Managers Often Describe What They Do as Managing People - Coursework Example

MANAGERS OFTEN DESCRIBE WHAT THEY DO AS MANAGING PEOPLE Name Institution Professor Course Date Introduction Managers play a crucial role in the evolution and growth of an organisation. The growth of an organisation is an intricate procedure that requires a motivated labour force that requires managers with excellent skills. The managers facilitate attainment of organisational goals using employees. They are tasked with assisting and inspiring employees through their roles in their organisations. The chain of occurrences in an organisation that instigate sustained and strong business begins with greater managers who defy widespread management practice and manage people. Great managers promote the engagement and commitment levels of employees. Engaged workers prompt engaged customers who subsequently compel organisational growth and long-term profitability. Drawing from the social system and contingency theories, this essay underscores why managers believe that their roles is to manage people. The role of managers is the most essential in establishing a supportive work setting where employees can operate at their highest ability. Managers manage people. According Hartel and Fujimoto (2014), managers must organise and lead people to attain employee wellbeing and productivity. Kauppila (2014) confirms that an essential part of managerial work is making sure that all organisational members comprehend their roles. For employees, the absence of role clarity is a stressor that is negatively linked to numerous pertinent organisational outcomes such as in-role performance, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and organisational citizenship behaviours. Therefore, preventing unwanted turnover and workplace deviance are further motivations for managers to guarantee a high level of worker role clarity. According to Thomson, Arney and Thomson (2015), managing people is one of the most essential parts of a manager’s role. People are often the most essential resource in a firm and their mangers can make a crucial different to the way they feel about their work and the manner in which they perform their roles. As a result, the role of managers in managing people is critical to the attainment of organisational success. Organisations consist of scores of people and other resources. For other resources such as physical resources to function well, human resources is needed. Therefore, it takes the role of manager to manage people in order to ensure attainment of organisational goals. The goals of an organisation are not attained automatically. Chances are very small that an organisation can attain its objectives devoid of the management process. According to Bates (2007), the resources and activities of an organisation need to be handled in a certain way to allow businesses to meet their objectives. Failure to manage people effectively in organisations is the main reason why businesses fail. The success of a business largely depends on why human resources is managed. A manager work with and through people and it is through managers that people in a firm become productive. A manager is responsible for controlling, directing, motivating and leading the efforts of people to attain the desired results. Therefore, management is a crucial human activity in which a manager manages people. With respect to system approach, an entire organisation, its department, processes, divisions and activities are functional and effective because of the role of managers in managing people. According to Parker & Craig (2008), system approach depends on integrated views for managing people. The system perspective to the management suggests that different forces and parts must be integrated for lowering negative effects linked to the outside environment business operations. The social system theory underscores that managers need to develop a skills system, capacity to communicate and negotiate in order to manage human relations effectively. This theory treats recruitment and selection as a system that affect staff performance and team building as a system that affects leadership. In addition, the social system approach maintains that a firm is a control agency operating in an open system. Workers are viewed as power sources whose growth can be aligned with fundamental organisational goals. Employees are among the many groups that a manager must relate to. Parker and Craig (2008) define a system as a means to bring together or unite. Similar to the human body which holds independent organs, a firm has structural and managerial sub-systems where each part performs own functions yet they all functions towards a common goal. The social system theory asserts that managers promote social factors in a firm, which fosters cooperation, and relations that play a crucial in the attainment of organisational goals. Social factors affect the entire management process. Therefore, managers enhance the culture of an organisation through managing people. According to Bates (2007), culture affects social interactions among members thereby requiring managers to consider cultural relations among members. Culture holds tremendous effects on the performance of employees. Management is founded on cooperation and goals can be actualised through the efforts of managers and employees. As per the provisions of the social system theory, cooperation is paramount, and it holds a special role in the process of management. This system approach to management advocates a coordination-based and cooperation-based management. More so, the system approach put much emphasis on the call for informal and formal communication. Communication is paramount in personnel management. The key to creating a social system is communication that keeps a firm alive and active. A manager sets up and monitors an appropriate network of effective communication that keeps employees inspired and motivated to attain their roles (Rudani 2013). The role of managers is to blend the material and human resources into harmonious relationship, which functions to enhance the productivity of a company. A firm’s effectiveness and the resulting