Management Functions: Planning, Organization, Coordination, and Control
Administration is the process by which a group of people achieve proposed objectives.
Administrative Processes
The administrative process involves simultaneous phases of various management functions:
Planning
Planning involves deciding what should be done and what resources are needed. This stage explores potential alternatives and decides the course of action to follow. It is responsible for setting objectives and targets and formulating appropriate plans for achieving them.
Stages of the Planning Process:
- Diagnosis of the situation
- Forecasting the situation
- Establishment of premises
- Determining priorities
- Goal setting
- Making alternative plans
- Choosing a plan
Objectives: Intentions to comply, leading to a useful purpose in an organization. Objectives can be individual, sectoral, or common.
Goals: The quantification of a target in a fixed, predetermined course of action.
Plans: A coordinated approach to achieve the goals of the group, intended to eliminate or minimize any uncertainty that the future represents for the company.
Policy: Action plans that indicate overall guidelines for the adoption of decisions. Requirements include corresponding to reality, clear and defined goals, being written, and controlled. Policies are classified by function, administrative process, application (generally, sectoral, departmental), and imposed (external, internal).
Procedures: Plans that indicate the chronological sequence of activities necessary to do a job. Steps include:
- Planning to conduct the study
- Reviewing European labor history
- Background and analysis of information collected
- Designing the procedure to develop
- Testing the procedure design
- Teaching and disseminating new procedures
- Implementing the procedures
- Controls on the operation of the procedure
Budgets: A plan in figures that covers a specified period, usually one year. It is an early assumption of needs or desired results, establishing them written in numerical terms. Budgets are divided into fixed and variable and can be classified into functional (covering several or all business functions) or program (resources-oriented to meet the objectives).
Coordination
Coordination is the element that brings the work of employees together to avoid loss of effort and give each group unity of action in their purposes.
Control
Control is the constant monitoring of the results obtained, in order to check how plans are being implemented.
Organization
Organization consists of determining the most appropriate order of the human and material resources needed to achieve the target set.
Principles of Organization:
- Homogeneous allocation
- Definition of duties
- The exceptions
- Delegation of authority
- Final responsibility
- Amplitude of control
- Control unit
- Horizontal contact
- Number of levels
Organizational units include linear operative, advisory or staff, and assistants.
Organizational Chart: A graphical representation of the organizational structure, i.e., the array of work units and lines of authority and communication.
Box Distribution of Authority: Synoptic distribution of authority by function, which specifies the responsibilities of each leadership to make decisions in a particular activity.
Direction
Direction is the phase where action is taken for staff to use available resources to meet agreed plans.
Principles of Direction:
- Matching objectives
- Functional balance
- Occupational training
- Integration of groups
- Individual development
Self-Motivation: Consists of giving the employee a reason to be fulfilled in their work and welcome to play and initiative, rather than under a contractual or financial rewards.
Human Relations: A technique based on psychology and industrial sociology, which seeks the motivation of workers through the satisfaction of their needs and creating a work environment conducive to realization. The most important psychological needs include the desire for recognition, stability at work, and the desire for new experiences. Social needs include granting the individual the opportunity to feel important in their work group and be respected and regarded by their bosses.
Co-Leader: The person who, by their magnetic attraction, gets people to follow them spontaneously in achieving a goal. Every employer must be a leader, because leaders do not need orders to be leaders.
Orders: The expression of an executive authority and its authority to require their subordinates in a particular manner. They are classified into verbal and written, defined according to their content – flexible and open.