Functions of Management: Planning & Objectives

• Management involves organizing and coordinating business activities to achieve defined objectives.
• Management coordinates production factors to ensure corporate goals are met.
• Management combines organizational resources to achieve its goals.

Functions of Management

• Planning
• Organizing
• Directing
• Controlling
• Coordinating
• Delegating
• Staffing
• Communicating
• Motivating

Planning

• Involves establishing short-term and long-term goals and objectives.
• Determines the resources and tasks to achieve goals and objectives.
• Formulates the organization's overall policy.

Elements of Planning

• Requires decisions about four fundamental elements: Objectives, Actions, Resources, and Implementation.

Objectives

• Statements of future conditions a manager hopes to achieve.
• Objectives have priority, timing, and measurement characteristics.
• Priority of objectives implies some objectives are more important than others at a given time.
• Time dimensions mean activities are guided by different objectives depending on the duration being planned.
• Planning needs measurement of objectives to quantify progress.

Actions

• Specific activities planned to achieve the objectives.
• Strategies and tactics refer to planned courses of action.

Resources

• Constraints on courses of action.
• Involves budgeting, identifying sources and levels of resources that can be committed.
• Management selects the type of budget suitable for the planning needs.

Implementation

• Involves assigning and directing personnel to carry out the plan.

Organizing

• Ensures necessary resources are available and combined effectively to achieve company goals.
• Involves assigning duties/responsibilities, establishing work schedules, allocating resources, and ensuring clear authority lines.
• Synchronization and combination of human, physical, and financial resources.
• Manager performs this function with the help of following steps:

Steps for Organizing Functions

• Identification of activities: Identify all activities to be performed, then group and classify them.
• Departmentally organizing activities: Combine similar activities into departments (departmentalization).
• Classifying the authority: Rank managerial positions (hierarchy).
• Top management formulates policies, middle management supervises departments, and lower management supervises foremen.
• Clarification of authority helps with efficiency and avoids duplication.
• Coordination between authority and responsibility: Establish relationships among groups for smooth interactions.
• Employees are aware of their authority, who they report to, and to whom they are accountable.

Directing

• Giving directions or instructions to workers, ensuring they know what to do and how.

Elements of Directing Include

• Explaining what is to be done and how to do it
• Issuing instructions and orders
• Supervising activities
• Inspiring towards meeting objectives
• Providing Leadership

Supervision

• Clarifying orders and instructions to subordinates.
• Ensuring understanding and adherence.
• Ensuring necessary facilities.
• Watching and guiding activities.
• Broadening subordinates' horizons.
• Coordinating work and detecting errors.

Leadership

• Process by which a manager guides and influences subordinates.

Follow-up

• Checking up on tasks given to subordinates.

Controlling

• Establishment of standards: Plans or targets to be achieved.
• Measurement of performance: Assessing employee performance (attitude, morale, communication).
• Employee performance is measured through weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly reports.
• Comparison of actual and standard performance: Deviation is the gap between actual and planned performance.
• Identify extent and cause of deviation.
• Identify if deviation is positive/negative and in conformity with planned performance.
• Causes of deviation can be:
  • Erroneous planning
  • Loosened co-ordination
  • Defective plan implementation
  • Ineffective supervision/communication
• Taking corrective action: Detect and correct errors.

Coordinating

• Unification, integration, and synchronization of group efforts to provide unity in pursuing common goals.

Delegation

• Involves sharing assignments with subordinates.
• Delegation improves efficiency, trains future managers, and improves morale.

Delegation of Authority

• Authority and powers are divided among subordinates to share work when managers have too much.
• Delegation helps a manager multiply by dividing their work.

Importance of Delegation

• Manager can divide work and allocate to subordinates to reduce workload.
• It is the ground on which the superior-subordinate relationship stands.
• An organization functions as the authority flows from top level to bottom.
• Subordinates get room to flourish their abilities and gain job satisfaction/motivation.
• Delegation also helps in breaking the monotony of the subordinates hence they become creative and efficient.

Staffing

• Manning the organization through proper selection, appraisal, and personnel development.

Steps Involved in Staffing

• Manpower requirements: Plan the manpower inventory to match job requirements, involving forecasting.
• Recruitment: Inviting applications that align with identified requirements.
• Selection: Screening applications and appointing suitable candidates.
• Orientation and placement: Integrating candidates into the work environment and assigning the right job.
• Training and development: Providing incentives and training to develop workers.
• Training activities are based on the scope of expansion.
• Assessing performance through key job assignments.
• Remuneration: Providing monetary compensation based on the nature of the job.
• Performance Evaluation: Track the behaviour of workers towards their jobs to supervise and evaluate.
• Promotion and transfer: A non-monetary incentive shifting workers to higher roles.

Communicating

• Exchange of ideas, messages, or information by speech, signals, or writing.
• Communication is a linking process of management.
• Primary means by which people obtain and exchange information.
• The quality and quantity of decision making is dependent on the information received
• Managers spend 70-90% of their time communicating with staff and customers.
• Information and communications represent power in organizations.
• Those with information become centers of power.

Motivation

• Derived from 'motive,' meaning needs, desires, or drives.
• Process of stimulating people to action and accomplishing goals.

Psychological factors stimulating behaviors

• Desire for money
• Success
• Recognition
• Job-Satisfaction
• Teamwork
• An important function of management creates willingness among employees. The leader arouses interest in their jobs.

Consists of three stages

• Felt need/drive
• A stimulus to arouse needs
• Satisfaction/accomplishment of goals when needs are met