The Process of Management
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Management is the art of getting things done through people. It also implies the process of accomplishing results with and through the efforts of others. It involves the development of the necessary actions for achieving the objectives of an organisation.
Many organisations have policies, procedures and guidelines that govern the decisions made. The manager must understand how to get people do what he or she wants them to do, as well as know what they are doing, the results to be achieved and how best the results can be achieved efficiently (Fox 145).
Management involves making decisions such as hiring and firing, adopting new market strategies and new personnel policies. A manager therefore should be a person who exercises authority and leadership over other people.
In organisations, people are seen as a resource that is relatively inflexible and can be controlled for organisational gain. Human resource management therefore centers on articulating the needs and aspirations of the workers and, meeting their needs, giving them challenges and helping them towards self actualization (Fox 154).
The management functions include planning, organising, selection or staffing, directing, controlling or coordination, recruitment, budgeting and reporting. For the personnel manager, planning means the determination in advance of a personnel program that will contribute to the goals established for the enterprise.
To do this, the manager must focus on the economic, social and political environment in which the organisation will be operating in. He or she must also establish the resources needed to make the plans work (Fox 167).
After a course of action has been determined, the organisation must establish how to carry it out. Since organisations are a means to an end, organising involves designing the structure of the relationships among jobs to ensure that they are well coordinated. In organising, a manager decides on a position to be filled and duties and responsibilities attached to the position.
The manager also has to establish positions to make decisions about how work will be done on a day to day basis. The organising function also entail taking into account organisational changes which may be occasioned by things like demise of workers, firing of workers and how to compensate for such changes (Fox 170).
The directing aspect of management is the actual doing of work by looking for appropriate ways of motivating or getting people to do work willingly and effectively. The manger must provide directives to the staff members. They should know the results the manager expects and thrive to meet those results. Managers should also help the staff by explaining and communicating effectively his or her expectations to the staff (Fox 199).
After controlling, the manager determines how well jobs have been done and what progress has been made towards attaining the goals. He or she must know what’s happening so as to take steps in making changes to ensure the attainment of goals and objectives. Control is concerned with regulating activities in accordance to the set goals (Fox 211).
Managers are also supposed to plan to meet current objectives of the organisation, both short term and long term as well as make the best use of resources for the benefit of the organisation. They should be in a position to oversee problems and investing to be self reliant.
Manpower Recruitment, Selection and Orientation
The manpower planning approach to the recruitment or selection of individuals for promotion moves considerably beyond the traditional personnel ‘mechanics’. Recruitment refers to the identification of appropriate personnel in internal labor markets, while selection suggests a choice among alternate people of applicants either internal or external to an organization (French 13).
The man power planning perspective emphasizes career planning, human values and up to date tools and techniques for scrutinizing candidates and applicants. All of these focus on the long run objectives and emergent development of an organization (French 18).
The main aim of some managers is to place all persons on jobs perfectly suited to them and society, the assumption being that each person should use his abilities, temperament and motivations in all the best way possible for him or her. The other assumption is that the society will make the best possible use of its total manpower resources (French 19).
Clearly, these observations are broadly conceived and seek to bring about union of individual, company and society interest against a backdrop of change and shifting needs. Thus man power planning for recruitment and selection witnesses the shift from a static base to the dynamics of change. The servicing of current problems remains a continuing need, but increasing attention is devoted to forward looking programs.
The manpower planning perspective demands ‘total’ pictures of current and future manpower needs and avoids the disjointed functional approach of past years. Reliance on short-run, purely economic criteria for determining manpower needs is viewed with disfavor (French 39).
Recruitment and Good Management Practices
The satisfaction of management obligation or the ‘goodness’ of management practice develops through carefully planned effort in sales, production, manpower and fiscal management, and through research and innovation in each area. Careful planning and operation in these areas demands knowledge-both accumulated and assimilated. That knowledge must be pertinent to the jobs and the problems typical of the given concern (Aquinas 18).
Recruitment programs exist as means of seeking out those individuals possessing the required knowledge, the physical and mental competency and the psychological compatibility. These programs exist as part of a larger effort (Aquinas 18).
If total staffing effort of an organisation is haphazard, the results, from even the most technically correct recruitment program will be relatively poor. One can therefore summarise that good management practice requires competent selection and induction as well as competent recruitment. This, in turn, re-emphasizes the need for a sound over-all management philosophy (Aquinas 19).
