Employee Empowerment Marketing Assignment Paper

As you will read in Chapter 10, employee empowerment is connected to employee engagement. While employee engagement is centered around the emotional connection an employees has to their work, employee empowerment gives the employee decision-making authority. The video below provides an example of a successful employee empowerment structure in use by Whole Foods.
CNNMoney. (June 17, 2013). How workers spur whole foods innovation [Web]. Available from https://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=hP0Ub-uQ648 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Reflecting upon your past or current position of employment, were you encouraged to participate in the growth and improvement of the organization?
If not, what were the barriers? How can they be overcome?
What are the benefits of offering incentives such as profit sharing and stock options? Creating an Employee Stock Ownership Plan and cooperatives?
Have you ever been a participant in an incentive program that didn't work to engage and empower employees?
In your responses weigh the incentive structures introduced both in Chapter 10 and those you have personal experience with in your past and current employment.
Empowering Through Group-Based Financial Incentives
The five elements of a Scanlon-type gainsharing plan are a gainsharing coordinator, suggestion system, gainsharing team, review board, and group-based financial bonus.
Gainsharing coordinator: The gainsharing coordinator is responsible for managing the gainsharing system
Suggestion system: Employees submit written suggestions to the gainsharing coordinator on how to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and increase revenue
Gainsharing team: A gainsharing team consists of either all nonmanagement employees in the work unit or work unit representatives voted to the team
Review board: The review board consists of one representative from each gainsharing ream, the gainsharing coordinator, and relavant managers
Group-based financial bonus: A group-based financial bonus calculation is devised that compares projected costs and actual costs for a given period of time, usually a month
Profit Sharing is providing employees with a share of company profits. It is also ethical, motivating, and empowering. When the company does well, the employees benefit financially. Profit sharing supplements, but does not replace, base pay. Profits are distributed in cash or stock a the end of the fiscal year, or as deferred compensation. Profit-sharing plans are governed by the Employee Retirement Security Act (ERISA).
Stock options give an employee the right to purchase a specific number of company shares at a fixed price by a particular future date, typically 10 years.
The company gives all full-time employees over the age of 21 a significant equity stake in the company, called Employee Stock Option Plans (ESOPs). ESOPs are complex financial vehicles requiring legal assistance. Owners usually consider creating an ESOP when a change of ownership is being explored. Rather than selling the company to an outsider, the owner can sell the company to employees.
Producer, consumer, and employee cooperatives are an alternative communal way to govern a business and raise capital. In a producer cooperative, producers pool their capital and resources for their mutual benefit. Consumer cooperatives are businesses owned by customers for their mutual benefit. Employee cooperatives are organizations owned by the employees and democratically governed-one vote per employee-owner.