Introduction

Today, organizations have different strategies to achieve their goals, commercial strategies, financial strategies, etc. However, the most important strategy of organizations is human resources strategy because human resources are the most important assets of organizations. Human resources management is a strategic and sustainable management of the most valuable assets of the organization, i.e. employees, to achieve the goals of the organization [1]. Human power with its potential abilities and capabilities, if it is well taken care of, can play an important and fundamental role in achieving economic growth and development. Therefore, it is necessary to provide an environment in organizations that can make the maximum use of people's abilities and talents in addition to attract and maintain human resources [2].

Strategies are actually the main solutions that lead to changes in structure, behavior, or performance. Strategy is a bridge between environmental threats and opportunities with internal strengths and weaknesses, which benefits from environmental facilities or internal management to overcome internal weakness or environmental threat or vice versa. In other words, one of the advantages of the strategy is to eliminate environmental threats by means of the internal strength factors. Strategy consists of determining long-term and basic goals and objectives as well as accepting a set of actions and allocating resources to achieve these goals and objectives. In this research, strategy is a set of decisions to obtain strong and defensible positions and results in the field of using human resources facilities. In the current conditions of competitive advantage, creating value, and guaranteeing long-term growth, it has become increasingly dependent on the role of human capital of organizations, meaning the set of knowledge, attitude, behavior, abilities, and experiences of employees [3].

To reach such a position, organizations should use a tool to attract, cultivate, motivate, and maintain such capital, which is referred to as "Human Resources Strategy". The term human resources strategy as a process is a specific set of human resources measures taken by the organization to achieve its goals. Human resources strategy includes all the activities related to the management of organization's people in the form of an organized and coherent program to achieve the organization's strategic goals. Some authors in explaining the concept of strategy as a result point out that human resources strategy is a model of decisions related to policies and actions related to human resources system. One of the widely used organization strategy formulation models is the SWOT model presented by Fred David [4].

The framework presented by David considers the identification of strengths and weaknesses within the organization and the opportunities and threats of the organization's environment in a matrix in interaction with each other, and the appropriate strategy is extracted from their analysis. Achieving the goals of the organization depends on the ability of employees to perform the assigned tasks and adapt to the changing environment. The implementation of training and improvement of human resources allows people to effectively continue their activities and increase their efficiency in accordance with organizational and environmental changes [5].

Therefore, training and improvement is a continuous and planned effort by management to improve employee competency levels and organizational performance. In today's era, organizations need to provide new products and services to the market faster than competitors to deal with pressures from competitors, stakeholders, shareholders, and customers. As the work environment becomes more different and diverse, companies should also strive to strengthen the capabilities and competencies of employees in order to achieve a competitive advantage [6].

Competitive advantage requires competence and ability to create better products and services and a higher rate of return than competitors. Human resources should help the company to create added value in capital, products, and services earlier than competitors. If human resources create this value on time, it will contribute to the company's competitive advantage. In such conditions, to overcome uncertainty, complexity, and dynamism, the only way that lies before managers is to empower the organization and employees by acquiring knowledge and skills that quickly become outdated and obsolete. Therefore, having a capable and efficient human force, which is the foundation of national wealth and vital assets of the organization, will bring many benefits for organizations, companies, and economic enterprises [7].

According to the competitive atmosphere of the business environment, access to suitable resources is considered the most obvious factor of success of organizations. Among these, human resources are the only resource that is more distinctive than other resources and does not have the negative characteristics of other resources such as perishability, ability to imitate, etc. Of course, human resources mean capable and knowledgeable human resources improved using human resource development systems and processes. Changes in the working environment have forced organizations to review and revise their management systems to survive in today's turbulent world, and this is where employee empowerment becomes the main issue in relation to leadership and management functions and for organizations, this makes it possible for them to act more competitively.

Traditional organizations only need employees who do specific and defined tasks and do not question, be curious and challenge too much, but today's work environments need people who can make decisions and find new solutions to problems be creative and be responsible for the results of the work. The development of human resources is always considered as one of the basic challenges of organizations, because in the field of innovation, quality, continuous growth, and other important data that are important for survival in the competitive and new business world, it is people who create ideas. The latest technology of the production process can be bought and used, but human knowledge and skills are more complex and its acquisition requires a lot of time and money. Human resource development includes programs, systems, and activities designed to improve employee performance [8].

The most important goal of human resources development includes solving current performance problems, preventing future performance problems and challenges, and developing employees' knowledge. Human resources development is one of the main and important processes and missions in human resources management. Tsing and McLean (2008) have introduced human resource development including programs, systems, and activities designed to improve employee performance.

Developing and empowering employees means creating the necessary capacities in employees to enable them to create added value in the organization and to play a role and responsibility in the organization along with efficiency and effectiveness. In other words, empowerment is a development process that increases the ability of employees to solve problems, improve their political and social vision, and enable them to identify and control environmental factors; empowerment is the full participation of employees and managers in decision-making [9].

The purpose of empowerment is to make the best use of people's brains as well as their arms. Empowerment refers to an inner feeling in people that makes independent decisions in their work process. New and effective technical empowerment is aimed at improving the organization's productivity using the employees' potential. Employees have latent power due to their knowledge, experience, and motivation, and in fact, empowerment is the release of this power. This technique provides potential capacities for exploiting the source of human ability that is not fully utilized and in a healthy organizational environment, it offers a balanced method between full control by the management and complete freedom of action of the employees.

