Management Function

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 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.

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.

It 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 workforce 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.

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 instructions and guiding the subordinates about procedures and methods.

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.

d. Taking corrective action.