Your group is the newly formed "Service Excellence Committee" at Hillcrest Memorial Hospital. Over the past year, employee turnover has dramatically increased throughout the organization with no obvious reason. The hospital CEO has asked the committee to survey and research reasons for the turnover. Upon careful review of the surveys, you notice that normal reasons for turnover, such as low pay and poor benefits, are not the problem. However, one trend stands out—dissatisfaction with job autonomy. You surmise the reason this is a problem is that Hillcrest operates with a traditional hierarchy, including traditional manager roles that appear more dictatorial than participative. 

Employees have limited freedom when it comes to their work and are neither motivated nor empowered by managers. The committee discusses this and then decides to explore this theory further. Empowerment is a controversial topic to members of the committee, as their initial fear is that once an employee is empowered they will run amok and the organization will suffer. Upper management ignores the concept of employee motivation due to the misconception that motivating employees means it will cost the organization money. The committee is assigned the task of writing a draft response to present to the CEO.

Question:

How might Hillcrest develop and implement an employee program that encompasses employee motivation and empowerment?