Answer to Question 1
Empowerment provides involvement in decision-making that supports the
guests' level of quality and satisfaction. Empowering kitchen team members
to take more initiative is viewed as essential to high-quality guest service.
Empowerment is also a key element in team-building. There is no better way
to have a vision shared and to generate commitment and loyalty than through
empowerment. This comes from the combination of pushing down the
decision making process to give greater latitude to each employee and then
providing training that facilitates its inception.
Empowerment means actively seeking ideas from kitchen team members on
how to improve. Empowerment comes from teaching others ways they can
become less dependent on you. Therefore, empowered kitchen teams can do
more than empowered individuals.
Empowerment means encouraging innovation and allowing kitchen team
members to implement their ideas. If the entire kitchen team is empowered
and realizes that its opinions, views, and ideas are important, it will quickly
take ownership of an innovation it has contributed and it will seek to
continuously improve it. Empowerment is not a substitute for leadership or a
reduction of authority. The more the kitchen team is empowered, the greater
the need for leaders who can set goals and define a vision.
Answer to Question 2
2