Managing People and Organisations

Introduction Organisations develop and implement management concepts that enable them to operate efficiently. These concepts are also called functions of management. They help managers to make tactical and strategic decisions to enhance efficient management of an organisation (Griffin and Moorhead 108).Advertising We will write a custom assessment sample on Managing People and Organisations specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Functions of Management Planning This is the major function of management. It acts as a pillar upon which other functions are built. Planning enables managers to evaluate the present position of an organisation and decide in advance possible future developments. It provides a plan of action that elaborates what should be done and at what time. Moreover, it enhances drafting of the means and ways of achieving predetermined goals. It is vital in management because it ensures that human and no-human resources are u tilized properly. Moreover, it helps the management to avoid uncertainties, risks, possible wastes, and confusion (Keller 109). Organising Organising helps the management team to assemble human, finance, and physical resources. As a result, a productive relationship is created between the resources that enhance realization of set goals and objectives. Organising involves the identification of available resources, allocating and delegating duties, and coordinating both non-human and human resources. This ensures that resources are organised properly to enhance the achievement of goals developed during the planning phase (Griffin and Moorhead 108). Directing Directing involves influencing people to work efficiently. Influence to achieve goals is attained through motivation, communication, supervision, and leadership (Keller 109). Motivation inspires, stimulates, and encourages employees to work with determination. It can be in the form of job promotion, gifts or recognition of individ uals who perform excellently. Supervision entails monitoring the workforce and providing necessary directions and support.Advertising Looking for assessment on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Leadership entails guiding the workforce in a desired direction. Finally, communication entails passing information, opinions, and/or experience within an organisation. It promotes teamwork and understanding. Controlling Controlling is the last function of management that entails measurement of the organisation’s accomplishments and correction of possible deviations. This is meant to ensure that the organisation achieves its goals systematically. Moreover, controlling ensures that the plans of an organisation occur according to predetermined standards. It investigates whether the company is aligned towards achieving its goals and objectives. In addition, it involves taking appropriate actions when necessary to correct any deviations from standards (Keller 109). Controlling entails the following steps: setting standard of performance, measuring actual performance, comparing actual performance with standards, and taking corrective actions (Griffin and Moorhead 108). Effective Management Traits For a person to manage an organisation effectively, he/she need to possess effective management traits. These traits will enable the person to control system processes and drive an organisation towards success. According to Jonathan Scott (79), effective management traits include the following: Integrity A good manager has integrity. This trait enables workers to build trust on the manager. To effectively manage people and organizations one need to be honest and follow rules. Integrity deters corruption which is dangerous to organisation development. Self-motivation A good manager is self-motivated. He/she does not need to be monitored to deliver. He/she must be capable of understanding the goals and objectives of an organisation. Furthermore, he/she should be ready to develop strategies for achieving those goals and objectives.Advertising We will write a custom assessment sample on Managing People and Organisations specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Team Player To effectively manage a business or people, one should be ready to work with a team. This means that a manager should corporate with the staff to achieve business goals and personal satisfaction. Ability to Solve Conflicts A manager acts as a bridge between top management and workers. He/she should be capable of solving conflicts between management and employees. In addition, one should be able to solve conflicts between the organisation and outside rivals diplomatically. Dependability An effective manager should be dependable such that the employer or employees can counted on him or her any time. Reliability helps one to gain people’s trust. Optimism Effective m anagement requires a person to have an optimistic attitude. This enables one to be visionary i.e. looking into the future with determination and hoping for the better even if the situation seems hopeless. Optimism inspires employees and makes them feel good about their work. Leadership Skills Effective managers have good leadership traits. He/she must be confident with his/her abilities to lead a team, provide directions, delegate duties appropriately, and command actions where necessary. Moreover, one must be capable of influencing others to achieve business or personal