Human resources are considered as the most valuable organizational resources in enhancing the goals and ideals of the organization. Human resources give meaning to the organization and provide the grounds for the realization of organizational goals. Empowering the workforce gives more opportunity for freedom, development and use of skills, knowledge, and potential for the good of themselves and their organization. The importance of human resources development is not hidden from anyone. Concerning the competitive market and the development of demands of customers who want diverse products with high quality, organizations have no choice, but to adopt a product development strategy. Product development is the production and provision of new products and services or the optimization of current products and services [10].

Experience shows that when the complexity of the product increases, the extent of the product development process increases and the need for capable, creative, innovative, and knowledgeable human resources increases, which requires all of them to have targeted strategies for the development of human resources to improve the knowledge of employees and their implementation and evaluation are optimal. The organization's human resources development strategies should be compiled according to the vision and strategies of the organization and considering the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and environmental threats. There are different methods for developing human resource strategies, one of the most used of which is the method of analyzing the matrix of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

The necessity and importance of research

The increase in international interactions has turned the world into a global village, and organizations have no choice for their survival and growth unless they are equipped with various development and growth tools. Today, given that the degree of importance and extent of influence of human resources as the most valuable capital, the main factor of production and the creator of sustainable competitive advantage in the organization, comprehensive and coherent planning for the development of human resources is necessary in parallel with the strategic planning of the organization. New perspectives consider human power as human and intellectual capital. When we change our view of human resources and consider them as the organizational capital and assets, we should also compile and implement appropriate strategies regarding this capital and the methods of their development, cultivation, and empowerment [11].

Empowering employees is a necessary management tool used to guide human resources to increase productivity and is the main axis of development and progress of future organizations benefiting from capable human resources. Considering the increasing importance of human resource empowerment, it seems necessary to develop a reliable empowerment strategy for new organizations [12].

These strategies directly or indirectly change the attitude and behavior of employees and prepare the ground for the training of expert and capable personnel. Concerning the great distance and deep gap between the prospects of human resources development in the country's organizations in comparison with the significant investments of developed countries in the field of human resources, it is worthy that with more consideration and attention to the preparation and compilation, the implementation of strategic plans in the field of management and development of human resources will be discussed. Because as organizations deal with organizational challenges and prioritize continuous improvement, there is a greater need for the support and commitment of employees and involving them in work [13].

Discusion

Today's organizations are affected by factors such as increasing global competition, sudden changes, the need for quality and after-sales services, and the existence of limited resources under great pressure. After many years of experience, the world has come to the conclusion that if an organization wants to be a leader in its economy and business affairs and not fall behind in the field of competition, it should have an expert, creative, and highly motivated human force [14].

Human resources form the basis of real wealth of an organization. There is a direct relationship between human capital and productivity in organizations. Currently, the competitive power of nations depends on the quality of their human capital. "Human capital" management is the most vital type of management in organizations. Depletion of human capital endangers the quality of production goods and services. Therefore, there is no doubt that the prosperity of any society lies in the improvement and development of its human resources, and this is why the officials of organizations pay special attention to the development of employees with the help of behavior and human resources specialists. One of the concepts that is proposed in the direction of promoting the empowerment of employees is the development of human resources and vice versa [15].

Although a different definition of employee empowerment has been presented, the common denominator of all of them is giving more authority and responsibility to employees. If there is no mutual trust (between the management and the employees), no method will be effective in improving the capability. To survive in today's complex and dynamic world, organizations should discover and use this potential force. Capable employees benefit the organization and themselves. One of the productivity techniques in the field of human resources is to use the potential abilities of human resources in each organization.

In individual productivity, the organization uses the set of potential talents and abilities of the individual for the purpose of organization's progress, and the actual use of potential forces and extraordinary talents in the construction direction will lead to the advancement of the individual and alignment with the organization. In fact, empowering technical employees is effective for increasing employee productivity and optimal use of their individual and group capacities and abilities in line with organizational goals. After years of experience, the world has come to the conclusion that if an organization wants to be a leader in its economy and business affairs and not fall behind in the field of competition, it should have expert, creative, and highly motivated human resources. Human resources form the basis of real wealth of an organization. One of the important concerns of the successful economic enterprises of the world is to gather educated and intelligent human capital who are able to create transformation in the organization they belong to [16].

A successful organization is a group composed of people with organizational culture, thoughts, and common goals who put their experiences and knowledge at the disposal of their management with the love for the ever-increasing progress of the organization through group work in the flexible system of the organization. Therefore, each person will feel ownership towards the organization and the task he performs. Using the potential abilities of human resources is considered as a great advantage for any organization. Empowerment is a new method for the survival of leading organizations in a competitive environment [17].

Human Resources

At the beginning of the third millennium, human power is considered as the best, the most important, and the most effective factor for the survival and development of research organizations, and elements such as equipment and devices, capital, technology, etc. are placed in the next ranks. It is clear that when we talk about human power, we also consider factors related to it, such as thoughts and thinking, creativity factor, knowledge, current information, etc. An efficient and qualified human force is the biggest capital of such organizations, a capital that cannot be replaced quickly and easily. No matter how careful the organizations are in recruiting and hiring, the probability that the person they hire is the same person in terms of the desired characteristics is low.