profitability are directly linked to the quality of human resources with the effectiveness and efficiency of organisational productivity resulting from improvement of human dignity and recognition of each individual employee. The calibre and supply of human resources is effectively promoted through personal development, education and training which are all roles of human resource managers. The system approach to personnel management indicates that the inputs of employees in a firm comprises of their abilities that include knowledge, experience and skills, time and motivation. Managers ensure that these inputs are utilised in relation to the demands of a job and form procedures that leads to given outputs. Employees are able to invest their inputs through effective management by their managers to attain outputs that are pertinent to their needs and those of their organisations. It is through effective people management that managers are able to convert their inputs and those of employees into attainment of their organisational goals. Managers have a responsibility to their organisations to manage human resources for attainment of organisational goals. The personnel system stresses on the selection and recruitment of the right quantity and quality of manpower while the processes of the personnel systems focuses on the development, compensation, maintenance and integration of manpower resources. Managers strive to attain organisational goals through promoting employees’ motivation, satisfaction and fulfilling their needs. In addition, managers ensure employees’ productivity through evaluating and assessing the performance of employees as well as ensuring that their needs are attained. With respect to the contingency theory, the role of managers entails being concerned with enhancing human relations. The contingency theory stress that managers promote long-term profitability within a firm through ensuring that the internal mechanisms of their companies operate appropriately and that the interaction with the outside world is cooperative and beneficial. Managers carry outs these functions through managing people to ensure the continuous success of a firm. The managers become a designers, controllers, directors and constructors of the firm so that the firm can attain its goals. Through the contingency theory, managers match the characteristics of a firm to its external and internal environment (Kelly 2006). Under this theory, managers propose management actions and organisational designs that are suitable for given situations. As such, the contingency theory allows managers to understand that not all situations and people should be addressed identically. While managing people, the actions of managers rely on certain set of situations or circumstances. Manager looks for essential contingencies with their certain components serving as a basis for sustainable development and growth. The human subsystem is a crucial element in an organisation that embraces people in a firm, their motivation, and their leadership. Organisations depend on their wider environment for success and profitability. The environment and organisation is viewed as being in a form of mutual independence and influence where human relations are paramount. The key relationships between a firm and its environment depend on human resources. Managers are concerned with representing and understanding the major links between firms and its environments (Jackson 2007). People stand at the centre of these relationships, hence the need to manage them. Organisations must be adapted through effective people management in order to survive in its environment. More importantly, the economic performance of an organisation is determined by the way managers manage its links with environment who include people. A business environment often involves people and these people call for the effective role of managers. Conclusion To steer businesses in the contemporary turbulent environment requires the input of managers. Managers solve intricate problems affecting businesses, turn businesses around and attain excellent results. For businesses to be successful, they require skilled managers. However, the business world is an intricate system of businesses and individuals, which, in a market economy changes restrained resources into services and products to attain the unrestrained wants and needs of people. These resources also known as inputs of a firm can entail financial resources, information resources, physical resources and more essentially human resources. Human resources include the persons who perform activities required to attain the goals of an organisation and they include unskilled and skilled workers, managers and their subordinates. To transform inputs into different outputs, a process is needed. This process includes physically transformation process and management process. Management entails the task of combining, allocating, coordinating and deploying resources or inputs in a way channelled to the attainment of organisational goals. All managers engage in some interlinked activities to attain desired goals, which comprises of the planning, organising, leading and controlling. Although managers, plans, organises, leads and control organisational resources, management entails managing the internal and external systems of a firm that involve people. Therefore, managers manage people. References Bates, B et al 2007, Fresh perspectives: Managing people, SA, Pearson . Charmine, E.J & Fujimoto, Y 2014, Human resource management, AU, Pearson Australia. Jackson, M 2007, Systems approaches to management, UK, Springer Science & Business Media. Kauppila, P 2014, ‘ So, what am I supposed to do? A multilevel examination of role clarity’, Journal of Management Studies, vol.51 (5), pp.737-763. Kelly, A 2006, Plant maintenance management set, UK, Butterworth-Heinemann. Parker, D, Craig, M.A 2008, Managing projects, managing people, AU, Macmillan Education. Rudani, B 2013, Principles of management, India, Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Thomson, R, Arney, E & Thomson, A 2015, Managing people: A practical guide for front-line managers, UK, Routledge. Read More