Functions of Management/Managers

Functions of Management/Managers

Management consists of the functions given below. It is based on Henri Fayol's thinking on the functions of management.

1. Planning: generating plans of action for immediate, short term, medium term and long term periods.
2. Organizing: organizing the resources, particularly human resources, in the best possible manner.
3. Staffing: positioning right people right jobs at right time.
4. Directing (includes leading, motivating, communicating and coordinating): Communicate and coordinate with people to lead and enthuse them to work effectively together to achieve the plans of the organization.
5. Controlling (includes review and monitoring): evaluating the progress against the plans and making corrections either in plans or in execution.

Each of these functions is explained in some detail below:

1. Planning

• Planning is decision making process.
• It is making decisions on future course of actions.
• Planning involves taking decisions on vision, mission, values, objectives, strategies and policies of an organization.
• Planning is done for immediate, short term, medium term and long term periods.
• It is a guideline for execution/implementation.
• It is a measure to check the effectiveness and efficiency of an organization.

2. Organizing

• Organizing involves determination and grouping of the activities.
• Designing organization structures and departmentation based on this grouping.
• Defining the roles and responsibilities of the departments and of the job positions within these departments.
• Defining relationships between departments and job positions.
• Defining authorities for departments and job positions.

3. Staffing

• It includes manpower or human resource planning.
• Staffing involves recruitment, selection, induction and positioning the people in the organization.
• Decisions on remuneration packages are part of staffing.
• Training, retraining, development, mentoring and counseling are important aspects of staffing.
• It also includes performance appraisals and designing and administering the motivational packages.

4. Directing

• It is one of the most important functions of management to translate company's plans into execution.
• It includes providing leadership to people so that they work willingly and enthusiastically.
• Directing people involves motivating them all the time to enthuse them to give their best.
• Communicating companies plans throughout the organization is an important directing activity.
• It also means coordinating various people and their activities.
• Directing aims at achieving the best not just out of an individual but achieving the best through the groups or teams of people through team building efforts.

5. Controlling

• It includes verifying the actual execution against the plans to ensure that execution is being done in accordance with the plans.
• It measures actual performance against the plans.
• It sets standards or norms of performance.
• It measures the effective and efficiency of execution against these standards and the plans.
• It periodically reviews, evaluates and monitors the performance.
• If the gaps are found between execution levels and the plans, controlling function involves suitable corrective actions to expedite the execution to match up with the plans or in certain circumstances deciding to make modifications in the plans.