Selection and Good Management Practice
The staffing effort becomes to the manpower manager what vendor analysis is to the purchasing agent. Staffing includes the determination of manpower needed, the determination of the best source of supply, and the development of the best means of acquiring and assuring quality selection from chosen sources. It also includes consideration of the best way to put man into his new environment (Aquinas 22).
Recruitment serves to locate the proper sources and to interest potential employees in the possibility of employment. Selection serves to identify and promise the desired quality. Selection thus facilitates good management practice by isolating the required knowledge and compatibility necessary to that and making it available to the organization (Aquinas 23).
It is the positive counterpart of selection. Many management thinkers indicate that finding recruits is a positive action, whereas the act of eliminating all but the most desirable from group of candidates makes the selection function negative.Recruitment is continuing effort involving daily application. It requires special knowledge and effort. One must know where to look for desirable recruits for no longer are they available at the gate (Aquinas 28).
Recruitment is therefore both a selling job and a problem analysis. It involves a long range-planning which includes manpower forecasting, in terms of manpower quantity and quality. To be effective, both the planning and the operational phases of the system require excellent communication with all segments of the company. The manpower division should develop a well coordinated flow of information and to and from their manpower sources (Aquinas 31).
Though recruiting is important, it merely succeeds in bringing potentially effective personnel to the organisation. Distinguishing between the most and least desirable recruits and detecting and eliminating people with non-obvious deficiencies are the problems of selection.
Selection techniques seeks to determine the probable effectiveness of those made available through recruitment efforts. This evaluation provides personal data basic not only to the hiring decision but also to decisions regarding promotion and transfer, training and compensation, and concerning the prevention or handling of operational manpower problems (Aquinas 38).
Selection is the ‘core’ of the staffing effort. Truly, effective selection goes beyond the traditional idea of finding the right man for the current vacancy. It embraces the concept of hiring persons potentially suited for the next job in the hierarchy.
Effective selection procedure requires careful attention to system, and must be adjusted to fit the specific needs of an organisation. A carefully conceived selection procedure is just as important to the small firm as to the large. After all, the smaller the universe, the larger the errors appear. Loses from unnecessary turnover become uncomfortably significant in the small organisation.
However, such loses can be prevented in part by good manpower selection. In large organisations, equal care is needed in apportioning funds, and effective man power selection can minimize the risks of loss associated with poor personnel department. The amount of money available should not be the deciding factor in determining the steps taken. The known needs of the organisation are the correct criteria (Aquinas 54).
Systems design depends on the organisation’s job and administrative requirements and the care taken in adjusting theory to practice. The systems approach has four theoretical requirements namely assurance of order, consideration of situational variation, adjustment for administrative needs and recognition of the functional needs of the organization (Aquinas 56).
The selection of manpower is therefore fundamental in the staffing effort. As a process it seeks to determine, the most qualified persons for given vacancies and future growth from among many applicants made available by the recruitment procedure. Modern-day selection is based upon a system of complete selectivity where-in the total competence of applicants is evaluated.
The system, for both rank-file, and managerial selection, is based upon standard or uniform steps. Although uniformity is necessary and order is a promise requirement, the system must be flexible or else the job-job variations in requirements cannot be met effectively. Furthermore, the tools used to facilitate the living decision must be scientific as possible or the system will provide little better results than the hit-or-miss practices of the past years (Aquinas 58).
After recruitment, an orientation should be given to the new recruit as well as to a person who moves up. The objectives of a good orientation include making clear to the employee the terms of his employment, communicating to him or her all the job requirements and inspiring in him or her confidence in the organisation he or she has joined as well as in his own ability to learn and perform on the job (Aquinas 81).
Fair Employee Practice
Organisations and managers must be fair to their employees. Bias may be imminent during the selection process; however, many countries have put in place legislations to ensure fair selection. Such legislations include those which advocate for the rights of such groups as the disabled, expectant mothers, among others.
Discrimination throughout the selection process should therefore be avoided. Organisations and managers should ensure that men and women have equal opportunities for employment, enjoy equal pay for similar jobs and same working environment (Aquinas 82).
Another way to retain employees is through employee training and development. Through training, the employees learn skills to perform various tasks. They also re-learn when they change jobs within an organisation. Training entails learning, which involve acquisition of new patterns of behavior (Aquinas 89).
