Executive Summary
The world we live in today is full of business activities almost in all sectors of the world’s economy. This has in some instances led to increased competition or demand and in rare cases both situations happen concurrently. As such, it is important that the modern managers are well equipped with the essential skills required in the management of these organizations (Valentine & Woods, 2010).
It is because of this, that the key management functions were laid down for the managers to follow in order to ensure the success of their businesses.
Among the key functions of management, include planning, controlling organizing and directing. The aim of this report is to analyse two of these key management functions and determine how they can be effectively integrated into the business to achieve a diverse workforce.
The report will be based on a fictional company in the banking industry known as the Urban Bank Ltd. Later on in the report, factors that hinder or support the implementation of the key management roles to achieving a diverse workforce in an organization will be looked. In addition, rrecommendations on how managers can effectively improve their skills to ensure a diverse workforce will be mentioned.
Introduction
Business has become an integral part of the modern society. Almost all activities carried out in each society revolve around businesses ranging from academic institutions, companies, banks, to churches just to mention a few (Valentine & Woods, 2010). This is an indication of how important business enterprises are to the people in the society.
However, for these businesses to be successful and overcome the current global competition being experienced, they have to be properly managed. The top rated personnel of the enterprise, referred to as the managers, normally carry out these management functions (Carrol and Gillen, 1987, p.30).
The managers are obliged to carry out four main management functions, which include, directing, organizing, planning, and controlling. Other duties of the managers such as staffing and disciplinary may be delegated to special departments such as the human resources department.
This report will address two of the main functions of the management and analyze how these functions can assist an organization manage its workforce diversity.
The report will be based on a fictional company in the banking sector named as Urban Bank. In order to address this issue effectively, data from related companies in this case, the banking industry will be used to make inferences. Such data is available from journals and companies’ publications.
In writing the report, several assumptions will be made given the fact that Urban Bank is a fictional company. Some of these include, assuming the existence of the company in the real market, whereby Urban Bank will be expected to be trade its stock in the stock market.
Background
The Urban Bank Ltd is one of the latest entrants in the Australian banking industry. Just like most of the other banks, Urban Bank began as a money lending institution of the low-income workers in the country. As a cooperative society, it catered for the needs of the people with low income such as factory workers, workers in the construction industry and farmers among others.
It operated as a cooperative society for 15 years before being elevated to the level of a bank. Its expansion eventually led to more operations, which required more workforces. This is because it now serves more people than it served before. Given this demand, it therefore, essential that the entire workforce of Urban Bank be trained on the huge task ahead, and how they can possibly handle it to ensure success of the company.
In this, the report will evaluate two of the key functions of management and discuss them in detail before looking at factors that support and constrain the management in ensuring a diverse workforce. Lastly, recommendations will be made by giving suggestions to be implemented by the management team of the bank.
Discussion
An evaluation of the two management theories
As mentioned earlier in the report, this section will evaluate two of the key management functions in organizations. These functions will be geared towards the achievement of a diverse workforce in organizations. The management functions to be discussed are planning and organizing functions of managers.
Planning is a crucial function of the management, which essentially entails looking at the future and determines the action to be taken in the present or later to avoid problems in the future (Management Study Guide, 2008, p.1).
Several scholars have defined the term planning: “According to Koontz & O’Donnell, “Planning is deciding in advance what to do, how to do, and who is to do it. Planning bridges the gap between where we are to, where we want to go.
It makes possible things to occur which would not otherwise occur” (Management Study Guide, 2008, p.1). According to Urwick, “Planning is a mental predisposition to do things in orderly way, to think before acting and to act in the light of facts rather than guesses”( Management Study Guide, 2008, p.1). In planning, several factors have to be put into consideration including the determination of the available and prospective resources of the organization. These resources entail the human and physical resources.
On the other hand, the organizing function of the management is responsible for bringing together the resources of the organization in a bid to achieving its goals and objectives. One scholar by the name Henry Fayol defined organizing as the provision of the organization with all its needs such as capital, raw materials, and personnel.
Planning at Urban Bank Ltd
Just as it is in other organizations, planning is the most crucial function of the management in the banking sector. Given the risks that are associated with banks, it is of essence that Urban Bank Ltd take the planning function with great significance. As such, all plans should be tested for their appropriateness before being implemented in the organization.
For example, when it comes to the forex market trading, the bank is required to keep on making new plans given the outcome of the situation in the market. This means that the bank managers will remain on toes to ensure that the bank does not incur losses. It can thus be concluded that planning is an operational risk function of the banking institutions.
Types of plans
It is important that the planning function be carried out systematically given its sensitivity in the success of the organization. Once the management has laid down the goals and objectives it would like to achieve, they get down determining the types of plans to be put in place. The list of plans to be put in place by the management of the Urban Bank is endless.
This is because of the many areas of operation within the banking system. Among the plans, include internal plans, product plans such as Accounts, loans and other products offered by banks, growth plans, investment plans, expansion and strategic plans (Berry, 1996, p.1). All the aforementioned plans are instrumental in almost all organisations with the only difference coming in the types of sectors.
As for the case of Urban bank, it ought to put plans with regard to the services it offers to the public. For instance, the management should plan on how to attract more people into the bank by offering attractive interest rates. Other than this, the management should plan on the future investments to be made regarding the expansion of the bank among other developments.
In addition to this, Urban bank is expected to put in place plans of providing training to its workforce, especially those that were part of the transition of the bank from a cooperative society.
The plan should include training of all the essential duties of a bank, which are different from those of cooperative societies. Similarly, the workforce should be trained on being proactive given the high competition faced by banks in order to ensure the success of the Urban Bank Ltd.
