2016). Australian Supermarkets: UBS/AFGC Survey. Retrieved 12 August 2016, from https://www.afgc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/AFGC-UBS-Report-2016.pdf

Gillet, N., Fouquereau, E., Forest, J., Brunault, P., & Colombat, P. (2012). The impact of organizational factors on psychological needs and their relations with well-being. Journal of Business and Psychology, 27(4), 437-450.

Gioia, D. A., Corley, K. G., & Hamilton, A. L. (2013). Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 16(1), 15-31.

Hoogervorst, N., De Cremer, D., van Dijke, M., & Mayer, D. M. (2012). When do leaders sacrifice?: The effects of sense of power and belongingness on leader self-sacrifice. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(5), 883-896.

Jerome, N. (2013). Application of the Maslow’s hierarchy of need theory; impacts and implications on organizational culture, human resource and employee’s performance. International Journal of Business and Management Invention, 2(3), 39-45.

Kovjanic, S., Schuh, S. C., Jonas, K., Quaquebeke, N. V., & Dick, R. (2012). How do transformational leaders foster positive employee outcomes? A selfâ€Âdeterminationâ€Âbased analysis of employees’ needs as mediating links.Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(8), 1031-1052.

Men, L. R., & Stacks, D. W. (2013). The impact of leadership style and employee empowerment on perceived organizational reputation. Journal of Communication Management, 17(2), 171-192.

Namasivayam, K., Guchait, P., & Lei, P. (2014). The influence of leader empowering behaviors and employee psychological empowerment on customer satisfaction. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 26(1), 69-84.

Uddin, M. J., Luva, R. H., & Hossian, S. M. M. (2013). Impact of organizational culture on employee performance and productivity: a case study of telecommunication sector in Bangladesh. International Journal of Business and Management, 8(2), 63.

Verhulst, E., & Boks, C. (2014). Employee empowerment for sustainable design. J. Corp. Citizen, 2014, 73-101.

Zeglat, D., Aljaber, M., & Alrawabdeh, W. (2014). Understating the impact of employee empowerment on customer-oriented behavior. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 6(1), 55.