Management Practices
Management Practices
Introduction
Henri Fayol is well-known for the five management functions he identified like planning, organizing, leading, staffing and controlling (Golden Pryor & Taneja, 2010). These factors are important to practice to achieve the key processes of management, including planning, organizing, leading, staffing and controlling organizational activities (Grebner & Mattingly, 2016). According to DuBrin (2011) the managers perform the managerial functions in order to achieve goals like managing and leading employees and retaining key employees, etc. McDonald’s is the organization for which I worked also practice the earlier described management functions.
Planning is one of the key managerial activities of the managers. It refers to the setting of goals and finding out the methods of achieving those goals (Golden Pryor & Taneja, 2010). In addition, this management function helps other management functions to perform well. For instance, the managers are needed to make plans to perform the duty of staffing in an effective manner (DuBrin, 2011). In addition, planning involves the steps like examination of internal and external environment, identification of goals, selection of strategies and operational plans and allocation of resources to move to achieve goal (Baack, Reilly & Minnick, 2014). The practice of planning function can be ascertained by the fact that the manager of the McDonald’s branch where I used to work planned to make decisions regarding staffing of employees. Once there is a need to employ more workers in the branch. In turn, the manager of the branch set the goals, criteria and planned to hire specific numbers of employees in relation to customer service. Moreover, another example of the planning function is that the manager of the branch as a strategic planner developed plans to diversify the products to achieve the goal of high level market share. For this, he planned to add more healthy products to menu to target the health conscious customers to increase the market share.
Organizing
Organizing is the process of organizing the needed resources, including human and physical to carry out the plans and get the ultimate goals. This function of management also includes the assigning of activities, division of work into certain jobs as well as tasks, and identifying the person with authority to achieve the specific tasks. One of the key aspects of the organizing is that it involves the grouping of activities into different departments and ensures the availability of required human resources to achieve the goals (DuBrin, 2011; Lamond, 2003).
The manager of the McDonald’s branch was involved in organizing the workflow processes, coordinating the meetings and staff schedules. For example, the branch manager scheduled the staff activities to make sure that the staff is able to perform tasks important for each step in the workflow processes. The manager of the branch I worked for was involved in fulfilling the managerial duties associated with the organizing function identified by the Fayol. For instance, he was involved in supervising the subordinates, coordinating the day to day activities, decision making, job analysis, selection of staff, performance management (fair treatment and remuneration), maintenance of discipline and implementation of rules and regulations. The example of organizing function is that manager of the McDonald’s branch, where I worked organized a fair system of performance management by identifying the 360 degree feedback system. He fairly compensated and promoted the employees, according to the performance of employees and provided them feedback. In addition, he organized training and development programs to train employees and provided them with the necessary skills.
Staffing
Staffing refers to the management function that ensures the availability of the required human resources to get the organizational goals. Hiring of people for the jobs is the key activity related to staffing function. It is one of the major activities in an organization due to which it is classified as separate function from organizing (DuBrin, 2011). The manager of the McDonald’s branch was activity involved in making decisions related to staffing and hiring the required staff to achieve organizational goals. It can be understood by the example that the manager extended the operations in the branch by extending the product lines and areas to serve the customers efficiently. For this, he had to hire the staff including waiters, assistant manager, assembly staff, and customer service staff. The manager gave ads in the newspapers to hire required people by specifying the required qualification, skills, experience and demographics. Accordingly, he conducted interviews and screened the applicants to choose from. In turn, he selected the staff matched the required qualifications, skills, experiences and demographics. He offered them competitive salary packages to motivate and retain them. This is the perfect example of staffing practiced by the company I worked for.
Leading
Leading is the function that involves influencing others to get the desired objectives. In turn, it includes energizing, directing, persuading subordinates and developing a vision. This function of management includes various interpersonal processes, such as motivating, communicating, coaching, and directing employees to ways to reach the goals. The leadership factor of the management is linked to the inspiring people and implementing necessary change. On the other hand, other functions focus on the maintenance of stable system. Henry Mintzberg (management guru) stated that effective leaders work to develop the sense of community or shared the purpose of organizations to people that is important in relation to cooperative effort (DuBrin, 2011; Bass, 1991).
The manager of the McDonald’s branch also practiced the leading function that can be understood by the fact that he inspired the workers to achieve goals. He was a transformational leader as the employees, including me as a customer service officer inspired by him. It is due to the fact that he shared vision of the company with the employees at all levels of management. In turn, the employees are more able to achieve desired objectives. In addition, he was involved in empowering the employees instead of focusing on the authoritative style. It is identified by the Judge and Piccolo (2004) that participative style of leadership leads to high level performance of employees. In the same way, the manager of the branch also showed participatory leadership styles. He motivated the employees at all levels by pursuing the strategies. For instance, he provided both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards to the employees to motivate them and influence them to put efforts to achieve organizational goals.
Moreover, the manager of the branch involved in the two way communication as the employees at all levels can easily communicate with him and offer him suggestions related to the performance improvement initiatives. He continuously communicated with the employees through meetings to involve all levels’ employees in decision making regarding organization’s success. Furthermore, the manager acted as coach because he developed training and development programs to provide coaching to employees to enable them to perform assigned tasks effectively and efficiently.
Controlling
Controlling is another management function that includes comparison of actual performance to predetermined criteria/standard. In case of high level difference between actual and desired performance, the manager take corrective action (Cunningham & Lischeron, 1991). For instance, in case of low sales in comparison to set objective it is important to take corrective action. The manager of the McDonald’s branch was involved in the controlling function. It can be ascertained by the example that at the end of each week, the manager compared the sales with the pre-determined standard. By the end of one week, the actual sales of the company were lower than the pre-determined standard. In turn, he took corrective action i.e. increase in the advertisements and health conscious products to offer to customers to boost sales. Another example of practicing management function by the manager was that he compared the performance of employees of customer services with the pre-determined standard. However, the performance of the employees was not so good. In turn, he developed training and development programs for them to reduce the issues of customer services.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discussion that management functions, such as planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling enable the managers to achieve desired goals effectively and efficiently. Hence, it is important for the managers to focus on the management functions by applying effective strategies. The main reason is that the planning is a key to successful practice of other function. Organizing and staffing enable the management to achieve organizational goals by coordinating activities and hiring qualified employees. In addition, leading and controlling contribute to high level performance of employee and overall organization.
References
Bass, B. M. (1991). From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision. Organizational dynamics, 18(3), 19-31.
Baack, D., Reilly, M., & Minnick, C., & (2014). The five functions of effective management (2nd edition). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Cunningham, J. B., & Lischeron, J. (1991). Defining entrepreneurship. Journal of small business management, 29(1), 45-61.
DuBrin, A. (2011). Essentials of management. USA: Nelson Education.
Golden Pryor, M., & Taneja, S. (2010). Henri Fayol, practitioner and theoretician-revered and reviled. Journal of Management History, 16(4), 489-503.
Grebner, L., & Mattingly, R. (2016). Management of Health Information: Functions & Applications. USA: Nelson Education.
Judge, T. A., & Piccolo, R. F. (2004). Transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Journal of applied psychology, 89(5), 755.
Lamond, D. (2003). Henry Mintzberg vs. Henri Fayol: of lighthouses, cubists and the emperor's new clothes. Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, 8(4), 5.
O'Driscoll, M. P., Humphries, M., & Larsen, H. H. (1991). Managerial activities, competence and effectiveness: Manager and subordinate perceptions. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2(3), 313-326.
