‘’Employee empowerment practices. The impact on employee satisfaction.’’ An investigation in organizations operating in the private sector in Cyprus.

The traditional role of HR has gone through monumental shifts the last few decades. Human Resources professionals experienced a milestone transition from being the silent partners managing administrative tasks related to personnel, to being strategic partners, participating in board meetings, evaluating business’ strategical needs and planning for the implementation and optimization of human resources management. HR’s key activities include among others, the recruiting of required resources, talents attracting and retaining, engaging to the organization’s vision and more importantly, boosting employees’ empowerment in order to improve the team’s overall performance and competitiveness. The employee empowerment practices, have been extensively focused on the development of the individual in the organization through delegation and more participation in decision making. One of the major concerns of an HR department is how to achieve this empowerment so that the employees can contribute to their full potential, assuming that this will lead to gaining job satisfaction from their employment and circling back to retention.
This study’s main aim was to investigate to what extent any of the practices related to the employee empowerment notion based on the existing literature, are followed in organizations operating in the private sector in Cyprus, and consequently if they have any impact on the employees’ perceived job satisfaction.
A sample of 63 employees of both managerial and non-managerial levels, employed in almost all industries in the private sector in Cyprus was surveyed. The collected survey data was analyzed using descriptive statistics,
factor analysis, correlations, and multivariate regression analysis.
The findings showed that the relationships between employee empowerment and job satisfaction indeed exist. On the other hand, the relationship among some of the demographics variables and compared to both notions,
were not statistically significant. Finally, the results of the regression analysis revealed that employee empowerment practices can indeed be significant predictors of job satisfaction, hence it is confirmed that they have an impact on it and furthermore, confirmed the study’s hypothesis.