Functions of Management

Management:

Four Main Functions of Management

There are four main functions of management; planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. All four functions have a significant role in the maintaining of efficient and effective management.

Planning

The first function of management is planning, which is the management function of systematically making decisions about the goals and activities that the overall organization will pursue, including making decisions for individuals and groups within the organization (Bateman & Snell 16). In the company that I work for, there is little organization. This could be attributed to management as well as the store being only 3 weeks old and everyone just getting the hang of things. I feel that if the management had better planning a lot of the short falls would not have happened. Short falls such as running out of important Christmas items, and not having maps of the store for customers (the maps were a major complaint, many customers would refer to another location that gave out maps). My company is one of the largest retail chains in the world and planning is a must.

Organization

Organization is the process of establishing formal relationships among people and resources in order to reach specific goals and objectives. Organizational structure is represented primarily by an organizational chart. It specifies who is to do what and how it will be accomplished (S. Arulraj, M. W. Waldron,and J. Vsanthakumar ch13). At the Wal-Mart Corporation, where I work, organization is just now becoming important to the staff and management. Since our store opened on November 13th of this year, the store has been disorganized. Cashiers, such as me, have been getting their lunches up to 2 hours late and have missed some breaks because of management. Cashiers are told not to leave their register for any reason, unless told otherwise by a Customer Service Manager (CSM) or other manager so cashiers have to wait until they are relieved to go on their lunch or break. When a cashier needs a price check or help with the register, they are told to call their CSM, and it takes the CSMs longer than their set time which is 90seconds, to respond to a cashier’s request. This shows bad organization on the management end and also gives the cashiers a bad attitude having to wait long hours before having their lunch, and having to have a long line of customers getting more and more frustrated as the time goes by when the CSM is running behind. Without organization it is hard to get people to work together on anything and show good team work.

Leading

Now we are at the third management function which is leading. Leading is stimulating people to do their best and be high performers at their job. It involves close day to day contact between management and employee. This is one of the high points of management at my place of employment. The high managers (General Manager and three assistant managers) are constantly on the floor observing and interacting with employees. They always ask us how we are doing and how we feel. In an environment like this it is easy for employees to do their best work and feel a proprietary interest in producing a quality product or service. McGregor (1960) proposed that managers might assume that employees are motivated in one of