Therefore, the organizations have to train the hired person to bring the knowledge and performance characteristics as close as possible to their standards. The important thing is that employees can show their talents in the positions that are the most compatible with them. Unfortunately, this compatibility does not always happen. Perhaps the talents that have gone to waste due to the lack of establishment of a person in jobs not related to his background, interest, and education, and how many job dissatisfactions that have appeared and overshadowed the goals, but at any point in time and from any point. That this move be corrected is for the benefit of organizations, especially research organizations. What is clear is that today organizations operate in a competitive environment and the discussion of human power efficiency has become one of the serious issues for them. In addition, human power is one of the important and main assets of any organization, if there is not enough care in its development by the managers of the organizations, the organization will turn into an unproductive and costly environment [18].

Implementation of human resource development

As it was mentioned earlier, the competitive power of nations depends on the quality of their human capital, and human resource management in organizations is considered as the most vital type of management. Depletion of human capital endangers the quality of production goods and services. Therefore, there is no doubt that the organizational managers should pay special attention to the training of employees with the help of behavioral and human resource specialists. The implementation of human resources development system is very important in the current business environment, as without the development, training of employees, and familiarizing them with new skills, it can be mentioned with certainty that the organization will be destroyed and eliminated from the competition. In the development of human resources, the organization has a duty to improve the knowledge and performance of its employees using different methods. Some of these methods include training, performance evaluation, job rotation, and resource maintenance, each of these topics has its own theories.

As mentioned previously, when discussing development, it is not just about education. Rather, it is the development of behavior, expertise, and knowledge. In addition, these cases are not temporary and should be done continuously for proper effectiveness. The development of human resources is the concept of generating valuable ideas by the organization's employees, and its new concept requires employees to be equipped with qualities and skills that do not have any problems with the organization, and with compassion, commitment, and scientific insight, abilities, energy, expertise, and thought to align themselves with the organization's missions and to constantly create new intellectual and qualitative values for the organization.

Of course, there are challenges facing the development of human resources, the most important of which are as follow:

1- Financing and credits: Many organizations have many financial problems due to various reasons, including low productivity, and efficiency. These economic and budget problems prevent the implementation of development programs because it is clear that empowerment and development programs require investment of money and time. Likewise, there are some managers who consider such programs as an overhead cost and an additional burden on the organization and avoid their implementation.

2- Being in a non-competitive environment: Iran does not feel the need to develop its human resources due to various reasons, including sanctions, not being a member of the WTO, and commercial and economic isolation. This case is especially seen in government organizations because compensation for the lack of productivity of manpower is provided from the government budget.

3- Changing the management style: In empowerment programs, management styles will change to leadership styles. This change is always challenging because it requires questioning the usual working methods, taking risks and experimenting, focusing on team activities, increasing the range of employees' options, paying attention to new values, the desire to exchange organizational information, and improving methods that most of the time, strong resistance will follow from all organizational levels.

4- Changing the performance of employees: Empowerment programs will make the employees speak openly, instead of finding the culprit, they are looking for a solution, they will be cooperative, they will prioritize the interests of organization over individual interests, and finally they will not seek to become an index.

5- Changing the organizational structure: In the empowerment process, the organizational structure will change from a pyramid to a circle. This change in structure, while allowing employees to work with a greater degree of freedom and responsibility, considers the spirit of participation and teamwork as a major organizational value, and in the face of a pyramid structure in which nothing is done unless it is approved and signed. If it is taken in advance, it will create many challenges [19].

6- Accountability: The lack of accountability of employees prevents them from showing interest in development and improvement programs. In addition, employees should also feel the need to upgrade their knowledge, which is mostly the organizational responsibility.

7- Weakness of management: Management can sometimes have an inhibiting role in the implementation of empowerment programs. It is necessary to familiarize managers with the necessity of employee development and to teach them development strategies and methods. Some managers believe that the employees not only do not have enough skills to perform the assigned responsibilities, but also do not have the necessary ability to play new roles. They believe that empowerment is inherent and not acquired, and for this reason, they oppose all matters and processes related to empowering employees, or they create obstacles in the way of its performance.

8- Threat of managerial security: Some other managers believe that empowering employees will cause them to lose control of affairs. Therefore, they do not show much interest in sharing or transferring their work skills and prefer to work on tasks themselves rather than involving others.

9- Flexibility: Organizations with little flexibility and are in fact non-agile, do not value the development of their personnel.

10- The organization's resistance to change: Since the development of employees requires organizational change, many managers have a feeling of fear of change and the presence of a negative attitude of management, who consider the freedom of action of employees as synonymous with organizational failure.

11- Mandatory process: Many organizations force their employees to participate in development programs. Of course, when something is done under compulsion, the motivation, and level of learning decreases and the organization cannot be successful in implementing its plans. In this regard, first, the employees should be informed about the necessity of personal development, and then these programs should be implemented [20].

12- Absence of performance evaluation management to evaluate and improve the empowerment process: The implementation of empowerment programs after completion of implementation, need to evaluate performance, and measure effectiveness. It is not possible to carry out the implementation of human power empowerment without having appropriate criteria for measuring effectiveness and evaluating performance. In this case, we have only made an investment that we do not know about its yield and return.

Human resources in project-oriented companies

Human resource management in any project-oriented company is the strategic and sustainable management of human resources as the most valuable asset to help achieve the mission and set goals with an emphasis on creating added value and creating a competitive advantage through human resources. The performance report of human resources management and training during the last year, as described below, shows the desired and result-oriented performance of new management of the company and the unit's staff. In most companies, the responsibility of the human resources management unit is more in the direction of policy-making and guidance, but in general, the exact nature of human resources management units is very dependent on the size of organization.

