Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Management Functions
Management Functions
MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS:
The 4 basic management functions that make up the management process
are described in the following sections:
1. PLANNING
2. ORGANIZING
3. INFLUENCING
4. CONTROLLING.
PLANNING: Planning involves choosing tasks that must be performed to
attain organizational goals, outlining how the tasks must be performed, and
indicating when they should be performed.
Planning activity focuses on attaining goals. Managers outline exactly what
organizations should do to be successful. Planning is concerned with the
success of the organization in the short term as well as in the long term.
ORGANIZING:
Organizing can be thought of as assigning the tasks developed in the
planning stages, to various individuals or groups within the organization.
Organizing is to create a mechanism to put plans into action.
People within the organization are given work assignments that contribute
to the companys goals. Tasks are organized so that the output of each
individual contributes to the success of departments, which, in turn,
contributes to the success of divisions, which ultimately contributes to the
success of the organization.
INFLUENCING:
Influencing is also referred to as motivating,leading or directing.Influencing
can be defined as guiding the activities of organization members in he
direction that helps the organization move towards the fulfillment of the
goals.
The purpose of influencing is to increase productivity. Human-oriented work
situations usually generate higher levels of production over the long term
than do task oriented work situations because people find the latter type
distasteful.
CONTROLLING:
Controlling is the following roles played by the manager:
1.
2.
3.
PERSONNEL MANAGER
a person who is in charge of the department that deals with the
employment, training, support, records, etc. of a company's employees:The
function of a personnel manager usually begins with the staffing process.
STAFFING
M EANING
OF
S TAFFING :
N ATURE
OF
S TAFFING :
1. People Centred:
Staffing is people centred and is relevant in all types of organisations. It is
concerned with all categories of personnel from top to bottom of the
organisation.
The broad classification of personnel may be as follows:
(i) Blue collar workers (i.e., those working on the machines and engaged in
loading, unloading etc.) and white collar workers (i.e., clerical employees).
(ii) Managerial and non-managerial personnel.
(iii) Professionals (such as Chartered Accountant, Company Secretary,
Lawyer, etc.).
2. Responsibility of Every Manager:
Staffing is a basic function of management. Every manager is continuously
engaged in performing the staffing function. He is actively associated with
recruitment, selection, training and appraisal of his subordinates. These
activities are performed by the chief executive, departmental managers and
foremen in relation to their subordinates. Thus, staffing is a pervasive
function of management and is performed by the managers at all levels.
It is the duty of every manager to perform the staffing activities such as
selection, training, performance appraisal and counseling of employees. In
many enterprises. Personnel Department is created to perform these
activities.
But it does not mean that the managers at different levels are relieved of
the responsibility concerned with staffing. The Personnel Department is
I MPORTANCE
OF
S TAFFING :
It is of utmost importance for the organisation that right kinds of people are
employed. They should be given adequate training so that wastage is
minimum. They must also be induced to show higher productivity and
quality by offering them incentives.
In fact, effective performance of the staff function is necessary to
realize the following benefits:
TIME STUDY
What is it?
Time study is a tried and tested method of work measurement for setting basic
times and hencestandard times for carrying out specified work. Its roots are
back to the period between the two World Wars.
The aim of time study is to establish a time for a qualified worker to perform
specified work under stated conditions and at a defined rate of working.
This is achieved by a qualified practitioner observing the work, recording what
is done and then timing (using a time measuring device)
andsimultaneously rating (assessing) the pace of working.
The requirements for taking a time study are quite strict.
Conditions:
the practitioner (observer) must be fully qualified to carry out Time Study,
the person performing the task must be fully trained and experienced in the
work,
the work must be clearly defined and the method of doing the work must be
effective
the working conditions must be clearly defined
There are two main essentials for establishing a basic time for specified work
i.e. rating and timing.
Some terminology explained
Timing
The observer records the actual time taken to do the element or operation. This
usually is in centiminutes (0.01 min.) and is recorded, using a stop-watch or
computerized study board.
Rating.
When someone is doing work his/her way of working will vary throughout the
working period and will be different from others doing the same work. This is
due to differing speeds of movement, effort, dexterity and consistency. Thus, the
time taken for one person to do the work may not be the same as that for others
and may or may not be 'reasonable' anyway. The purpose of rating is to adjust
the actual timeto a standardized basic time that is appropriate and at a defined
level of performance. Rating is on a scale with 100 as its standard rating.
