Why is employee empowerment important in a total quality management program?

What will be an ideal response?

With TQM, everyone is expected to contribute to the overall improvement of quality. Each employee must identify his or her customers, and for many employees their internal customers may outnumber their external customers. Once customers are identified, means of satisfying those customers must be identified and acted on. Empowerment moves the responsibility farther down the organizational chart and allows employees to independently make changes in what they do in order to satisfy their customers.