In large companies that carry out large projects, it is easy to plan the individual's work density. For example, in I12 and I13 companies, employees are allocated to projects during the annual budgeting process. Therefore, it is easy to adjust the working time of a person according to the usual working hours per week, i.e. 40 hours from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. If a person needs to work more in the critical conditions of the project, especially in the final stages, this increase in work can be predicted and planned from the beginning. For instance, the following actions can be taken in this field: Using contract employees as auxiliary forces for regular employees in critical conditions and work congestion [21].

The biggest organizational problem or big projects is the distance of employees from their families. Especially if his workplace is far from his family. According to the i11 report, a number of employees who had been working in South Korea for a long time threatened to leave the organization if they were not sent back. I13 company should employ the research group of that organization for a long time in a remote area. A number of C3 company employees, who had just returned from a long 5-year mission in a big project, were assigned in another project with the same duration. The distance between the project work and their home was about 100 kilometers, so they felt separated from their home. Most of them suffered from the syndrome of being away from home.

Human resource management functions specific to the project

Allocation to the project: Unlike organizations that do large projects, in organizations that do small to medium projects, different functions of human resources management are used. In projects with a time period of more than one year, the allocation of resources is based on the annual budgeting cycle, and in projects of less than one year, the allocation is based on operational decisions. Evaluation in the project: Although the necessity of project evaluation and its importance in creating the motivation and integration of the group members have been emphasized in the literature related to the project in the last twenty years, but usually less attention is paid to it and only the informal evaluation of the project manager is limited. Project reward: Most organizations have methods for rewarding that are usually indirect and in the form of giving gifts or invitations to social programs [22].

Empowerment

Empowerment is a process in which continuous improvement of performance is helped through the development and expansion of the influence and ability of individuals and teams. In other words, empowerment is a strategy of organizational development and prosperity. Empowerment is the use of knowledge and increasing the motivation of employees by the management, and ultimately the organization will easily reach its goals. Empowerment is the process of achieving continuous improvement in the organization's performance, which is realized through the development and expansion of influence of competent people and teams in most of their aspects and duties, which in turn affects their performance and the performance of the entire organization [23]. 

The results of Bowen Velaver's research (1992) showed that empowerment occurs when power, information, knowledge, and rewards are distributed in the organization, and if one of these four elements is zero, empowerment will be zero. In addition, Warren Bennis interviewed in his research to determine the characteristics of great leaders. The results of this research showed that the most influential great leaders have a distinct feature, which is that they create a sense of empowerment in others. Matsushita says in the book Nine Bites for Bread: Only when the management opens its hands to its employees, the employees work enthusiastically to achieve the goals in front of them. Empowerment is defined as the use of leadership power in others and the ability to do work through them, and its basis is change in leadership. When the leader expresses his viewpoint about what he wants to be done. In fact, he delegates a large amount of authority and allows his followers to move with interest towards achieving individual and organizational goals. Empowerment is a new method for the survival of leading organizations in a competitive environment [24].

In the strategy of comprehensive quality management, if the empowerment of employees is not paid attention to, that strategy is definitely doomed to failure. Continuous improvement (Kaizen) is when employees have the necessary information and are trusted by the management so that they can use their skills and abilities. The purpose of empowering employees is that people should be able to develop all their skills and knowledge and use them to achieve personal and organizational goals. The appropriate design of organization and jobs are methods that increase the responsibility of employees as individuals, groups, and teams. increase, appropriate employment of people, provision of individual and group advancements in a way that makes the advancement of individuals possible, and education methods that increase both competence and self-confidence in employees, will make organizational people human beings empower to serve the goals. Empowerment is a process that needs a clear and dynamic attitude, in which the context of seeking participation and continuous learning is provided for employees and managers, and for its success, regulations and appropriate methods should be prepared and compiled.

Empowerment as a management concept can be defined as the process of increasing people's decision-making rights and their growth through cooperation, sharing, nurturing, and team activities. If this concept is examined closely, it can be considered as a continuation of the concepts of participation, delegation of authority, and motivation, which are discussed a lot in the organizational management. However, the difference between empowerment and them is that the concept of empowerment includes a broader concept and its implementation is not easy compared to the other concepts. Empowerment means empowering, which means helping people to improve their self-confidence and overcome their feelings of helplessness and helplessness. It also means to mobilize internal motivation to perform a task. Empowering people means encouraging them.

It means to provide opportunities for people to show that they can create good ideas and implement them. Empowerment means to simply encourage people to play a more active role in their work and progress to the extent that they take responsibility for improving their activities, and finally reach a level of strength that they can do without referring to a higher official. However, as long as empowerment is defined as simply delegating power from above or sharing power from below, performance improvement will not be realized through it. When empowerment is limited to one-way exchanges from powerful people to powerless people, its meaning is distorted [25].