(Managers-net Website topic Rating).
Elements
A complete job usually will be too long and variable to time and rate in one go,
so it would be analysed into several smaller parts (elements) which, separately,
will each be timed and rated.
Basic time
This is the standardised time for carrying out an element of work at standard
rating.
Example: An observer times an element as 30 centiminutes (cm) and because it
is performed more slowly than the standard 100, he ratesit as 95. Thus the basic
time is 95% of 30 or 28.5 basic cm. The formula is: (actual time x rating)/100.
Allowances
Extra time is allowed for various conditions which obtain, the main ones
being relaxation allowance for:
recovery from the effort of carrying out specified work under specified
conditions (fatigue allowance)
attention to personal needs
adverse environmental conditions,
plus:
others concerned with machine operations
Frequency
The basic time is the time for a complete cycle to be performed but as not all
elements are repeated in every cycle their times per average cycle must be pro
rata. In the example which follows, element 2 only occurs once every eight
cycles so its basic time is one eighth of the element time, per cycle. Similar
treatment for element 7 (one twelfth).
Standard time:
Basic time + allowances
INTERVIEW SCHEDULE
An interview schedule is the guide an interviewer uses when conducting a S
TRUCTURED INTERVIEW . It has two components: a set of questions
designed to be asked exactly as worded, and instructions to the interviewer
about how to proceed through the questions. The questions appear in the
order in which they are to be asked. The questions are designed so they can
be administered verbatim, exactly as they are written. The questions need to
communicate not only what information is being asked of R ESPONDENTS
but also the form or the way in which respondents are Similarly
WORK MEASUREMENT:
TECHNIQUES OF WORK
MEASUREMENT
International Labour Organization(ILO) defined work measurement as die
application of techniques designed to establish the work content of a
specified task by determining the time required for carrying it out at a
defined standard of performance by a qualified worker. Conventionally, it is
known as time study, which is primarily carried out to determine the
standard time required to perform a specific t ask. Such time standards are
used for planning and scheduling work, for cost estimating or for labour
cost control. Otherwise, it may serve as the basis for a wage incentive plan.
But we find it has wide application in deciding a wage incentive plan.
TIME STUDY:
ILO defined time study as a technique for determining as accurately as
possible from a limited number of observations, the time necessary to carry
out a given activity at a defined standard of performance. For carrying out
a time study, equipments such as stopwatch, study board, pencils, slide
rule, etc. are required.
The different types of stopwatches include:
1. Stopwatches that record one minute per revolution by intervals of onefifth of a second with a small hand recording 30 minutes.
2. Stopwatches that record one minute per revolution, calibrated in onehundredth of a minute with a small hand recording 30 minutes.
Like all other sampling techniques, under this method also there are bound
to be some errors. However, since the cost of such study is not much,
many organizations which have the expertise prefer this method. Moreover,
under this method, because rating is not done and the time is recorded
directly using a stopwatch, it encounters no resistance from the workers.
Synthesis from standard data method synthesizes time standards that are
built up or synthesized from element times previously obtained from direct
time-study. Most of the organizations that have an independent work study
department, build up a synthetic table converting the commoner elements.
However, some units also use such time record of other organizations as
standard data. For obvious non-commonality of technology, skill, process,
and working environments, this type of synthesis may not always be
correct.
Pre-determined motion time standards have been developed for different
job elements based on the elementary movement. Usually, for time
measurement, work factor and basic motion, times are recorded in any predetermined time standards. Work study analysts use such time-standards
as the basis for comparing the observed time of the present workers. This
enables the work-study men to quickly decide the efficiency or otherwise of
the workers and to make decisions accordingly.
Analytical estimation is normally used in plant maintenance and repair
work. This is a compromise between straight rate fixing and time-study.
Since maintenance and repair jobs require adequate planning and also
because such jobs, by their very nature, call for creativity and
innovativeness, it is difficult to enforce straight rate fixing. Analytical
estimation is difficult in nature and is also not always fool-proof for the
inexperience of the work-study men.