MANAGEMENT 14: Examining Employee Empowerment in Bupa Healthcare, NZ

This report examines the impact of employee empowerment within Bupa Healthcare, focusing on its effects on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and overall performance. The research employs a descriptive research design and quantitative data collection methods to analyze the influence of various aspects of employee empowerment, such as managerial contributions and the role of rewards, on employee behavior and outcomes. The study reviews existing literature on employee empowerment, its necessity in healthcare organizations, and the benefits of empowered employees, including increased job satisfaction, productivity, and cost reduction. The research aims to provide insights for the management of Bupa Healthcare to improve services and enhance employee engagement, ultimately contributing to better patient care and organizational success. The methodology includes a detailed literature review, research questions, and a description of the data collection and analysis methods. The conclusion presents the findings and recommendations for the management to implement strategies that foster employee empowerment.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Examining the Effect of Employee Empowerment in Bupa Healthcare, New Zealand
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Abstract:
The aim of the research study lay in examining the impact of the employee empowerment in the
Healthcare organization of New Zealand. Employee empowerment has been the key of employee
satisfaction especially in the healthcare sector. The purpose of the research has been in analyzing
the impact of the basic components of the employee empowerment on the healthcare sector. The
report put across a literature review. The research undertakes a descriptive research design and a
quantitative method of data collection as they are believed to yield accurate results. As far as the
sample design is concerned, the research involves a large population and thereby opts for simple
random sampling. The findings are then put across to the management for undertaking strategies
that leads to employee empowerment.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction:................................................................................................................................3
2. Literature Review:.......................................................................................................................4
2.1 Employee Empowerment.......................................................................................................4
2.2 Necessity of Employee Empowerment in Healthcare Organization......................................6
2.3 Benefits of Empowered Employee in Healthcare Organizations...........................................7
Research Question I: Does the managers contribute towards employee empowerment?............8
Research Question II: Do the employees acknowledge rewards as a means of empowerment?
....................................................................................................................................................10
3. Methodology..............................................................................................................................11
3.1 Research Design...................................................................................................................11
3.2 Data Collection Method.......................................................................................................12
3.3 Sample Design.....................................................................................................................13
3.4 Data Analysis.......................................................................................................................13
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................15
References:....................................................................................................................................15

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1. Introduction:
Bupa The Garden Retirement Village and Care Home are rest home providing hospital
care facility and is situated in Rotorua (bupa.co.nz, 2019). It provides a friendly environment to
give a homely feeling to the residents. It also believes that understanding specific likes, dislikes
and preferences would enable the rest home in providing individualized care facilities that best
suits family needs. It has sixty independent villas with attractive landscaping and features like
open living rooms, quality fittings and en suite bathrooms (eldernet.co.nz, 2019). The residents
are also facilitated with additional services like meals, laundry and housekeeping. There is a
constant security patrol and facilities of 24 hours emergency calling system. Bupa The Garden
Retirement Village and Care Home also has dedicated hospital and wellness controlled by
registered nurse.
The purpose of Bupa Healthcare lay in helping people to stay longer and live a happier
and healthier life. It also look forward to maintaining excellence through frequent benchmarking
of the service provided both across locations and staffs. In New Zealand this is done through
providing retirement villages and care homes. Nevertheless, the management had a strategic
framework that comprised of three pillars customer, people and performance
(villageguide.co.nz , 2019). However the company has recently been in the News with horror
stories like malnourishment, neglect, growing maggots in wounds, mismanagement of
medication, sex abuse incidents and assaults. A reason for this could have been employee de-
motivation absenteeism, lack of willingness work
Being a global service provider, the healthcare organization relies on the employees and
the partners for delivering a sustainable and strong performance across the world. Therefore,

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engaging and empowering the employees holds immense importance as they can make real
difference to the customers (bupa.co.nz, 2019). Employee empowerment is thus important for
ensuring customer satisfaction. Empowered employees are able to make the right decision, keep
right priority and undertake suitable actions in the interest of the resident without additional
supervision. It has been found that de-motivated employees’ leads to poor level of performance
and whose minute errors leads to bigger management issues.
The research aims at providing assistance to the management by improving the services
at Bupa The Garden Retirement Village and Care Home. The researcher puts forward that better
employee service would help the company in gaining more clients thereby continuing its legacy
of rest home.
In this paper the researcher will examine the impact of employee empowerment and the
ways in which they affect their job performance and also improve the operations at Bupa.
2. Literature Review:
According to Wang, Kung & Byrd (2018), healthcare organizations are knowledge based
and service oriented hence the human resource of the organization needed to a play an important
role in healthcare compared to other organizations. Employee empowerment has been the key for
employee satisfaction within the healthcare sector across the world. An empowered organization
must put emphasis on the bottom up approach of management or adopt a two way process of
communication that will allow the managers to put across suggestions to the senior management
for creating a work way.

