Introduction
The effective management practice to be put in place of work is the five functions which comprise of planning, staffing, leading, controlling and organizing. An effective, efficient, and successful workplace depend greatly on an excellent staff working. A wise leader will make sure that the sections managers and subordinates are made aware of the organization’s planning, employees are organized, provide time and appropriate staffing, show the roadmap of the organization by leading, and controlling in order to attain targets of the organization. Managers are then supposed to be well conversant with the five functions, and to implement them accordingly in the workplace. When all the five functions are applied in an organization set-up as a team work, it enhances an organization to achieve its goals easily and timely. Willingness and applications will drastically improve the success of the business that is focused on accepting the changes.
Planning is the first function to be implemented an organization’s management. Planning is the process of the thinking and creation of the required activities in order to achieve the desired goals or solve specific problems. In planning, it predicts what the future should look like. The leaders of the organization in my workplace are using planning to pick suitable business goals and make out the right action to achieve those goals.
The executives give a full and active support to the set goals of the organization. By doing so, it will motivate each to work as a team and commit themselves to delivers the set goals. On top of that, they carefully plan in order to make sure the company is run at its full capacity and attained the set goals. That one is being done by ensuring the right amount of the materials are supply on time and the right quality, and employing the enough number of employees to man the various sections within the organization. Mechanisms have been put in place to acquire enough resource only at the time they are required and this will enhances organization.
The executives in the company am working for have laid down channels for effective communication of the information within an organization. Effective communication has been laid down to aid in channeling the correct and clear information to reach the target person at the right time. Proper information, the right guidance and accurate information are given to the subordinates to give them the right direction.
Most of the plans are developed with employees’ involvement and all the departments to facilitate proper coordination. Efficient planning of the medium-term, short-term and long-term plans will also facilitate proper coordination. Executives of the company have included non-financial and financial incentives in the plans of the company to both employees and managers. These incentives have greatly motivated employees to work hard in order to achieve the objectives of the company.
The top level of management has laid down a good foundation which encourages creativity and innovation to keep the organization to be at pace with current technology and surpasses their competitors. On the other hand, managers are coming up with many diverse plans which are later selected to pick the best. Creativity, innovation, and diverse plans eventually satisfied the management and accomplishment to the organization.
Leading as a management function
Leadership functions entail setting vision, coaching, and inspiring employees in an organization. It involves setting a group goal, inspiring and motivating subordinates, making plans, and supervising the performance.
Functions of a manager leader
Leading as a managerial function is performing the following functions in the company I work for.
A manager leader acts as a representative of the work-group. A manager leader work in order to link between the work group and the top management. He makes sure difficulties and problems facing the work group are communicated to the management and communicate the expectation of the management to the workgroup. Secondly a manager leader has a role to develop a team spirit between the members of the group. He encourages individuals to work as a team instead of performing as individuals. He creates conducive atmosphere having in minds the needs of the subordinates, their competence and potential abilities. Thirdly, a manager leader acts as a councilor of the people at work by guiding and advising subordinates when they are faced with problems at work. The problems may be emotional or technical, and when the situation is out of control, a leader always stands behind the subordinates. He encourages and supports them to solve the problems.
Leadership involves different leadership styles applied by different organization to spur workers towards attaining the objectives of the organization. Autocratic leaders have the power over the entire decision making and disregard suggestions by the employees. Autocratic leadership is important when speedy decision-making is required and is of confidential. On the other hand, it demoralizes employees and impact negatively on creative decision making. Democratic leaders consider suggestions made by employees in their decision-making. This leadership style motivates employees but on the on the other hand it is time consuming because of wide consultations. In Laissez Faire leadership style, the managers’ leaders give a significant of freedom and autonomy to their employees. This leadership style is effective when the personnel involves are highly skilled in their respective fields. Lastly, the paternalistic leadership allows employee input but they finally made decision making on where they considers them are best. This last type of leadership style is what was applied in the company am working for.
Staffing as a management function
Staffing is the process of placing people with the right competence in the right jobs using appropriate selection process, appraisal and development of employees to fit the roles delegated to them by employers. Staffing entails the recruitment, selection, development, and compensation of employees.