Such an understanding of empowerment implies that what is given can be taken back. The power that can be given and taken back puts people in a position to act with the permission of another. This idea of empowerment certainly cannot satisfy the organization's need to have members who actively seek to create personal competence (without permission or even other information), and also find new ways on their own initiative to use their new competencies. In general, it can be mentioned that empowerment it indicates the performances and conditions that employees assume to be motivated, their confidence in their knowledge and expertise increases, they feel hopeful to move and act using flexibility, they believe in the possibility of controlling events and perform provides tasks and affairs that are appropriate and meaningful in line with the goals of the organization. This definition shows that empowerment means giving power to employees. By promoting and developing the empowerment culture, managers can delegate daily tasks to empowered groups. But before that, the goals should be clearly stated for the employees and the necessary tools for decision-making such as: Information and resources should be available to them, and then the management will have the opportunity to deal with the basic and more important tasks.

Empowerment is the process of empowering people. In this process, we help our employees to improve their self-confidence and overcome their feelings of helplessness. In this sense, empowerment leads to the mobilization of people's internal motivations. Empowering and encouraging people to participate more in making decisions that affect their activities. In this way, we can provide opportunities for people to show that they can create good ideas and put them into action.

The benefits of empowerment

Researches show that by implementing the empowerment process and continuous training of employees, the goals of the organization can be easily achieved. Among the benefits of empowerment, we can mention the increase in profit, quality, customer satisfaction, sense of belonging, and ownership of employees towards the organization, improvement of working conditions, and reduction of costs, losses, stress, accidents, and direct supervisor supervision.

• "Kangero" (1988) listed the following reasons for the intensity of attention to empowerment:
• Management skills studies show that empowering subordinates is an important part of organizational and managerial effectiveness.
• The analysis of power and control in organizations indicates that sharing power and control of employees increases the organizational effectiveness.
• The experiences of group formation in the organization indicate that employee empowerment strategies play an important role in the creation and survival of the group.

The purpose of empowerment is to create an organization composed of committed and enthusiastic employees who perform their job duties because they both have an opinion and enjoy it. In addition, the purpose of human power empowerment is to use the potential capacities of people to develop organizational added value, strengthen the feeling of self-confidence, and overcome individual disabilities and helplessness. In other words, the purpose of empowerment is to provide the best intellectual resources related to any field of the organization's performance. Galbraith and Laure Gide believe that the long-term goal of empowerment is to assure employees that they will succeed within the framework of the organization's mission, vision, and strategy [26].

Empowerment claims to rule justice by emphasizing the rights of employees for self-organization and personal growth. In other words, empowerment is a way that, with the help of delegating disciplinary factors to employees, leads them towards accountability, and therefore motivation and self-discipline, thereby increasing their level of perfection.

People in empowerment should accept the responsibility of improving their jobs and daily tasks. It is up to the individual to make his job better, richer, and more satisfying. When a person does this, he can make better decisions and become more responsible and become a person who can participate better.

In this regard, Leach and Wall write: Empowerment is a means to improve employees, especially it is a way to create knowledge and ability of employees to improve performance [27].

Employee empowerment factors

Undoubtedly, in every organization, in the direction of empowering human resources, there are major factors and obstacles that cause the wastage of human resources and decrease the efficiency level and effectiveness in the organization. These obstacles are: The dominance of the formal and hierarchical structure, the low level of trust and confidence of the members of organization towards each other, the inappropriate attitude of managers towards employees and inappropriate management and leadership styles, the lack of necessary skills in employees, the great difference between people in the organization and the existence of systems uncoordinated personnel and tension and stress in the work environment.

On the other hand, the important factors of human resource empowerment in organizations are:

• Clarity of goals, responsibilities, and powers in the organization,
• Enrichment of jobs and promotion of employees,
• Morale and organizational belonging: To fulfill this factor, one should respect the employees in the organization and help them to solve their personal problems. For invention, innovation, and creativity in employees, appropriate fields should be provided and the senior management of the organization should make sure that the employees are willing to do the tasks assigned to them.
• Trust, sincerity, and honesty: The organization should create a positive atmosphere and friendly working relationships between employees and increase trust between managers and employees.
• Recognition and appreciation,
• Participation and working group: Using the opinions and ideas of employees in making decisions and their cooperation in improving and advancing the affairs of the organization, delegating authority to employees at different levels, involving employees in providing suggestions for better doing things, and controlling the things done by employees by themselves can be effective as a factor of participation and working group in increasing the empowerment of employees in organizations.

7. Communication: It includes establishing communication and easy access of employees to managers and supervisors, transparency, and clarity of working relationships of employees with managers and supervisors, and awareness of employees about the current affairs of the company in relation to their work area, etc.

Empowerment models

1. Thomas and Veltos model

In a valuable research, four dimensions of psychological empowerment have been identified in a conceptual model:

• Effect,
• Personal determination or choice,
• Competence, and
•  

2. Bowen and Lawler

In Bowen and Lawler's model, access to information plays an important role in decision-making, which leads to empowerment. These experts consider the empowerment factor in four organizational components:

• Information about the performance of the organization,
• Reward based on organizational performance,
• The power to make effective decisions for the organization, and
• The power to make effective decisions on the organizational performance.

The results of the research show that when there is the ability for companies to distribute the power of information, knowledge, and rewards in the organization, and if one of these four elements is zero. In comparison between Thomas and Veltos model as well as Bowen and Lawler model, another researcher named Spreitzer says: Thomas and Veltos' psychological competence is a motivational concept that is explained in four psychological components: The feeling of effectiveness, the feeling of having the right to choose, the feeling of competence, and the feeling of meaning. The combination of these four components creates an active orientation towards the work role in the individual. In this model, the lack of each of four components will reduce the degree of capability, but it will not completely eliminate it, while in Bowen and Lawler's model, they are multiplicative and absence of any of the components causes elimination of capability [28].

