 Contents of the free course
Introduction
The Manager’s Role
Have you also considered these aspects of the course?
- Managing Yourself
- Managing People
- Managing Information
- Managing Finance
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Aims
The aims of this course are to help owners and managers to develop the skills to plan, use and control resources effectively.
Objectives
By the end of this course you will be able to:
. Understand the manager’ s role
. Define a manager’s responsibilities
. Manage yourself more effectively
. Make better decisions
• Use time more productively
• Lead, motivate and develop staff
• Understand the importance of managing information
• Understand the importance of managing finance
Introduction
Whether an owner manager or an employee in an organisation, we all need to be effective at managing our time and resources to ensure that there is proper control.
Without control, any job or role can lead to a variety of situations which can have disastrous consequences on the organisation, on our personal lives and even on our health.
Although people may excel at some aspect of the business function, unless we can manage the resources at our disposal, the danger is that the business will suffer and the result can include:
. lost time
. missed deadlines
. lost customers
. bad production
. poor cash flow
. lack of motivation
. absence
. staff turnover
. stress
. bankruptcy
In fact the list is endless but the message is clear. Any business lacking in management will run out of control and eventually falter.
On the other hand, there are great benefits and rewards to be had from employing some basic management principles, not least of which are a better business, happier more productive staff, and peace of mind. Even the sole trader needs to be a good manager (perhaps especially so) because however good you may be at what you do, the business still requires managing.
Planning 
Motivating
Delegating
Time management
Staff training
Marketing
Stock control
Work rotas, holiday cover, displays, stock staff to provide good service the decisions required when he is not there to ensure that the business does not take all his time so that staff can operate the tills and know the products and prices to increase his customers to ensure that the shop is well stocked but also that there is no wastage.
Financial control to ensure there is cash to pay staff, suppliers and keep the business running.
These are just some quick examples which demonstrate the need for good management.
In this course we will examine in turn a series of skills and techniques which can have a major impact on the smooth running of any business. These are the same whether you are running a newsagent or are a department manager in a large organisation. The only difference is that the smaller the business the quicker the effect of poor management can be, because there are fewer people around to compensate.
There are of course, many books courses and journals which teach management skills, many of which are excellent. Many of these are also very detailed and often difficult to digest without devoting considerable time and effort. The emphasis in this course is
on practical help on a broad range of management skills. If you wish to learn more about specific techniques, you will find a list of sources of information at the end of the full course and may wish to refer to them later. However, for the time being let us start by considering what the manager’s role involves.
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The Manager’s Role
At its simplest, the manager’ s role can be said to be to ensure the smooth running of a business, department or section so that the objectives are met with minimum cost and maximum efficiency. This statement sounds all very straightforward but if we examine the definition a little further we can see that there are some clear clues about the nature of the role. Some of the implications of the definition are:
Objectives: knowing what is required and what the purpose is. This includes having a good understanding of the tasks performed and what the planned outcome is. The objectives may be purely financial or linked to production targets and service levels, but without a clear understanding of what these objectives are, how do we manage effectively?
Minimum cost: ensuring that whatever tasks are performed in the business or department, these are carried out within known financial constraints and organised in such a way as to minimise the cost.
Maximum efficiency: organising people and other resources so that there is a smooth flow of work, and planned structure to the tasks which minimises wastage of effort. To do this we will need to be good at organising, delegating, motivating, training, and using time effectively.
Smooth running: minimising problems and hiccoughs so that customer’s expectations are met and staff feel that they are making a worthwhile contribution to the business.
We could go into great detail in the full course about the role of the manager but the message is that he or she must be able to control events by organising resources effectively. The resources will include:
. People
. Information
. Finance
. Yourself
The range of skills involved will include:
. Planning
. Budgeting
. Recruiting
. Training
. Organising
. Delegating
. Leading
. Team building
. Objective setting
. Communicating
. Reviewing
. Changing
. Decision making
. Influencing
Most people enter management because they have first become proficient ( and usually succeeded) at performing some task or occupation. Engineers, scientists, carers, chefs, computer programmers; whatever a person’s occupation, the actual task involved requires some technical or vocational skill. The manager’s role, however, requires a series of skills which are generic, or not specific to one job or organisation. Consequently, becoming effective at managing needs to be considered as a separate discipline. However good you may be at your chosen occupation, managing often requires different skills and a different approach in order to be successful. This is why it is important to understand the role clearly before we look at some of the specific skills listed above.
Another way of looking at managing is to define it through being responsible and accountable. Any manager, whether self-employed or part of a bigger organisation, will be responsible for ensuring that certain tasks are fulfilled to designated standards and to pre-determined timescales. You will also be accountable to your manager, your shareholders, your fellow directors or perhaps your bank manager for ensuring that task are carried out, evaluated and reported.
Let’ consider Jim the shopkeeper for a moment. He is responsible to his business for the operation of the shop, the employment of staff, safety of customers, financial control and a long list of other things as well. He is also accountable to his bank manager, suppliers and any partners for reviewing the business and reporting on its success. In his case, defining the manager’s role is quite straightforward — he is solely responsible and accountable for everything which goes on. In most cases however, any one manager will need to understand what they are responsible and accountable for, and the limit of their authority.
Before looking at specific management skills we will examine your role as a manager in the full course.
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