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2.1 Employee Empowerment
Empowerment is considered as an important and fundamental aspect for productivity,
achievement and in the determination of the business growth (Hunjra, UlHaq, Akbar, & Yousaf,
2011). Employee empowerment is considered as motivational practice aiming at enhancing the
performance through increase in opportunities for involvement and participation in the process of
decision-making thereby abolishing the boundaries involving the management and the employee
(Meyerson & Dewettinck, 2012). Employee Empowerment thus refers to a mechanism that
gives an employee authority of making decisions and remaining allied with distribution of the
responsibility from the managers to the other employees (Saif & Saleh, 2013). Earlier it was
defined as providing the employees with authority of dealing matter in relation to the day to day
activities.
There are various advantages of employee empowerment reported in literature.
According to Jacquiline (2014) empowered employees seem to develop the feelings of
motivation that will help them in gaining control and authority thereby enabling them in applying
crucial skills and knowledge for dealing with the needs of the customers. It has found that the
empowerment program also give authority and power to the employees through the managers.
This overtime helps the employees in improving their status and recognition. These employees
are able to build up positive thinking and put in their best for performing well at workplace
(Wadhwa & Verghese, 2015). Besides, Elnaga & Imran (2014) put forward that empowerment
was able to increase the employee motivation in doing routine work, improve the job
satisfaction, enhance the productivity and loyalty and reduce the intensions of turnover amongst
them.

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Employee empowerment is widely recognized as the remarkable contributors of success
within organizations and has the power to directly influence job satisfaction, employee
performance and the organizational commitment (Meyerson & Dewettinck, 2012). According to
studies conducted by Wadhwa & Verghese (2015), it has been found that empowerment have a
positive influence on the organizational commitment and the job satisfaction. Rae (2013)
described that development of an environment that improved and encouraged empowerment
within workplace will have a positive impact on the commitment of employees thereby leading
to the betterment of organizational effectiveness.
2.2 Necessity of Employee Empowerment in Healthcare Organization
According to Anders & Cassidy (2014), employee empowerment acts as a crucial
dimension of employee satisfaction even in the Healthcare sector. In Healthcare homes which are
also considered as a service industry employees are expected to interact with every kind of
residents. Each of these interactions seems to a unique experience and the reactions of the
employees often create an impression about the healthcare service. In reality in is practically
impossible in training the staffs to deal with every possible scenario faced. Residents are mostly
unable to distinguish between an old and a new staff by simply glancing at their ID cards.
Empowered employees would always make the right move in dealing with any adverse situation
faced without damaging the image of the organization. In other words, employee empowerment
leads to the increase in the organizational responsiveness to the problems and issues. Besides, an
empowered employee always foresees a superior way and makes adjustments accordingly
thereby resulting in the improvement of the entire system. Empowered employees know that
their ideas of making things better are also respected by the managers. Therefore, empowering

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the employees rather than micromanaging them not only improve customer service and
accountability but also improve job satisfaction and faster resolution to problems.
Schulz & Nakamoto (2013) stated that the framework within which employee
empowerment exists represents the purpose of a healthcare home in delivering resident care.
Therefore, employee empowerment can be observed as motivation building for employees to
become patient centric. This implies that employees are able to undertake right decision,
maintain the right priority and undertake the appropriate action in the interest of patient without
the need of guidance or additional supervision. In order to make this happen, the organizational
culture should be conducive in providing enabling environment. Hence, in the service industry
the managerial interest in the employee engagement is mostly associated with the gaining of
competitive advantage through improvements in the quality of service.
2.3 Benefits of Empowered Employee in Healthcare Organizations
Empowered employees can be beneficial for both the organization as well as the clients.
Therefore some of the benefits of empowered employees are mentioned as follows:
Increased Job Satisfaction: Empowered employees are believed to experience an
enhanced level of job satisfaction due to the autonomy provided. Sloan et al. (2014) found that
healthcare organization with increased level of job satisfaction had an engaging, flexible wok
culture that empowered the employees. It has also been found that a flexible workplace have
enhanced satisfaction levels in comparison to the organizations that are more structured and have
a hierarchical environment. Empowered employees feels increasingly motivated since they have
the power to not only identify problems, make vital decisions and provide solutions.