Spritzer model

Based on the test of the Thomas and Veltos model, Spreitzer states the factors affecting psychological competence and the results of psychological competence in the form of a visual model.

Alfred Bandura model

Bandura has conceptualized self-efficacy beliefs and its role in the feeling of personal empowerment. The result of his research is the model introduction with four elements as follows:

• Using positive emotional support in work pressures and excitements,
• Using positive incentives and encouragement,
• Having models of successful people whom the members know, and
• The realization of real experiences of mastery in successfully doing things.

Self-efficacy model

Alfred Bandura has conceptualized self-efficacy beliefs and its role in the feeling of personal power. The result of his research in psychology is the introduction of four tools for empowering others:

• Using positive emotional support in work pressures and excitements,
• Use of incentives and encouragement of the positive,
• Having models of successful people that he knows, and
• Real business from mastery in doing work successfully (successful experience).

Knoller's ideal model

In this context, Noler (1991) has presented a four-dimensional model for empowerment, which he calls the ideal and Berry model. He states that we empower a person or a group of people in a certain success when they have the following conditions such as:

• They have full decision-making ability,
• They are fully responsible for the implementation of any type of decision,

• They have full access to the tools related to decision-making and its implementation,
• They have the full responsibility of accepting the consequences of any decision made, and
• This is an ideal situation and it is not observed continuously in organizations. The vital part of this definition is the emphasis on personal willingness to accept responsibility for the consequences of actions taken and decisions made [29].

Empowerment through job rotation

Job rotation is a method by which it is possible to transform employees who are detail-oriented and whose vision is limited only to their own field of work into holistic people who see and understand issues in a wider dimension. In addition to rotate in different jobs, it increases one's knowledge and experience, it reduces mental fatigue and blame, and this causes intellectual movement, creativity, and innovation. Furthermore, a person's performance in different positions and responsibilities will be a good criterion for evaluating and measuring his abilities.

Job rotation is further considered one of the most important types of training, because in advanced organizations, it is believed that the quality level of personnel is the most important factor of success, and this is achieved through on-the-job training. For example, in Japanese institutions, on-the-job training along with job rotation technique is considered as the main focus of managers' training, and training outside the work environment is not given much importance. These trainings are done through transfer in different jobs and it is the most common and logical way to improve human resources. In this method, the transfer of people in different jobs is done in one part based on the scheduled schedule under the title (career), during which the employee in each job learns the main skills and becomes an expert in that job; transfer is done again, and so on. It helps the person to get acquainted with other horizontal jobs of the same level and to move horizontally.

After this stage, people are transferred from one part to another. It is obvious that work flow in these stages is different for each type of career path and it allocates a different period of time. In typical Japanese organizations, when a person's job rotation ends, he has reached the age of 40, and from now on, using the experiences gained from traveling in various jobs and acquired expertise and skills, he is considered as a valuable manager for the organization. Experts recommend job rotation in organizations all over the world, but the reason for the success of this technique in countries like Japan is that the managers of such institutions have their human resources in lifelong employment and they understand well that the trainings are designed for their development. Currently, in the new management viewpoint, rather than giving importance to specialization, they value the managers' comprehensiveness and respect for the organizations' goals.

The Japanese have paid attention to this point in the best possible way. In Japan, every person becomes a generalist before becoming a manager. According to them, holistic managers are very important and useful for organizations because they can play a significant role in developing the organization's strategy. In fact, one of the improvements in the turnover of jobs at managerial levels can be considered as turning the specialist managers into the generalist managers [10].

Empowerment through education

Training is one of the most complex tasks in the administration of any organization, especially in human resource management. After the recruitment system, there is a system of improvement and proper use of human resources. In fact, training is one of the most important measures and programs of any organization, and the training system is considered to complement the employment system, it empowers the existing human force, and guarantees future success. Training and improvement leads to deeper insight, higher knowledge, and more ability and skill of the people working in the organization to perform the assigned tasks, and as a result, it leads to the achievement of organizational goals with better and more productive work.

Michael Lubov writes in his book on the necessity of investing in education: Invest in the growth and development of employees. If they are not prepared for higher jobs and responsibilities, promotion from within the organization is disastrous. Organizations that have loyal employees invest in their education and training and their continuous development. Doubtless, employee training and development is expensive, but if you think that training is expensive, consider the cost of ignorance or by spending time for employees who are paying the training costs, the last method causes competence and loyalty of the employees.

Communication of employee empowerment and training

One of the main problems of the executive bodies is the lack of trained and skilled employees. Universities and higher education institutions do not play a big role in preparing people to enter the institutions. University graduates with a set of scientific information still do not have the necessary abilities to work in executive bodies. Therefore, training the government employees and empowering and increasing the job skills of the employees for the desired activities is perhaps one of the most important solutions for empowering the human resources in the desired organization. Developing training programs for employees and implementing short-term and long-term courses that increase intellectual and professional abilities of employees are among the factors that play a very important role in empowering employees.

The lack of funds for training executive bodies and economic enterprises is one of the most important obstacles and bottlenecks. The lack of belief of some managers, the lack of interest of some employees in training is further one of the obstacles to development in this field. If the training programs are considered among the programs of the managers, or if the job promotion of employees, the payment of the benefits of employees, and the employment and appointment to the positions are related to the training, it will be very effective.

