HRM week 4

Running head: MANAGEMENT ACTION PLAN TEMPLATE

Title

ABC/123 Version X

1

Functions of Management

Skills Needed

Planning

What type of planning activities will you need to use as a manager?

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The planning activities include analyzing, collecting, prioritizing, categorizing, establishing metrics, and documentation.

The types of plans needed are strategic, tactical, and operational. Strategic planning is analyzing the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats followed by establishing the strategic position to rival effectively with competitors. It considers the organization in general and starts with mission. It consists of objectives formulation. The top managers will develop and roll out strategic plans to show the desired future and long-term goals. In a restaurant for example, the top manager can use strategic planning to make sure that the long-term goals are attained. This implies forming long-term strategies for improving profit, productivity, and growth. Tactical planning is meant to develop ways to implement strategic plans. The tactical plan to improve productivity is testing a new process for making pizzas which takes short duration to cook. Operational planning is meant to develop the steps which support tactical plans. Operational plans are developed by lower level managers.

Operational plans target processes and procedures that appear at lowest levels. Such plans create standards which guide tactical plans implementation (Boone, 2013). Operational plans are categorized into single-use plans which are utilized once (projects and programs). Standing plans are for decisions that are programmed and include rules and policies. New hiring is for instance, a standing plan which defines placing of advertisements, resumes screening, and interviewing candidates among others (Daft, 2011).

Operational planning activities may include developing a quarterly promotion budget to improve sales or scheduling employees weekly. There is also contingency planning which considers all possibilities which cannot be foreseen by real planning.

Review planning activities from the textbook to help describe the planning process you would use as a manager.

Planning entails setting the objectives and determining an action course for attaining those objectives. The planning process starts with environment scanning, forecasting the future, establishing objectives, identifying alternative action courses for attaining objectives, evaluating the alternatives, making decisions about best action courses for objectives, formulating steps and effective plans implementation, then, evaluating plans success and taking corrective action when needed (Durai, 2015).

Organizing

How will you use organizing as a manager?

Organizing is the development of organization structure (framework for coordinating effort and is represented by an organization chart which shows the chain of command) and allocation of human resources to attain objectives. organizing can thus be used to assign the tasks, group the tasks into departments, authority delegation, and resources allocation. It can help identify the activities to be attained, categorize the activities, assign the activities to individuals or groups, form responsibility and delegate authority, coordinate authority and responsibility relationships. Additionally,

organizing can help with organization design and job design basing on principles such as job enrichment and empowerment (Daft, 2011). It can further be used

to restructure the organization as in Avon products where the sales stagnated and overhead costs rose then, the CEO reduced seven managerial layers and reorganized into a structure where more functions and decisions are dealt globally to attain scale efficiency.

Review organizing approaches from the textbook to help describe the organizing approaches you would use as a manager.

One of the approaches is using a functional structure which groups positions into work units focused on similar skills, activities, resources, and expertise. The other is divisional structure (groups each function of the organization into a division), matrix structure (a combination of functional and divisional structure), and network structure (depends on other organizations to execute important functions through sub-contracting). Durai (2015) outlined the grouping the tasks into departments by geography, function, customer, or product.

Leading

What type of leadership characteristics do you want to demonstrate?

The desired leadership characteristic is communication ability. A good leader must be able to clearly communicate the vision, mission, and objectives so that the followers know the expectations. Good communication is based on listening ability, ability to empathize and sympathize, and encouraging ability. The second characteristic is decision maker. Decision making is important because of the ever-changing business environment. The leader must be ready to evaluate the next action course. The third is the ability to empower. The team will rapidly attain goals when the leaders nurture and empower talent. Moreover, the employees become motivated when their talents are recognized. The employees are imparted with new challenges and opportunities when assisted to become better, when assisted to become better. This, in turn, increases happiness and motivation. As a result, the leader is eposed to a team interested in experimentation and studying rather than doing similar things repeatedly. Another is positive attitude. Leadership implies acting as a role model. A leader is a great example for followers if the person has the ability to maintain positivity in times of difficulties and can cheerfully solve challenges (Cleverism, 2017). The last is focus. A leader acts as a guide. If the leader lacks a focused approach, the team will likely spot another person to follow.

Review leadership characteristics from the textbook to help describe the leadership approaches you would use as a manager.

The leadership approaches that can be used are trait, funcational, and situational approach.

The trait approach views leadership as personal attributes possessed by leaders. Leaders have been associated with certain attributes such as confident, enthusiastic, and intelligent. The functional approach visualizes leadership as behaviors which may be carried out by a group member. These behaviors are classified into process (tension releaser or gatekeeper) and task leadership (initiator or coordinator) (Beebe & Masterson, 2015). The situational approach relates leadership to the interaction between group situation and leadership style.

Controlling

Which controlling techniques would you use to measure performance?

Controlling comprises of establishment of performance standards, comparison of actual against set standards, and exercising corrective action when needed. Performance and budget audits can be used to measure performance. Performance audit attempts to establish if the reported figures reflect actual performance while a budget shows the spending and what to be earned. The other is financial statements which supplies information to check-up finance resources and activities. Others are human resource controls which help in regulating new hires quality and also check the development and performances of existing employees (Annosi & Brunetta, 2017). Examples include performance appraisals, observations, and disciplinary programs.

Review controlling techniques from the textbook to help describe the controlling approaches you would use as a manager.

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The following are the control approaches that can be used. Feed forward controls which identifies and prevents deviations in standards before happening for instance, improving the possibility of performing toward set standards by finding out needed skills and employing tests to hire candidates with the required skills. Concurrent controls check on employee activities to maintain consistency with the quality standards. Such controls depend on rules, regulations, and performance standards. For instance, manufacturing functions add machines which measure if produced items satisfy quality standards. Feedback controls entail the review of information to establish if performance aligns with established standards (Annosi & Brunetta, 2017).