Principals of Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Principals of Management - Essay Example If customers needs more detailed information not covered on the terminals, service centre staff needs to refer customer to the service centre manager who have a greater knowledge of services and products to ensure customer gets the correct information. The new customer service manager experience a increase in calls referred to her by service centre staff, even though they could have answered some of the questions themselves. This resulted in increased delay for customers as the manager will have to address more queries than necessary. This is supported by rising customer complaints about the time they have to wait on the phone. The manager is concerned and requested some guidance on the possible use of McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y to motivate staff. Firstly it is obvious that the service manager are new and may have taking the position over persons who have been with the bank a longer time, persons with more experience and skills. These persons may feel that they are not seen as good enough and that is why they where not considered for the manager position, influencing them negative and this they retaliate by acting as if they are unable to address the customers queries. Then the tasks these service centre staff have to perform has been designed in a monotonous and boring manner, offering no real challenge or a opportunity for staff to use their own initiative. This combined with strict control of staff's movements and restrictive job descriptions allows no flexibility, resulting in repetitive work without any break will be enough to reduce the employees willingness to perform. Furthermore, the strict control seem to only penalise staff and that there is very little in rewards for above average performance or dedication, giving staff no reason to improve their performance, or to help customers with little more complex questions. With only the service manager to help customers with more complex queries, staff will refer any customer to her if they ask questions only slightly deviating from the norm, without even trying to clarify what the customer wants to know. Five Functions of a Manager Before looking at motivational theories we need to look at the functions of a manager. Management is management in any organization and the principals of management are general and not specific to any business environment. "However, management is universal only if the manager has become familiar with the specific situation in which it is applied. Production technology, customer characteristics and the culture of the industry are examples of specifics that managers need to learn to be effective in applying their generic management skills," (James Higgins, 1994). The main goal of a manager is to reach the organisations mission and objectives through the five functions of management; planning, organizing, staffing, directing and control. It must be stressed that even though a manager have the ability to apply the five functions of management to accomplish the organizations goals, it is no guarantee that he or she will be successful. Managers also need to be effective and efficient, effective in achieving goals and efficient in allocating resources. Below the functions defined as: Planning Planning is the continuous process of developing business objectives and determining how they will be accomplished. Planning can be broad, as in designing the mission of a organisation