The process of managing employees who are directly involved in producing goods and services is line management. Unlike other types of management, this type is hierarchically the lowest because it involves the executive department of the company. In this case, line managers coordinate employees, manage sections of one of the departments, and regulate the responsibilities of subordinate groups. Job features, lack of qualifications, and professional qualities can lead to challenges in the work of line managers.
The operations that line managers perform are recruiting and selecting personnel, developing them, managing communication within the group, and team building (Panagiotakopoulos, 2021). These operations are associated with dense work with employees; thus, line managers traditionally face understaffing and low teamwork problems. Managers must be interested in strengthening internal communication; otherwise, there will be two problems: lack of communication and feedback and intense involvement of employees in production processes (Sims, 2021). Line managers must pay attention to all operations, so training is needed to improve time management abilities.
Effective management of people and achievement of high results are line managers’ job goals, so it is correct to use the “ways-motivation-opportunities” system to identify problems (Bright et al., 2019). The abilities of first-line managers do not always correspond to the increased demands of superiors, which leads to misunderstandings and clashes of interests of different categories. Motivation is another critical component of successful line managers because it affects the internal organization. Investing in line management will greatly increase the priority of managers and motivate them to increase productivity.
Other problems that arise in line management include a lack of personnel policy, leadership skills, and low involvement in the cultural perception of the management system on the part of rank-and-file employees (Panagiotakopoulos, 2021). Managers may be interested in improving the performance of their department, but failure to behave as a reliable leader greatly affects performance. In addition, the operations performed by managers can be mismanaged because of this.
Thus, working with people is often associated with communication difficulties, mismatch of requirements and opportunities affects productivity, and lack of leadership skills reduces the department’s organization. Training line managers who are highly qualified and capable of multitasking and taking responsibility can minimize these challenges. In other cases, there will be problems related to people, opportunities, and personal qualities. However, training managers and investing in their training will avoid serious problems and increase efficiency.
References
Bright, D. S., Cortes, A. H., Hartmann, E., Parboteeah, P. K., Pierce, J. L., Reece, M., Shah, A., Terjesen, S., Weiss, J., White, M. A., Gardner, D. G., Lambert, J., Leduc, L. M., Leopold, J., Muldoon, J., Rourke, J. S. O. (2019). Principles of management. OpenStax.
Panagiotakopoulos, A. (2021). A short guide to people management. Routledge.
Sims, R. R. (2021). Succeeding as a frontline manager in today’s organizations. Information Age Publishing.