Four Functions of Mgmt

The management process contains four different functions: Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling. Each of these functions is important to successfully manage at any level. I am going to discuss how these four functions of management relate to my organization. Because I work for a large pharmaceutical company and do not know how all of the different area's "run their business" I am going to focus on my department, which is a section of Human Resources and how my management plans, organizes, leads and controls.

My department is Staffing Systems and our area is responsible for the main hiring system and the reporting of it. This includes the two websites that are used for our employees and external candidates to apply. We also have smaller systems such as a testing database, a Lotus Notes mailbox that job requisitions come into and several smaller systems for running reports. In this paper I will use a specific example of a problem that needed to be resolved and how my management and our team of people solved this issue.

We recently implemented a new system called Brassring or Hiresystems. Part of what we use this system for is to open job requisitions. When a hiring manager has a position to fill they need to create a requisition for candidates to apply to. The problem, the hiring managers do not find this system user friendly. If they do not have all the information they need, get interrupted in the middle of creating the requisition or whatever other issue may come up they are unable to save the document if all the required fields are not filled. This may not seem like a large issue but the managers at our company do not have the time to do this over and over if they do not get it completed the first time. They also do not do this on a regular basis, maybe once a year so learning the system was not important to them. Our department needed a solution. The hiring manager is our customer and we needed to fit there needs.

Planning is figuring out the goal that is trying to be reached and deciding the actions that need to be taken to reach that goal. Part of planning is being able to evaluate the current circumstances and also being able to anticipate future problems that may occur. Planning sets the foundation for the others functions, which is why it is the first. The "plan" in this case is finding a solution to managers being able to easily enter job requisitions so they can complete the more important functions of their jobs. We needed to make a form that would be more user friendly and that could be saved if the managers needed to go back to it at a later time. Our plan was to open a mini helpdesk for phone support and a Lotus Notes Database with an easier form to help our managers. The form had to be easier for the managers to use and be able to be saved.

Organizing is getting all of the resources you need to achieve the specific goal or goals. This includes information, people, finances and any other resource needed. Once you have all of the resources needed to achieve your goals you must then assign responsibilities to each member so that your goal is reached successfully. First we needed to create what we needed on the form. Next, we needed to speak to our IT group to have the new Database created with all of the functions that we were looking for. We then had to find the people to help answer the phones and put the requisition into Brassring once it was submitted to the Lotus Notes database. We also had to come up with a plan to advertise this new system for managers so they would know the new resource was available. As a team we sat down and decided who would be responsible for what action, we set dates for items to be complete and would meet regularly to make sure everything was being completed.

Leading is