Pigorz and Myers mentioned the role of training: Good training reduces job dissatisfaction and re-employment to a great extent and helps employees to work at their full capacity. Such important goals will not be realized unless all the hierarchies of the organization (from the executive director to the employees) are aware of the importance of education. Therefore, it can be concluded that: One of the factors that has a great effect on productivity and can play an important role in its improvement is the training of human resources. New techniques and productivity improvement plans cannot be created or applied effectively without trained human resources at all levels of the organization. Some studies have shown that there is a very strong positive correlation between education and productivity. Even the comparative studies of economic progress between different countries have shown that every country with trained manpower has enjoyed higher productivity and economic growth.

Empowerment through performance evaluation

Organizations are basically created to achieve goals, the degree of success of which is directly related to the performance of employees. Therefore, the evaluation of employees and their performance has an important position in human resource management. One of the most important success factors in any organization is the existence of an accurate and realistic performance evaluation system, and the purpose of performance evaluation is to identify the level of effectiveness and efficiency of the organization's employees and to achieve the goals of human resource management. The evolutionary course of management theories and schools from the past until now have given more importance to the role and position of human resources in achieving the goals and missions of organizations and consider humans as the most important resource of the organization and the current century to belong to organizations that rely on knowledge, skill, and thoughts of creative and innovative people. Today's organizations need employees who can make decisions, give new solutions and take responsibility for the results.

Therefore, perhaps the most important challenge for managers of production and service organizations, including educational institutions, in the new century can be considered as the cultivation of creative and dynamic people through empowerment. Empowerment is the most modern way to increase productivity and improve quality. Empowerment is a way for employees to participate and cooperate with each other, that is, employees reach a stage where they understand that they are not only responsible for their work, but also for the results of the entire organization. When the conditions are provided that the ability of people to adapt to the organizational environment is increased and employees are always looking for learning and acquiring new skills and through group participation, analyze and provide appropriate solutions to the issues and problems of their field of work. Then, it can be mentioned that the manager is successfully walking the path of empowering the employees [1].

Empowerment through maintenance

The human resources maintenance system reduces the turnover of human resources and increases the productivity of organization in the long run. Perhaps, in an organization with the best recruitment methods, the most deserving people have been selected and joined the service of that organization (recruitment system), and then with various evaluation and training methods (improvement system), the insight, skills, and knowledge of these employees have been increased.

However, if they are not properly cared for during their service or if there are more and better attractions in other organizations, it will cause those people, especially the experts, to easily leave the mentioned organization and be attracted to those organizations, and as a result of the related efforts and costs. It is wasted on recruiting, training, and equipping human resources and investing on people.

Background of the research

In his master's thesis in 2001, Mohammad Janalinejad studied the factors affecting the employees’ productivity of Tarbiat Modares University and made suggestions for the preservation and maintenance of human resources and increasing productivity. He has used binomial and Friedman test to test research hypotheses. The findings of his research have shown that there is a significant relationship between factors such as: Employee participation, manager's support for employees, giving continuous feedback, interest in the work environment, continuous justification of employees, and workforce productivity.

Ramin Sepehri Rad in 2011, in his Master's Degree thesis, initially extracted indicators of employee performance from the literature and according to the characteristics of the National Organization for Productivity and polling experts, the standards appropriate to this organization in four categories of personal characteristics, technical skills has grouped human skills and cognitive skills [22].

In the following, using the fuzzy AHP technique, the importance of each of these criteria has been calculated to evaluate the performance of employees at different levels of organization. After data collection, the final scores of the employees' performance in three scenarios were presented to the management for decision-making, and then this information was used as an input for the efficient payment model. The final result is the share determination of each employee of the National Organization of Labor Efficiency.

In 2010, Nasser Amani studied the development strategies of human capital in Tehran municipality using the national economy development approach. His results have shown that Tehran Municipality, as a learning organization, has been able to provide a strategic model for improving human resources in recent years. This model can be used by other institutions and organizations as a management theory in the organizational structure of executive bodies. The main approach of this model is to pay attention to the rights of individuals, social participation, the up-to-date ness of the organization, the dynamism of the organization, and attention to sustainable development [13].

In 2011, Hashemi and Pouraminzad investigated and studied the challenges facing the improvement and empowerment of human resources and the solutions to these challenges. In their research, initially the process, goals, and tasks of human resources management were discussed, and then the challenges of human resources management were fully described and to solve these challenges, the issue of employee empowerment was raised, which includes empowerment patterns and challenges in empowerment. Human resources are the strategic process, practical measures, and strategies to empower human resources.

In 2001, Rashidi et al. translated a research entitled "Improving human resources in research organizations using job turnover" published in 2002. In this research, along with the definition of job rotation, its possible advantages and disadvantages are presented along with the experiences of domestic and foreign research and production companies.

In a research project in 2010, Mohammad Reza Abbasi investigated and studied the management of performance evaluation and promotion of human resources. He raised several basic questions and tried to answer them in his research. His plan was compiled with the aim of realizing the ideals of Sama Organization to form competent, efficient, and committed human capital [4].

In 2009, Mohammad Amin Jalilvand investigated the role and necessity of education in the improvement of human resources and development in research. The results of his research showed that if the employees see training related to the job description, they can better contribute to the improvement of efficiency level and the supervisors and managers will not need much supervision about their subordinates, and at the same time, they can prepare them for higher and more responsible job because employees can perform their duties in the light of proper training. Therefore, in the direction of organizational goals of the university, which is the expansion of science and knowledge, it is necessary and mandatory to have an elite, efficient and knowledgeable human force.

