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 kind of organized foresight as well as corrective hindsight. It involves predicting of the future as well as attempting to control the events. It involves the ability to foresee the effects of current actions in the long run in the future.
An effective planning program incorporates the effect of both external as well as internal factors. The external factors are shortages of resources; both capital and material, general economic trend as far as interest rates and inflation are concerned, dynamic technological advancements, increased governmental regulation regarding community interests, unstable international political environments, etc.
The internal factors that affect planning are limited growth opportunities due to saturation requiring diversification, changing patterns of the workforce, more complex organizational structures, decentralization, etc
2. Organizing
Organizing requires a formal structure of authority and the direction and flow of such authority through which work subdivisions are defined, arranged and coordinated so that each part
relates to the other part in a united and coherent manner so as to attain the prescribed objectives.
t follows, therefore, that the function of organizing is concerned with:
- Identifying the tasks that must be performed and grouping them whenever necessary
- Assigning these tasks to the personnel while defining their authority and responsibility.
- Delegating this authority to these employees
- Establishing a relationship between authority and responsibility
- Coordinating these activities
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. Since the human element is the most vital factor in the process of management, it is important to recruit the right personnel.
This function is even more critically important since people differ in their intelligence, knowledge, skills, experience, physical condition, age and attitudes, and this complicates the function. Hence, management must understand, in addition to the technical and operational competence, the sociological and psychological structure of the workforce.
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.
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.
The controlling function involves:
a. Establishment of standard performance.
b. Measurement of actual performance.
c. Measuring actual performance with the pre-determined standard and finding out the 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.