Environmental Audit
Among the various issues that have to be planned by any banking institution, is that of the environmental audit. An environmental audit generally entails the valuation of management systems required to be put in place in order to ensure compliance to the environmental regulations.
The environmental audits are carried out in a way similar to the regular financial audits carried out by almost all organizations. As for the case of environmental audits, they are of two types, which are the management systems audits and compliance audits.
The compliance audits are carried out with the intention of determining if the operations of the organization comply with the regulations of the environmental bodies. The management systems audit on the other hand is intended to determine if the operations of the organisation are in line with the organisation’s systems such as the famous ISO systems (Hill, Bowen, & Soboil, 1997, p.27).
Given the sensitivity of the matters of an environmental audit, it is important that the management of an organisation plan the process early enough to ensure its success.
Similarly, due to the significance of the environmental audits to organizations, planning is a requirement to ensure the attainment of the goals and objectives of the audit. Therefore, Urban Bank Ltd has to ensure that proper planning of the environmental audits is done before embarking on the real process.
Benchmarking
This is yet another important duty carried out by the management of an organization through the planning division. In benchmarking, an organization compares the processes of its operations with those of its business counterparts in a bid to gauge its performance (Boxwell, 1994, p.225).
For instance, Urban Bank could compare its results with those from other banks on the same level in order to determine its performance. From the data collected through benchmarking, an organization is able to know its position among other companies in the same industry, thus be able to fill any loopholes discovered. On the other hand, if the performance is okay, then the organization puts in place plans of making their performance even better.
The Organising function at Urban Bank
The structure of Urban Bank Ltd
Urban Bank just like the other banks in the banking industry has an organizational structure whose duty is to ensure proper appropriation of the organization’s resources. The bank is structured in such a way that there is the front office, middle and the back office. In each of the three segments of the bank, different operations or activities take place.
As such, different resources are required in each section. For instance, the front office is mainly composed of the telling and clerical duties. Reception duties are also evident in the front office. This is an indication that the junior staff of the bank will be found in the front office.
The middle office serves duties such as audit functions among other duties such as accounting. The back office is the most senior segment of the bank, which involves the top management team. As such, the back office is responsible for the key management roles such as decision-making. It is also important to note that the middle office acts as the intermediary between the front and back offices.
HRM Resources
The human resource of any organization is a crucial part of the organization as this department runs almost all duties. Despite the efforts of trying to automate almost all operations of organizations, there are still a big number of the operations that have to be carried out by the human resources.
For instance, the banking systems have installed the ATMs for people to carry out their banking duties individually, yet you still find long queues in the banks waiting to be served over the counter by tellers. This is an indication that banks require human resource by a great deal. As such, the management of the bank ought to ensure that the human resources are properly organized to accomplish effectively the operations of the bank, hence its success.
Factors that support and constrain the management in ensuring a diverse workforce
During the execution of its functions in an organization, the management is bound to encounter factors that support or constrain its duties (Robbins et al, 2009). Some of the supporting factors include aid from the government, regulatory bodies as well as other organizations in the industry.
For instance, in the case of Urban Bank Ltd, it may get the support of the central bank of the country of operation. This support could involve financial aid or advisory services, which will eventually lead to its success in the market. Some of the constraint factors include competition, insufficient information, the economy of the nation and uncooperative managers (Norman, 2012, p.1).
These factors will prevent the functions of management from being carried out efficiently; something could adversely affect the organization from ensuring a diverse workforce. This is because in the event an organisation is not running smoothly, the workforce is also at risk.
Conclusion
From the discussion above, it is clear that the success of any organization is dependent on how it carries out the key management functions. In this report, two of the key management roles have been discussed, looking at how they can be effectively applied in organizations especially on the fictional bank, Urban bank Ltd in this case.
Other than the two functions discussed in the report, all organizations should strive towards integrating all the key management roles for better achievement of the organizational goals (Robbins et al, 2009).
As for the case of Urban Bank Ltd, its managers should ensure proper organization of the human resources as well as proper planning of the organizational needs in terms of human resources in order to achieve a diverse workforce. For instance, the company should begin with training of the staff to make them acquainted with the new operations that emerged after the elevation of the bank.
Recommendations
The first thing the managers of Urban Bank should do is to plan on how they will train their workforce to suit their new status of a bank.
The management should attend seminars of leaders in the banking sector so that they can get more information on the same.
They should get down to benchmarking in order to gauge their performance.
It is also important that as the company puts in place measures of ensuring a diverse workforce, it also find ways of overcoming the constraints of its goal achievement. This means that the organization should hold interactive sessions with the members of its workforce so that they may air out views on where they need improvements.
Finally yet importantly, the management of the bank should find ways of motivating their workforce. For instance, they could give them incentives such as leaves, retreats, and gifts among others.
Reference List
Berry, T. (1996). The Different Types of Plans. Bplans. Web.
Boxwell, R. (1994). Benchmarking for Competitive Advantage. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Carrol, S., and Gillen, D. (1987). Are the Classical Management Functions Useful in Describing Managerial Work? Academy of Management Review 12 (1): 28-51.
Hill, R.C., Bowen, P.A., & Soboil J.H. (1997). The role of environmental management systems in construction. Australian Institute of Building Papers 8: 27-39.
Management Study Guide. (2008). Planning Function of Management. Web.
Norman, L. (2012). What Factors Can Affect Planning Function of Management?Chron. Web.
Robbins, S., Bergman, R., Stagg, I. & Coulter, M. (2009). Fundamentals of management (3rd ed.). Frenchs Forest: Pearson.
Valentine, T. & Woods, M. (2010). Management in focus: The global financial crisis. Frenchs Forest: Pearson.