Functions of Management

Management is the process of efficiently achieving the objectives of the organization

with and through people. The major responsibilities of managers are grouped into four
major functions.
1. Planning
planning
“A management function focusing on setting organizational goals and
objectives”.
Planning involves establishing the organizational objectives and deciding what
actions need to be taken to achieve them. Many organizations state their objectives in
the form of a mission statement and use it as a foundation for all planning. Strategic
planning is part of the planning function.
2.Organizing
“A management function that deals with determining what jobs are to be done
and by whom, where decisions are to be made, and how to group employees”.
Determining what activities need to be completed to accomplish those goals is the
main focus of the Organizing function. Activities need to be organized into work
groups and jobs must be developed within those work groups. Managers must acquire
and implement equipment, financial resources, technology, inventory, and services
necessary to support workers so they can do their jobs well and support organizational
objectives.
3.Leading
“A management function concerned with directing the work of others.”
The Leading function is responsible for inspiring effort and establishing a culture of
support and productivity. Leaders ensure that the right people with appropriate skills
are on the job and motivate them to levels of high productivity. There are many
theories of leadership. Most agree that the correct leadership style in any situation
depends on the leader ’ s personality, organizational culture, the jobs being done, and
the abilities of the workers.
4. Controlling
“A management function concerned with monitoring activities to ensure that
goals are met.”
Monitoring activities to ensure that goals are met is the focus of the control function.
Some goals such as profitability or productivity are easy to define and measure.
Others such as employee engagement require a little more skill. Controlling involves
determining what to measure, monitoring performance, and comparing results to
goals. If performance falls short of goals, processes are examined to determine how to
improve.

The HRM Functions

HRM is the part of the organization concerned with the “people” dimension. HRM
can be viewed in one of two ways. First, HRM is a staff or support function in the
organization, providing strategic, tactical, and transnational HR services to everyone
in the organization. Second, HRM is every manager ’ s job, whether you work in the
HR department or you supervise a crew of young part‐timers. All managers have
HRM responsibilities.
There are 4 basic functions of HRM:
1. Staffing
2. Training and Development
3. Motivation
4. Maintenance
There are 4 basic activities performed by HRM:
1. Hiring of people
2. Prepare them
3. Encourage them
4. Keep them
1. Staffing Function
“Activities in HRM concerned with seeking and hiring qualified employees”
Staffing is the process of finding, screening, hiring, and evaluating workers for a
company.
 It involves acquiring and retaining competent individuals to fill vacant positions
throughout the organization. It focuses on selecting and appointing the right
people for each job to ensure effective and efficient performance.
 The goal is to match the skills and capabilities of individuals with the
requirements of the positions to achieve organizational objectives.
 It ensures that the organization has the appropriate human resources to
accomplish defined goals. Staffing also involves strategic workforce planning,
where the organization determines the number and types of employees needed.
Human resource managers begin the staffing function to determine human resource
needs necessary to support the strategic plan. The search begins to find individuals
who possess specific skills, knowledge, and abilities directly linked to specific jobs.
As an organization ’ s jobs are analyzed, specific skills, knowledge, and abilities are
identified that the job applicant must possess to succeed. Through the job analysis
process, HRM identifies the essential qualifications for a particular job and includes
them in the job description. This accomplishes two objectives.
First, prospective employees can see a clear connection between the job and the
mission or strategy of the company.
Second, it assures that the candidate is selected according to objective criteria and not
politics or personal bias, hopefully reducing the chance that illegal discrimination may
influence hiring.
Once applications have come in, it is time to begin the selection phase. The selection
process screens applicants and develops a pool of qualified applicants who move on
to an interview process and possible testing. At the end of the process, job offers are
extended to the best qualified candidates.

2. Training and Development Function

“Activities in HRM concerned with assisting employees to develop up ‐to ‐date
skills, knowledge, and abilities”.
Employee training and development refers to the continued efforts of a company to
boost the performance of its employees. It enables the organization to create a highly
skilled workforce.Employee training and development includes any activity that helps
employees acquire new, or improve existing, knowledge or skills.
This function help employees become better at their jobs and overcome performance
gaps that are based on lack of knowledge or skills. This can help organizations and
teams be more productive and obtain improved business outcomes, leading to a
competitive advantage over other companies.
To accomplish this, HRM typically embarks on four areas in the training and
development phase: employee training, employee development, organization
development, and career development. It is important to note that employee and
career development is more employee centered, whereas employee training is
designed to promote competency in the new job.
The training and development function tends to be a continuous process. The goal of
training and development is to have competent, adapted employees who possess the
up‐to‐date skills, knowledge, and abilities needed to perform their current jobs more
successfully. If that is attained, HRM turns its attention to finding ways to motivate
these individuals to exert high energy levels.