goals and objectives. Effective Communication Effective communication is vital in today’s business world. To manage an organisation effectively, one need to have efficient communication skills. This will enable him/her to communicate with prospective clients/customers. Providing Feedback Effective management requires that both negative and positive feedback be provided to respective parties. Feedback helps in dividuals to reflect on their performance and adjust accordingly.Advertising Looking for assessment on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Intelligentsia An effective manager should have a good understanding of his/her field of study and be able to show what he/she knows. This trait entails other characteristics such as intelligence, creativity, and humor (Keller 109). Fairness Managers should demonstrate fairness when formulating policies or delegating duties. This trait is vital in any organisation because it encourages teamwork and loyalty. Ability to Remain Calm Being able to remain calm and composed in all situations even when things are not working according to plans is not easy. However, a good manager should be able to cool down when circumstances get worse, employees become nuisance, and strategies fail to work. How to Achieve Effective Management Traits Effective management traits can be achieved through many ways. Some of the traits are inborn while others are learnt through several processes (Guido and Nueno 56). To achieve these traits one need to do the following: Investing in his/her Strengths People hav e natural strengths that permit their skills and capabilities. Investing in these strengths through training can enhance their perfection and refinement. For instance, if one is naturally good in negotiation, he/she should take negotiation classes to improve his/her negotiation skills. Invest in Knowledge Investing time to acquire the right knowledge and intelligence enhances one’s career development. For instance, to acquire better leadership skills, one may need to invest in leadership trainings to be perfect (Keller 109). Having the right relationship Keeping the right relationship with people who have management skills may help one to learn similar skills. Having a personal advisory board can enable one to achieve management traits. For instance, one may attain teamwork trait by having right networks or relationship. Investing in a Coach A coach can help one to achieve some traits such as self-motivation or provide one with tools to keep him/her focused. Coaching is one o f the mostly used methods of attaining effective management traits. Through Experience When one is chosen as a manager of an organisation, he/she can learn effective management skills while working. For instance, he/she can learn how to give feedback, treat each employee, and get employees motivated to achieve goals. Sharing with other Managers Sharing gives a person an opportunity to reflect on his/her management traits. This helps him/her to takes appropriate action to improve. For instance, if one becomes emotional very first, he/she can learn how to control his/her temper through colleagues (Keller 109). Seminars and workshops One can achieve management traits by attending seminars and workshops presided over by management experts. The experts will teach how to develop and nature management traits. Works Cited Griffin, Ricky and Gregory Moorhead. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Oxford: Cengage Learning, 2009. Print Guido, Stein and Pedro Nueno. Managi ng People and Organizations: Peter Drucker’s Legacy, Bingley: Emerald, 2010. Print. Keller, Andreas. What is Effective Leadership? Managing People in Organisations. New York: GRIN Verlag, 2011. Print. Scott, Jonathan. Fundamentals of Leisure Business Success: A Manager’s Guide to Achieving Success in the Leisure and Recreation Industry, New York: Haworth Press Incorporated, 1998. Print. 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Employee Relations Service-Profit Value Chain

Employee Relations Service-Profit Value Chain The service-profit value chain (SPVC) is a model of the relationship between employee productivity, service delivery, and customer satisfaction that explains the link between customer service as a broad concept and business profitability. Although the model is generally well-known, it does not seem to attract as much academic attention as other concepts in CRM. That is unfortunate because the SPVC is one of the more flexible and practical analytical models available; if understood and applied correctly, it is equally useful as a tool for external analysis of firms as well as a tool for planning. The Basic Concept behind the SPVC: Employees Come First The development of the SPVC is attributed to a group of Harvard Business School faculty members led by James L. Heskett, and the model was introduced in an article in the Harvard Business Review in 1994 (â€Å"Putting the Service-Profit Value Chain to Work†, Harvard Business Review, March-April 1994). The basic concept of the SPVC, the ‘links’ in the chain, is expressed as a series of propositions: Profit and growth result from customer loyalty. Customer loyalty results from customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction results from service value. Service value results from employee loyalty and productivity. Employee loyalty and productivity are results of employee satisfaction. Employee