The nature of staffing function
First, staffing is performed by all managers who also depend on the nature of the business, qualifications and skills of managers, and the size of the company. In the medium enterprises, staffing is performed by the concern personnel department whereas in a small organization, the top management usually performs it. Secondly, staffing is a continuous activity that is the function of staffing is continuous throughout the lifespan of an organization because of the promotion and transfers taking place within an organization. Thirdly, the fundamental of the staffing function is efficient personnel management. The human resources are efficiently managed by a defined procedure which involves the recruitment, selection, placement, providing remuneration, training and development. Fourthly, staffing is a continuous activity which is carried out by all managers and in all types of concerns where business activities are involved. Fifthly, staffing is an important managerial function in which planning, directing, controlling and organizing managerial functions all depend on manpower that is obtainable through staffing function. Sixthly, staffing helps in placing the right people at the right job which is done through appropriate recruitment procedures and selection.
In our company set up, the staffing function is done through the following process. First is the manpower requirement. The first step in staffing is started by planning the manpower inventory required in every section of the organization that is essential to match with the job requirements and demands. The future manpower needs of the concerned section is forecasted and determined at appropriate time. This will help to make sure that always the job requirements are matched with the demands.
Second step involved in staffing is the recruitment. After notifying the requirements, the HR department invites and solicits applications in accordance with invitations made to the desirable candidates. The third step of staffing function is the selection of the solicited applications. Selection is the screening step of the staffing whereby the solicited applications are screened out, and appropriate candidates are selected as per the requirements.
Fourthly, after selecting the right candidates they are taken to the next step of orientation and placement. At this step, the selected candidates are made familiar to the work units and work environment via orientation programs and placement follows by positioning the right person on the right job. Training and development of workers is the fifth function of the staffing. Workers are trained and developed as part of the incentives in order to enhance growth within the section attached to them. Training given to the workers depends on the scenery of activities and scope of expansion. Along the training process, the workers are developed by gaining extra benefits of knowledge in their respective job areas. Training and development involve giving an opportunity to workers to work in key and important jobs in order to test their performance. This is an important part of staffing because it gives an individual employee to develop where they are best in and gets a promotion, therefore, retaining them in the organization.
Remuneration of employees is the sixth function of the staffing. Remuneration is a form of compensation to employees for their work performance given in the form of money, and this serves as a monetary incentives. Remuneration is done in accordance with the nature of the job whether it is physical or mental and skilled or unskilled. The next seventh function of the staffing is performance evaluation. It involves keeping track of the behavior, attitudes, and opinions of the workers towards their jobs. Performance evaluations aim at accessing the development cycles and growth pattern of the employees in their jobs. It is a regular assessment activity done to evaluate and supervise various jobs within an organization. Promotion and transfer are the last functions of the staffing. Promotion involves shifting of workers to higher job demanding bigger responsibilities or shifting of workers from one work unit to another work unit of different branches of the organization.
Organizing as a function of the management
Organizing is defined as the allocation of resources to the various sections within an organization in order to attain the set goals. It is an important function of the management as it complements the planning function because goals have to be set before deploying resources to aid in achieving them. In organizing its role is to ensure that the human, physical, and financial resources are combined in order to work harmoniously to deliver the objectives of the company.
A manager follows the below steps while performing organization function
He first identifies all the activities to be performed in the concern sections of the organization. This is done by preparing accounts, record keeping, inventory control, quality control, and making sales. Organizing activities according to the department is the second step of organizing function. At this step, related and similar activities are grouped as departments or units. The next third step of organizing function is classifying the authority. After the units or departments have been established, the task is to classify powers and the extent of those to the managers. This is the process of establishing the hierarchy where the top management has the responsibility to formulate policies, the middle level management supervised departments, and the lower level management supervised foremen. Lastly, the coordination between authority and responsibility are established. Channels are established between the various groups in order to enable interaction is smooth towards achievements of the goals. Organizing facilitates implementation of planning, controlling, staffing and directing.
Controlling as a management function
Controlling helps to detect errors made and take the corrective measures in order to minimize deviation from the standards and the goals of the organization are achieved as desires. It ensures that everything happens in accordance to the instructions issued, the principle established, and the plans adopted. It makes sure that effective and efficient utilization resource of the organization is in place to attain the set goals. It identifies the amount of deviation from the standard performance and look for the cause of the deviation then fixed the corrective actions. Controlling has two basic purposes that are to facilitate coordination and helps in planning.
Conclusion
The effective management should implement all the five functions of effective management in order to increase the efficiency of the goods and services of an organization. The attainment of goals and growth of the organization will felt of those all measures are put in place.
References
Reilly, M., Minnick, C., & Baack, D. (2011). The five functions of effective management(2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