Employee Motivation
Motivation is the process of encouraging or influencing people to behave in a particular manner, which they would have otherwise not behaved without the encouragement or the influence. Employees need to be motivated so that they may work hard towards the achievement of organisational objectives.
Employees may be motivated either by internal or external sources. Internal motivation comes from an individual and is also known as intrinsic motivation while external motivation comes from outside sources and is also known as extrinsic motivation (Sims 67).
Organisational culture refers to shared beliefs, values, norms and practices which characterize an organisation. Organisational culture is a very important aspect in any organisation which aspires to realize its vision through the mission (Sims 67).
Organisational culture is closely related to organisational structure, which refers to how the organisation is structured, how power and authority to make decisions are distributed along the structure of the organisation, and who should take what direction or instructions from whom and when (Sims 67).
Organisational culture is a very important aspect in any organisation which aspires to realize its vision and mission. This is because organisational culture determines whether the organisation is able to work together towards the realization of the vision (Sims 67).
Organisational culture is learned implicitly through interaction within the organisational setting. The employees learn it through imitating others who they find in the organisation.
This imitation happens unconsciously due to the human instinct to adopt behaviors which make him or her fit in the social environment which he or she finds himself or herself in. Through communication and interaction with each other, employees may coin some terms or codes which are unique to the organisation.
Employees also learn organisational culture through conditioning and reinforcement. For instance, if certain behavior is rewarded by the management of an organisation, the employees will tend to perfect that behavior which eventually becomes part of their culture. Likewise, if certain behavior is negatively sanctioned by the management, then the employees will tend to avoid it, thus becoming one of the don’ts in the organisation.
A strong organisational culture is found in organisations in which the employees are committed to their work and discharge their duties with little or no supervision while a weak organisational culture is found in organisations in which the employees have little commitment to their duties and are closely supervised so as to discharge their duties effectively (Sims 76).
There are various models of organisational culture. One such model is the power culture which is characterized by centralization of power to some few people within the organisation. These persons are usually very influential in the organisation and therefore everybody else tends to foster a good relationship with them. In this culture, employees are motivated to the degrees into which they emulate those central persons.
In this type of culture, decisions are made easily because there are no many hierarchical positions in the structure of the organisation (Sims 79).There is also role culture, which is characterized by doing things as per ones position, meaning that an employee only cares for what is of concern to him or her or what lies under his or her docket.
This culture is also characterized by rigidity in decision making because of the bureaucratic nature of the organisational structure which leads to inefficiency (Sims 85).Task culture is characterized by the formation of groups which are composed of people with some expertise or knowledge to perform some specific tasks.
In this type of culture therefore, group work is very important and authority as well as supervision play little or no role because the teams are trusted by the management with their tasks (Sims 85).Lastly, there is person’s culture which is characterized by a feeling of superiority among the employees, who think that they are very valuable to the organisation.
In such a culture, unity and cooperation among the employees may be rare because each employee thinks that he or she is the best and therefore not ready to share what he or she knows with others without extra remuneration by the organisation for the same (Sims 90).
Organisational Learning
Learning is the process of acquiring new knowledge and understanding regarding a particular subject. It can take various forms and may be acquired from various sources which may include imitation, observation, listening, brainstorming, doing and learning through mistakes, trainings, seminars, and from cultural practices (Sims 95).
The concept of organisational learning has its origin from Argyris and Schön, who in 1978 came out to express their views on the concept. Their view has been referred to as the technical classical approach to organisational learning. Their model of organisational learning comprises the single and double loop learning(Sims 95).
Single loop learning entails the detection and correction of mistakes or errors made in organisations which makes organisations perceive change as an incremental process. Double loop learning entails changing of strategies by organisations due to either internal or external forces.
Argyris and Schön model of change can be viewed as a technical approach to organisational learning because it involves the use of individuals and systems or strategies by organisation to meet their objectives (Sims 95).
Organisational learning enables organisations to prepare employees for any change which may come as a result of organisational restructuring or mergers or due to adoption of a certain technology. It also enables organisations to have in place very competent and reliable employees, who are flexible and open- minded to handle any situation which may come along their way in their lines of duty.
Organisational learning keeps organisations in a strategic position for increasing their competitiveness as well as coming up with best practices which not only improve organisations’ productivity but also the image of organisations to their customers (Sims 98).
