ording to the author, empowerment relies heavily on training, and many plants are failing to meet the generally accepted guideline of providing 40 hours of training per year to employees. Only slightly more than 11 percent of facilities offered 40 hours of formal training, and more than two-thirds offered fewer than 20 hours of training (Hernan, 1999).
The author spoke to several industry experts about why businesses which understand the need for training and empowerment fail to implement these programs. The associate director of the Center for Excellence in Manufacturing at the Fisher College of Business suspects that companies are focused on improving technology and managing inventory, activities which are themselves critical success factors for most organizations. This focus does not include expanding the plant's activities to employee empowerment, which can be more difficult to quantify and thus more difficult for managers to embrace.
An executive at the Work in America Institute indicates that many managers s
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