Helping people to help themselves

Empowerment is a much misused word, reminiscent of Dilbert cartoons in which some petty bureaucrat ‘orders' a humble worker to take charge of his life. Moreover, cynics might attribute the idea of selfservice HR to tighter budgets: companies are, in effect, asking their employees to do some of the work which HR administrators did for them in the past. Yet each of these projects shares the belief that the best way to help employees is to give them the information, resources and expert support - to help themselves. The projects are indicative of a significant shift away from the paternalistic approach to HR in favour of a more facilitative model.