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Increased Level of Productivity: Empowered employees believe that they are able to
take charge and therefore express an increased level of ownership and responsibility towards
work (Wong & Laschinger, 2013). This leads to significant level of motivation and results in
enhanced performance. Employees who feel empowered tends to put in hard work since they
have the realization that their work is not only valued but it receives a positive reinforcement.
Leads to Cost Reduction: Empowered employees remain vigilant and they seem to be
proud of their work. This helps them in becoming aware of the inefficiencies in the daily
functions that generate considerable cost for the organization. Organizations with engaged and
empowered employees experience higher level of profits. These employees might put across cost
cutting measures that are able to benefit an organization.
Improved Work Quality: Empowerment also leads to the cultivation of emotions.
Employees having a stake in the growth of the company will put across creative ideas and
solutions in case of obstacles (Pantouvakis & Mpogiatzidis, 2013). When the suggestions and
creativity of the employees are leveraged it fosters increased level of imaginative and critical
thinking. Besides, the management is not always able to see the capability of employees thus by
trusting and empowering them managers get an insight into various observations that could be
leveraged in improving the business process and practice.
Research Question I: Does the managers contribute towards employee empowerment?
According to Anitha (2014), the role of managers within workplace is considered
significant as far as the organizational performance is considered. Managers seem to directly
influence the employees. They also hold the responsibility of aligning the performance of the
employees with the organizational goals thereby playing a vital role in empowering employees

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and shaping the organizational culture. It has been found that managers needed to work in order
to ensure that they are able to manage and behave in a manner that provided reassurance and
empowerment to the employees during uncertainty. They need to proactively communicate
instead of hiding behind the smokescreen and follow up bad news with certain plan. They should
always be visible and available to address any concern raised by the employee. The managers
also communicate, set expectations, reward and treat people while ensuring that employees are
sufficiently empowered in their activities. They are the ones who also play a key role in
recognizing the efforts of the employees.
Fernandez & Moldogaziev (2013) put forward that in the last decade, various
organizations have put across different managerial approaches for ensuring employee
empowerment. This included total quality management and self management of the work teams
based on expectations that it would enhance innovation and employee productivity. It has
however been found that for materializing the benefits, empowering the managerial approaches
should foster the feelings of empowerment amongst the employees thereby stimulating the
employee behavior in a direction of the expected outcomes. Various studies have undertaken
investigation of the relationship between the managerial practice and psychological state of the
employee empowerment. Employees are also empowered to raise views through ‘People Pulse’.
Besides, performance expectations were simplified by adopting a newer approach. Efforts are
made for consulting, informing and encouraging the staffs that influences performance of the
firm. Various schemes have been made available for incentivizing, recognizing and rewarding
performance. The management at Bupa Healthcare is committed towards making of an all
inclusive workplace where diversity is recognized by putting across equal opportunities.

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“As part of induction program….employee empowerment at Bupa stands across geographies and
varied lines of business” (Simon Blair, Non-executive director, 2016)
Thus, studies have established the role of the managers in empowering the employees.
Considering the focus of the study, the researcher tries to understand the perceptions of the
employee empowerment in context of this.
Research Question II: Do the employees acknowledge rewards as a means of
empowerment?
It has been found from various literature that business firms makes use of rewards in the
form of incentives, recognition or cash for strengthening the imagination of the employees
thereby empowering them. The researchers however express their concern regarding the fact as
to whether compensation of the imagination possesses the capacity of empowering employees.
Extraneous prizes helps in grouping out inborn parts thereby resulting in empowering people. In
other words, support of cash empowers an employee. The essential significance for inherent
inspiration for worker creativity and inventiveness has led the HR supervisors to focus on the
employee creativity and reward system that result in employee empowerment. It is to be noted
that the financial prizes helps in inspiring the representatives.
In this regard, it can be said that Bupa Healthcare ensured a balance between the fixed
and the variable compensation along with an option for incentives to ensure superior employee
performance in business. It has been found that the remuneration of close to 50 percent of the
executive directors depends on the company and the individual performance (bupa.com, 2019).
The Remuneration Committee has devised certain criteria for the incentive structure or the

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rewards based on the employee performance thereby encouraging employee empowerment
within the organization. This included:
 Determination of the size of the payment or the reward
 Determination of whether the minimum performance levels are reached before
determining any reward
 Determination of the acceptable management risk
 Adjusting performance measures within remuneration policy
 Determination of whether the individuals represent good leavers for the purposes of
incentive plan.
Previous researchers have shown that employee reward is a crucial part of the employee
encouragement and empowerment. Hence, researcher increasingly focuses on this particular
aspect.
3. Methodology
3.1 Research Design
The research design aids the researcher with a viewpoint that not only provides guidance
but also helps in achieving the specific goals of the research. As put forward by Tesch (2013),
research designs also enable the researcher to put across a reference through limiting the targeted
results and perform the research by depending on the goals mentioned. There are three types of
research design namely explanatory, exploratory and descriptive. The present research chooses
the descriptive research design as it easily helps in explaining the impact of employee
empowerment in the healthcare industry of New Zealand. The descriptive research design also