satisfaction results from internal service quality. Internal service quality refers to the working environment – working conditions, compensation and rewards, policies, and support that facilitate the delivery of service by employees. The philosophy â€Å"Take care of your employees and they will take care of your business,† expressed in different ways by management icons like Virgin’s Richard Branson, Southwest Airlines’ Herb Kelleher or Enterprise Rent-a-Car’s Jack Taylor is not just homespun wisdom, but really the fundamental idea behind the SPVC. The customer is naturally the highest priority, but the business can’t meet the customer’s needs unless it has something to deliver; and the only way the business can accomplish that is to cultivate its workforce, which makes internal service quality the first objective. You may be interested in: Five Forces Analysis SWOT Analysis Five Components of Service Management The ADL Matrix and Gap Analysis Ansoff, Boston, and the Strategy Clock The SPVC as an Empirical Model One of the advantages of the SPVC as an analytical tool is that it can be configured as kind of empirical model. Heskett, et al. made the argument that customer satisfaction – and consequently, customer loyalty leading to profitability for the firm – is the result of the customer’s perception of service value. The service value perception is a judgment by the customer that compares the outcomes of the service and the quality of the process to the price of the service and other costs to the customer to obtain the service. The customer assessment can be expressed as a customer value equation: [SO + PQ]/[P + C] = CV → CL → PROFIT Of course, in order for this equation to be useful, some meaningful values have to be assigned to the variables, and that might present a bit of a challenge. The easiest way to approach the problem is to start with the variables that have a known value: Price (P) and Profit; profit should be expressed as a numerical value, i.e. price times profit margin. Other customer costs (C) can be estimated; factors such as the price differential between the firm’s product or service and that of a competitor, the difference in distance a customer has to travel to reach the business rather than a competitor, shipping or transfer costs, and costs in time required for the customer to obtain the product or service all account for C, and with a little research a fairly accurate estimate can be generated. Service Outcome (SO) is a bit more difficult, but if it is generalized to represent ‘completion of a transaction’, it can be handled with a Likert Scale. For example: 1 – Transaction not completed 2 – Transaction completed, but below customer expectations 3 – Transaction completed, met customer expectations 4 – Transaction completed, exceeded customer expectations Note that in this scale there is no ‘0’. A transaction that is not completed or is otherwise entirely unsatisfactory to the customer probably deserves a ‘0’, but that would also increase the likelihood that the left side of the equation would equal ‘0’; not only would that be mathematically incorrect (unless profit happens to equal ‘0’ as well), but it is simply not very helpful in analyzing problems with service. Process quality (PQ) is the most subjective factor, but because this entire formula is an expression of customer perceptions, a scale similar to the one used to assign a value to SO can be used here. Here’s how it looks with real numbers plugged in: Wacky Lube, a chain of auto service shops, has done a customer survey about their $9.99 quick oil change service, which at that price has a margin of 15%. The company has decided to focus on the time to complete the service as the key factor in other customer costs; they learn through the survey that their customers have an average income of about $30,000, and spend an average of 21 minutes waiting for the service to be completed. Overall, the customers surveyed rate the service outcome at 2.5, and the process quality at 3.1. Thus, SO = 2.5 PQ = 3.1 P = 9.99 C = 5.25 (at $30,000 a year, a full-time worker is earning $0.25 per minute) PROFIT = 1.50 ($9.99 x 15%) [2.5 + 3.1]/[9.99 + 5.25] = CV → 1.50 0.3675 = CV, which corresponds to $1.50 profit for the quick-oil-change service. This is the point where the equation becomes only â€Å"sort of† empirical. First and most noticeably, the contribution of internal service quality and employee satisfaction is completely missing from this formula. That is an omission in the research literature as well; despite the importance given to employee satisfaction, there has been very little if any scholarly work done to this point to try to model it, possibly because internal service environments differ greatly from one workplace to another. As it is, the equation only indicates that some undefined status quo in Wacky Lube’s internal service environment correlates to a CV of 0.3675, leaving Wacky Lube’s management with a bit more work to do to figure out the connections. The second problem is that the profit and the CV can be and probably are mutually exclusive; revenues are a function of customer value/customer loyalty as a sales driver, but profits are a function of costs. There are some circumstances where costs are related to customer loyalty – for instance, greater customer retention or repeat business tends to lower some costs – but caution must be exercised in applying the results of the SPVC analysis.