Factors Affecting Managers Job

In the world of business, managers play a vital role in the success of a company overall. The theory of jobs that a manager is expected to do was first formulated by Fayol. His classical theory states that a manager will do planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and controlling. Mintzberg then questioned the folklore of what a manager does and concluded that management involves brevity, fragmentation and verbal communication best describes the job of a manager.

The jobs of individual managers differ widely from ogranisation to organisation. The work of the manager is varied and fragmented and will be influenced by factors such as the size of the organisation, culture, levels of management, functions of managers and individual personality of managers.

The size of an organisation would determine the job of a manager to a large degree. For example, a small orgranisation like Shop And Save would require their manager’s to perform almost all functions of POCCC such as the ordering of goods, planning of staff shifts, dealing with customer relations, etc. A larger organisation such as NTUC would require the manager to specialise in a smaller sample of functions due to them having more managers and departments to deal with specific matters. An example would be handling promotions, customer feedback and dealing with customer complaints, whereby the jobs would usually be interrelated with each other.

Differences in the culture of organisations would result from the business model that is adopted. Apple requires its workers to think of innovative ideas and to be creative in their work, which would require an informal culture and have fewer constraints on the workers. Having lesser levels of management would also allow ideas to be approved faster and easier. A government organisation such as the army would require a bureaucratic culture in order to ensure rules are adhered to and to have a high level of efficiency when dealing with situations. This is accomplished by setting a chain of command and making sure that the people in the organizations know whom their superiors are.

Another factor would be the different functions of a manager such as marketing, finance, human resource management and production. Managers specialise in certain functions based on their interests and the requirements that they need to fulfill.