For example, an organisation which deals with provision of electricity may engage itself in what is referred to as corporate social responsibility by undertaking activities like conservation of the environment, fighting poverty through provision of scholarships to needy students or training communities on entrepreneurship (Sims 110).
Knowledge Management
Knowledge management entails the development of strategies which make an organisation more competitive. Its major tenets are innovation, research and development. These aims at making the organisation have in place a good stock of knowledge resources, which can easily be transformed into inventions in form of introduction of new and unique products in the market.
Knowledge management also helps organisations differentiate their products and position themselves in a strategic position in the market such that they may have a good share of the customers.
Knowledge management also involves the sharing of the lessons learned through the process of organisational learning. It can therefore be argued that organisational learning is an aspect of knowledge management. The two focuses on the improvement of organisational performance and the attainment of its long term and short term goals.
Organizational Culture
Many organisational researchers agree that a cohesive organisational culture is the one in which all members of an organisation hold to similar beliefs and values which glue the organisation together. These beliefs and values may be implicit or explicit to the organisation, meaning that they may be or not be publicly declared in the organisational core values.
In this kind of a culture, it does not matter the organisational structure but what matters most is the commitment of each and every member of the organisation to these believes and values. For example, an organisation may value hard work, honesty and team work and believe in transparency, utmost good faith, ethics and morality. A cohesive organisational culture has got many benefits.
One benefit is that it leads to high motivation among the employees because they share common believes and values. When employees are highly motivated, there is minimal use of resources in their supervision which in turn increases their productivity because to them, what matters most is the good of the organisation as a whole but not personal good.
Another benefit of cohesive organisational culture is that it facilitates the alignment of organisations for the achievement of their objectives, mission and vision without much difficulty. This is because the employees are not only fully aware of the mission, vision and objectives, but have also internalised them thus making them to work hard to achieve them. This makes them more motivated to accomplish the set organisational gaols, targets or objectives.
Strong organisational culture also boosts organisational efficiency because of the internalisation of what is required of each and every employee when and where. The sharing of values and beliefs creates a good working environment free from any kind of confusion, ambiguity or lack of understanding among the employees, which apart from increasing efficiency also saves on time wasted when things seem not to move in the right direction because the employees are able and free to consult each other without the fear of victimisation or intimidation especially by the senior managers. Employees also portray good behaviour at work because they know what is right to be done and what is not right.
Furthermore, strong organisational culture leads to cohesion among various departments of an organisation which leads to harmonisation of all organisational procedures, policies and practices in each and every department.
This cohesion leads to proper utilisation of organisational resources without sabotage as well as sound, logical and relevant polices on how to coordinate organisational activities in a manner that would maximise the organisations’ chances of realizing their mission and vision.
Cohesion among various organisational departments also leads to the sharing of information by various departments which increases the employees’ levels of understanding of how various departments work. This is very important because it enables employees to multitask especially in times when staffs in some departments are not available.
For example, the understanding of administrative issues in the organisation by the head of accounting departmental may make him or her work on behalf of the head of the administration department when he or she is not present.
Strong organisational culture enhances control, good coordination and consistency within an organisation. This is because the employees and the management are in good terms and thus are able to agree informally on various procedures and practices without compromising the quality of the organisational practices and objectives.
This saves on time because employees implement the changes which they find necessary without having to wait for bureaucratic board meetings and discussion to approve even the slightest change in procedures or practices.
Lastly not the least, cohesive organisational culture enhances team work, group leadership and collaboration of the employees in various tasks. This is of crucial importance to organisations because it opens the room for employees’ creativity, innovativeness and openness to positive criticism which makes work not only enjoyable, but also enriched with a multiplicity of ideas.
This in turn leads to increased achievement levels by the organisation as opposed to situations in which employees’ creativity and innovativeness are not entertained by the management of the organisations.
Works Cited
Aquinas. Organizational behaviour : concepts realities applications and challenges. New Delhi : Excel Books, 2006. 18-89. Print.
Fox, William, M.The management process : an integrated functional approach. Charlotte, N.C. : Information Age Publishing, 2009.145-211. Print.
French, Ray.Organizational behavior. 2nd ed. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley, 2011.13-39.Print.
Sims, Ronald, R.Human resource management : contemporary issues, challenges and opportunities. Greenwich, Conn. : Information Age Publishers, 2007. 67-110. Print.