4 areas of Employee Training and Development

1.Employee Training
This activity helps employees in acquiring skills that are required to perform their
current jobs. It is a continuous process that involves providing employees necessary
skills and knowledge that are essential to complete a given task at job.
Example: Technical training, Soft skills training and Safety training.
2.Employee Development
Employee Development aims at providing employees professional growth and
development in their knowledge, skills, abilities and expertise that help them
achieving their organizational goals.
It is designed to help the organization ensure that it has the necessary talent available
internally for meeting on going current and future human resource needs. It focuses
on filling the future vacancy or position in the organization for which employee
requires additional skills, expertise and competencies.
3. Career Development
These programs are designed to assist employees in advancing their work life roles.
The focus of career development is to provide necessary information and assessment
in helping employees realize their career goals.
4. Organizational Development
It deals with facilitating system wide changes in the organization. The focus of
organizational development is to change the attitudes and values of employees
according to new organizational strategic direction.

3.Motivation Function
“Activities in HRM concerned with helping employees exert themselves at high
energy levels”.
The motivation function requires HRM to understand and utilize leadership skills to
inspire employees to greater effort. Human behavior is complex, and trying to figure
out what motivates various employees.
Motivation is not just what the employee exhibits but a collection of environmental
issues surrounding the job. From a performance perspective, employees need the
appropriate skills and abilities to adequately do the job. The motivation function
requires constant support by the organizations in providing employees opportunities,
skills and expertise.

4.Maintenance Function
“Activities in HRM concerned with maintaining employees’ commitment and loyalty
to the organization”.
The maintenance function puts into place activities that will help retain productive
employees. HRM must ensure a safe and healthy working environment and assist
employees in achieving a healthy work–life balance.
Many organizations do this by creating a package of family–friendly benefits and
work practices such as limiting overtime work, providing family health benefits, on‐
site daycare, flexible scheduling, wellness programs, and counseling. Employees
appreciate these programs, reducing stress, job dissatisfaction, and employee
turnover.

Strategic Management Process

Strategic Management
Establishes long‐term goals and provides direction for an organization.
Strategic Management Process
Analyzes the environment and creates strategies to achieve organizational goals. The
role of HR in this process is to determine the best way to align the people in the
organization so they are best able to assist the organization to achieve those goals.
Setting goals and determining the best way to accomplish them is at the heart of the
strategic management process.
Strategic Analysis
It is the process of gathering data that helps a company’s leaders and managers decide
on priorities and goals a long-term strategy for the business. Strategic analysis starts
with a mission and goes on to establish core values and culture and analyze the
external environment.
Mission: Strategy is driven by the organizational mission, which describes the reason
it exists and what it is trying to accomplish. It forms the basis for the organization’s
strategic goals for the future, planning, structure, and decisions about how goals will
be met.
Core Values and Culture: Core values are the beliefs of the organization about
acceptable behavior. Culture is the way organizational members demonstrate core
values on a daily basis by the way they treat each other and the public. It includes the
ways acceptable and unacceptable behavior are handled, how rewards and discipline
are used, work ethic, dress, speech, humor, punctuality, and respect. Core values and
culture are the personality of the organization. They are based on the mission
statement and are usually communicated to employees during the hiring and training
process.
Analyze the Environment: For conducting environmental analysis organizations use
a very common but most essential tool called a SWOT analysis (strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and threats).
It includes an internal analysis of the internal strengths and weaknesses of an
organization and the external opportunities and threats. A thorough SWOT analysis
exposes potential problems within an organization such as what skills, knowledge,
and abilities are available internally and where shortages in terms of people skills or
equipment may exist.
SWOT analysis: A process for determining an organization’s strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats. The SWOT analysis should lead to a clear assessment of
the organization ’ s internal resources; such as capital, worker skills, and patented
technology. It should also evaluate organizational departmental abilities, such as
training and development, marketing, accounting, human resources, research and
development, and management information systems.
1.Strength: (Internal Factor) Internal characteristics or capabilities that provide
competitive advantage over competitors.
2.Weakness: (Internal Factor) Internal characteristics or capabilities that give
competitive advantage to competitors.
3.Opportunities: (External Factor) Factors that become a reason for organizational
growth.
4.Threats: (External Factor) Factors that become a reason for organization’s
downfall.
Core Competency: Core Competencies are the organizational strengths that represent
unique skills or resources. Any of those strengths that represent unique skills or
resources that can determine the organization ’ s competitive edge forms its core
competencies.
Strategy Formulation
Each level of the organization develop a strategy that supports the mission and
strategic goals.
Corporate Strategies
Growth: Expansion in products or markets
Restructuring: Changing the core base of organization goals and missions.
Business Strategies
Taking strategic steps for implementation of planned goals and actions.
Functional Strategies
Organizational structures often group people with similar responsibilities in functional
groups. These may include finance and accounting related positions; marketing,
manufacturing, and production; and human resources.
All establish functional strategies that support the corporate level strategy. Examples
of functional unit strategic decisions that support organizational strategy include
the following:
Marketing: Aligning products, prices, promotion, and distribution to meet customer
needs.
Finance: Managing capital efficiently.
Human Resource: Recruit, hire, train, develop, and compensate employees.
Operations: Designing production processes and inventory systems.
Strategy Implementation
At the implementation level, HR designs jobs so that employees understand the
relevance of their positions to the organizational strategy and the necessary
knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) to achieve success.
Evaluating Results
Metrics: Quantitative assessments used to measure the effectiveness of business
practices
Benchmarks: Metrics from other businesses or industry averages used to compare
performance.
Dashboards: Visual displays of HR metrics that can be quickly accessed and
interpreted on a computer or tablet.