The Four Functions of Management Within Ginseg Regional Healthcare Systems

The Four Functions of Management within

Ginseg Regional Healthcare Systems

Henry Fayol, a 20th century mine owner, first coined term, “Four Functions of Management” to define a functional organization design, focused on essential skill sets. (“Four Functions of Management”, 1999) Since then, processes, projects, teams, systems, and different specialisms, like Marketing and Human Resources have manipulated, added to, and overlaid these concepts. However, these four basic concepts are still at the core of managerial thinking, they are Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling.

Planning is concerned with the future impact of today’s decision. (Erven, n.d.) Planning, as a basic definition, is setting objectives, analyzing dependencies and scheduling activities and resources to ensure that objectives are met. It is an ongoing process of developing the business’ mission and objectives and determining how they will be accomplished. Planning includes both the broadest view of the organization, e.g., its mission, and the narrowest, e.g., a tactic for accomplishing a specific goal. Planning is the essential function from which the other three functions of management stem.

At GRHS, (GINSEG REGIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM), basic planning initiates the organization by determining the system’s vision, mission, objectives, and goals. Grasping the fundamental understanding of what GRHS is seeking to achieve is determined by planning. Every aspect of the hospital has to be planned for; nursing staff to meet patient needs, conference services to ensure continuing education classes can take place, as well as environmental services where sanitation is of the utmost importance. Without this crucial step in management, organizing, leading and controlling cannot take place successfully.

Each company has an organizational structure. In developing an organizational structure and distributing authority, manager’s decisions reflect the mission, objectives and tactics that grew from the planning function. (Erven, n.d.) Thus, the next step in the Four Functions of Management is Organization. Organizing is establishing the internal structure of the business. The focus is on division, coordination and control of tasks and the flow if information within the company. Managers distribute responsibility and authority to job holders in this function of management (Higgins, 1994.)

GRHS’s structure is a direct example of this organizing process. It begins with the division of labor, delegation of authority, grouping of jobs (departmentation), span of control and coordination.

Division of labor is concerned with relationships among tasks and the authority to do the tasks. Delegation of authority is the ability to give authorized power of influence to a subordinate. Delegation frees the manager to use his or her time on high priority issues. However, it does not free the manager from accountability for the actions of the staff. This may include having a manger under the director of a department. Departmentation is the grouping of jobs under the authority of a single manager, according to some rational basis, for the purpose of planning, coordination and control. (Erven, 1990) Span of control is the number of people that a manager supervises. Coordination is the putting all of the above-mentioned practices into place, ensuring that the organizational structure functions as smoothly as possible. In the Education department at GRHS, we have the following organizational chart. (Fig. 1)

Fig.1

After the needs and goals have been declared in the planning stage, an organized structure is put into place. Starting with the ultimate accountable person, the director. The director in turns, delegates the authority to the managers to set up teams based on grouping the similar needs and making teams to handle those needs, departmentation. In doing this they determine how many people are needed to accomplish those goals.

Influencing people’s behavior through motivation, communication, group dynamics, and discipline takes leadership. Leadership is the next key function in the management process. Bernard L. Erven from Ohio State University says “the purpose of [leading] is to channel the behavior of all personnel to accomplish the organization’s mission and objectives while simultaneously helping them accomplish their own career objectives.” The leading function gives the manager an active role rather than a passive role in an employees performance, (Saxton, 2000). There are many roles in the leadership function, motivation, coaching, training, and accountability to name a few.