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.