Management & its functions

Management & its functions

Management is an art of getting things done by others. Management is a set of principles relating to the functions of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling, and the applications of these principles in harnessing physical, financial, human, and informational resources efficiently and effectively to achieve organizational goals.

There are basically five primary functions of management. These are:

1. Planning
2. Organizing
3. Staffing
4. Directing
5. Controlling

Five Functions of Management

1. Planning

Planning is future-oriented and determines an organization’s direction. It is a rational and systematic way of making decisions today that will affect the future of the company. It is a way of thinking in advance what do do, how to do, by whom work should be done.

2. Organizing

Organizing involves the determination of activities that need to be done in order to reach the company goals, assigning these activities to the proper personnel, and delegating the necessary authority to carry out these activities in a coordinated and cohesive manner.

3. Staffing

Staffing is the function of hiring and retaining a suitable work-force for the enterprise both at managerial as well as non-managerial levels. It involves the process of recruiting, training, developing, compensating and evaluating employees and maintaining this workforce with proper incentives and motivations. 

4. Directing

The directing function is concerned with leadership, communication, motivation, and supervision so that the employees perform their activities in the most efficient manner possible, in order to achieve the desired goals.

The leadership element involves issuing of instructions and guiding the subordinates about procedures and methods.

The communication must be open both ways so that the information can be passed on to the subordinates and the feedback received from them.

Motivation is very important since highly motivated people show excellent performance with less direction from superiors.

Supervising subordinates would lead to continuous progress reports as well as assure the superiors that the directions are being properly carried out.

5. Controlling

The function of control consists of those activities that are undertaken to ensure that the events do not deviate from the pre-arranged plans. The activities consist of establishing standards for work performance, measuring performance and comparing it to these set standards and taking corrective actions as and when needed, to correct any deviations.

All these five functions of management are closely interrelated. However, these functions are highly indistinguishable and virtually unrecognizable on the job. It is necessary, though, to put each function separately into focus and deal with it