Management functions

Management requires the capacity to navigate a wide range of procedural, organisational, and interpersonal issues while guiding a team to accomplish a variety of goals. 

Management is a collection of concepts pertaining to the activities of planning, organising, directing, and controlling, as well as the implementations of these principles in efficiently and effectively harnessing physical, financial, human, and informational resources to accomplish organisational goals.

Management is the source of a well-organised life and running any business successfully. Even leading companies throughout the world believe that with proper management and adhering to the management functions, they were able to overcome several obstacles in their way. In a nutshell, managing means getting things done so that companies with an aim are able to successfully accomplish their goals.

Henri Fayol first defined five parts, but there are currently four widely acknowledged management roles that cover these essential skills: planning, organising, leading, and controlling. Though there are several businesses that still use the five management functions to meet their business vision and objectives.

Top 5 Management Functions

Planning

The fundamental task of a manager is to design a plan for meeting organisational objectives. Assigning staff resources and allocating assignments, as well as setting realistic deadlines and completion standards, are all part of this process.

Managers must check on team development on a frequent basis to make minor adjustments as needed while maintaining a clear picture of the company’s larger ambitions and goals.

The planning role includes working independently to determine what jobs must be allocated to which employees, determining evaluation criteria for certain operations, and generating timelines. 

Planning consists of the following:

• Establishing objectives.
• Formulating rules and regulations.
• Developing programs.
• Scheduling.
• Budgeting.
  
  

Organising

Organising necessitates the establishment of a formal authority structure, as well as the direction and flow of that authority, through which work subdivisions are defined, structured, and coordinated. A manager’s organising abilities, in addition to planning, can aid in the efficient operation of a firm or department.

Keeping everyone and everything organised during everyday operations is the crucial role of management, from building internal procedures and structures to determining which people or teams are most suited for certain duties. However, the organisation involves more than just allocating work effectively and ensuring that people have what they need to complete their responsibilities.

Managers must also be able to rearrange in response to changing circumstances. This might take the shape of tweaking a project’s timeframe or reassigning duties from one team to another. In reaction to firm expansion, it might also imply dramatically modifying a team’s internal structure and duties.

The organising process comprises of:

• Identifying the actions required to attain the goals and determining the goals.
• Authority delegation.
• Ensuring that activities are coordinated and responsibilities are assigned.
• Ensuring that activities are divided into units or departments.

Staffing

At both the management and non-managerial levels, staffing is the job of hiring and maintaining an appropriate workforce for the organisation. It entails the processes of hiring, training, developing, paying, and assessing personnel, as well as motivating and retaining this workforce.

This role is significantly more crucial since people differ in intelligence, education, skills, experience, physical condition, age, and attitudes, making it more difficult to carry out this role. As a result, in addition to technical and operational expertise, managers must comprehend the workforce’s sociological and psychological makeup.

The staffing process comprises of:

• Manpower planning, that is, the process of determining the quality and number of workers needed to complete the tasks at hand.
• Attracting qualified candidates via recruitment.
• Conducting best candidate selection.
• Job-related training and development.
• Taking care of employee motivation.
• Conducting employee evaluations.

Leading

Managers should feel at ease and competent in directing their teams’ regular responsibilities as well as at times of substantial change or difficulty. When creating objectives and conveying new procedures, goods and services, or internal policy, this entails portraying a strong sense of direction and leadership.

Having a leader is critical, someone with a higher level of competency and the ability to guide the team. Leadership can come in several forms, from recognising when employees require additional encouragement and appreciation to properly and decisively resolving problems among team members. Managers may often behave as leaders even in small personal encounters by demonstrating supporting, encouraging, and motivating characteristics.

The leading process comprises of:

• Managing and supervising subordinates.
• Information dissemination.
• Having leadership that is successful.
• Taking care of employee motivation.

Controlling

Managers should evaluate staff performance, work quality, and the efficiency and dependability of finished projects on a regular basis to ensure that all four functions are contributing to the company’s success. In simple words, without controlling, companies are unable to foster the above-mentioned functions – as controlling helps in forecasting deviation before it can occur.

Control in management entails ensuring that the company’s long-term goals are being reached, as well as making any required changes when they aren’t. 

The controlling process comprises of:

• Establishing a standard of performance.
• Conducting actual performance evaluation.
• Comparing real performance to the benchmark.
• Analysing and evaluating deviations.
•  taking remedial action as required.

Conclusion

Overall, management is the process of coordinating and monitoring tasks that are required to fulfil an organisation’s goals. These five management functions are interrelated. In order to run a successful organisation, whether it is small or large, the business managers ensure that they adhere to these functions. However, these are distinguishable and completely vary as per the job and project requirement.