In 2009, Nasiripour et al. have investigated the effect of job rotation on the performance of nurses in social security hospitals in Tehran. Their research was causal and retrospective in a case-control manner in 9 social welfare hospitals in Tehran. The research community is the nurses of the studied hospitals who did not have job rotation and those who had job rotation. From the first group, 45 people participated in the research and were selected as the control group. From the second sub-community, 45 people were selected as the case group by homogenization method. The data collection tool was a questionnaire, and to evaluate the annual performance of nurses, the annual evaluation score available in the organization was used. The results of their research show that the performance of nurses in the studied hospitals is independent of their job rotation status and the current job rotation in 2009 did not improve the performance of nurses [5].

In an article in 2009, Abbasi investigated the process of developing human resource capabilities with a strategic approach by applying favorable changes in the leadership system, training, and culture of the organization. This research, using a descriptive-analytical method, investigates the process of developing human resource capabilities by applying desirable changes in the planning system, human resource management, cultural structure, and educational system of the country's organizations, and with a practical approach and relying on past study records, concerning the shortcomings in the country's human resources management system, provide solutions and suggestions in the form of the following: (i) Explaining and promoting the development-oriented approach to the category of human resources management, concerning the strategic importance of human resources development and the need to adopt appropriate and up-to-date strategies to create compatibility and coordination with acceptable international standards in the field of human resources management, (ii) explaining and investigating the need for professional management of human resources and introducing some principles and foundations related to the management of educated and competent people in current organizations, (iii) improving the organizational culture and improving and optimizing the education system to achieve the goals related to the improvement of organization.

In 2012, Babakhani et al. wrote an article on employee empowerment strategy in Kermanshah Gas Company. To prepare the strategy of this company, the comprehensive framework method of strategy preparation has been used. In initial stage, the human resources mission statement of Gas company was determined, and then in the entry stage, the evaluation matrix of external factors (EFE) and the evaluation matrix of internal factors (IFE) were given. In the matching and comparison stage, the SWOT matrix and the internal and external matrix (IE) are formed. In the decision-making stage, using the Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM), the strategies identified in the matching and comparison stage have been evaluated and judged, and the best strategy has been selected.

In 2010, Jazni et al. wrote an article on human resource development strategies with the approach of developing employees' knowledge. This research was conducted in an industrial product research and development center, where the development of human resources and knowledge development of employees play an important role in the success of its strategy and mission. For this purpose, the current status of the effective areas in the development of human resources has been investigated and analyzed, and then the knowledge gap of the employees has been identified and the root causes of the gap have been identified and the appropriate selection of strategies was taken into account. Finally, human resource development strategies have been compiled in line with the organization's main strategy and human resource management strategy.

In 2011, Jazni and Rostami discussed the design and development of the strategic model of human resource empowerment in knowledge-based organizations in an article. In this research, the effect of personal, structural, and strategic dimensions on the strategic empowerment of human resources has been investigated with the help of statistical tools. The results of this research showed that among the factors affecting strategic empowerment, the strategic dimension factor has the greatest impact on employee empowerment, and the structural dimension component has the next priority, and finally, the individual dimension has the least impact on employee empowerment [3].

In 2008, Elosem Skinner and Quartet studied the scheduling of job turnover and presented the ant colony optimization algorithm to obtain the optimal schedule with the aim of minimizing workload. They designed an integer programming mathematical model for the problem under study and compared the results of the ant colony algorithm with the results of solving the designed model and the results of the simulated annealing algorithm. The results of these comparisons show that the ant colony algorithm is more powerful than the simulated annealing algorithm and the mathematical model is designed.

In 2012, Li Yan et al. investigated the relationship between employee empowerment and creativity in an article. The results of this research show that structural empowerment is partially effective on the relationship between leadership and psychological empowerment, psychological empowerment is completely effective on the relationship between structural empowerment and creativity, and structural and psychological empowerment are, respectively, effective on the relationship between leadership and creativity. This article examines different viewpoints in the field of empowerment and studies the communication mechanisms of empowerment and creativity [31].

Conclusion

In today's era, organizations need to provide new services and products to the market faster to deal with the pressures caused by competitors, stakeholders, shareholders, and customers. As the work environment is becoming diverse and different, companies should also try to strengthen the capabilities and competencies of employees to achieve a competitive advantage. Competitive advantage requires competence and ability to create better products and services and a higher rate of return than competitors. Human resources should help the company to create added value in capital products and services earlier than competitors. If the human resource creates this value on time, it will contribute to the company's competitive advantage. In such conditions, to overcome uncertainty and complexity, and also dynamism is the only way that is in front of the managers. The ability of the organization and its employees is acquired through the acquisition of knowledge and skills that quickly become outdated and out of date. Therefore, having a capable and efficient human force, which is the foundation of national wealth and vital assets of the organization, will bring many benefits for organizations, companies, and economic enterprises.

Citation S. Setorg*, Strategic Review of Human Resource Development in Contemporary Management. Int. J. Adv. Stu. Hum. Soc. Sci. 2023, 12 (3):244-261.

       https://doi.org/10.22034/IJASHSS.2023.382904.1131

Copyright © 2023 by SPC (Sami Publishing Company) + is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License(CC BY)  license  (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.