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helps in providing a detailed description of factors that leads to employee empowerment in
healthcare. It also helps the study to focus on the reasons that might hinder the employee
empowerment. The other research designs could not be applied as they fail to effectively
depicting the issues and reasons behind research.
3.2 Data Collection Method
The data has been considered as the fundamental need in successfully accomplishing the
research study and the data collection depends on character of study and the targeted results.
Data is mostly categorized into the primary and the secondary data where the secondary data is
mostly derived from secondary sources like the journals, websites and the books that help in
understanding the historic presentation and the speculative conditions. Primary data is mostly
collected through human response and is considered to be more authentic. This primary data can
be further collected into qualitative data and quantitative data. This particular research uses
quantitative data due to the convenience in the data collection approach
The data will be collected using a survey questionnaire comprising of both open ended
and close ended questions. This method aids the researcher in reaching a huge sample size within
limited time period (Heeringa, West & Berglund 2017). The questionnaire comprises of mainly
open and close ended questions that help in measuring and describing the relationship between
factors that impact the employee empowerment within the healthcare sector of New Zealand.
The questions primarily relates to the desire in undertaking initiatives, source of empowerment,
eagerness to work and perform task and the emotional commitment towards work. The answers
of the respondents are measured with the help of a Likert scale in the range of 1 to 5.

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Data is however gathered from close to 130 respondents working for Bupa The Garden
Retirement Village and Care Home in Rotorua. The questionnaire is sent to the concerned
respondents via an email. The responses reflect the behavior, morals, feelings and the point of
view that will get transmitted in the form of numerical data. Statistical methods would be
implemented for proving and analyzing the correlations of cause and effect amongst the
variables.
3.3 Sample Design
This particular research makes use of a huge sample since it involves an overall 130
healthcare employees in Bupa The Garden Retirement Village and Care Home. For conducting
this research study, the researcher will opt for probability sampling method particularly the
random sampling method (Tetnowski, 2015). This method of sampling provides equal
opportunities to all the respondents collected in a survey. Thus, the data for the quantitative
analysis is gathered using simple random sampling methods from larger samples. Besides, this
particular method is believed to provide better level of accuracy in producing approximations for
population.
3.4 Data Analysis
As the study will adopt a quantitative method so the analysis of the data would take place
with the help of frequency distribution. This kind of analysis will allow the researcher in deriving
pertinent and proper conclusion through construction of graphs and tables. Further, excel
application will be used for converting the opinion of consumers into numerical data for
estimating the trends put forward by the insights of the respondents

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The research will take an overall 168 days to get completed which is mentioned in the
table below:

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Activities 7 to 21
days
22 to 70
days
77 to 91
days
98 to 119
days
120 to 146
days
154 to 161
days
168 days
Choice of Topic 
Collecting Data 
Creating of
Layout

Literature
Review

Data
Interpretation

Findings and
Analysis

Conclusion 
Formulation of
Draft

Final Submission 
The results derived will be put across to management of Bupa The Garden Retirement
Village and Care Home during the formal meetings. In addition to this, the findings will also be

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put across to the manager of human resource department and to employees in order to implement
strategies for enhancing the employee empowerment thereby resulting in the better performance
of jobs.
The limitation of the study could be the genuineness of information and the lower rate of
response from the employees as delivery of the questionnaire takes place via emails. Hence, the
researcher might face the problem in identifying the actual issues which in turn might poses a
challenge in put across the right recommendations in overcoming such issues.
Conclusion:
On a concluding note, it can be said that the key purpose of the study lay in examining
the effects of employee empowerment in the healthcare sector of New Zealand. The objective
was accomplished by collecting data from employees where the findings indicated the impact of
the employee empowerment in healthcare. It has been found that employee empowerment
provides the employees with the opportunities of realizing their values within the organization
which can contribute towards enhancing the level of performance and commitment.

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References:
Anders, C., & Cassidy, A. (2014). Effective organizational change in healthcare: Exploring the
contribution of empowered users and workers. International Journal of Healthcare
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Anitha, J. (2014). Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee
performance. International journal of productivity and performance management, 63(3),
308.
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%202016.pdf
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Fernandez, S., & Moldogaziev, T. (2013). Employee empowerment, employee attitudes, and
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