Managing people

Question 1

What is staff as an asset?

Answer 1

Staff as an asset means that they are valuable to the business

The skills and abilities of the employees means that they are able to add value to the business

A business should treat staff as valued assets and invest in them

Question 2

What is staff as a cost to a business?

Answer 2

Staff can be a cost to a business as they get remuneration (payment) for the work they do

Question 3

What is a wage?

Answer 3

Wages are paid to the workers based on the amount of work that they do ( the amount of hours they have completed )

Used for low skilled workers.

Question 4

What is the National Minimum Wage (NMW)?

Answer 4

The NMW is the legal minimum that businesses must pay to their employees per hour.

This was introduced by teh government to protect underpaid workers

The NMW rates vary depending on the age of worker and whether they are doing an apprentice

The nmw can lead to better motivated staff and more productivity but can also lead to increasing costs to a business as the rates increase per year

Question 5

What is a salary?

Answer 5

A salary is a fixed amount that is usually paid monthly and the amount paid doing a particular job. They do not get paid any extra for working harder or longer hours

Used for highly skilled workers.

Question 6

What is Dismissal ?

Answer 6

Dismissal is when an employee can be dismissed if they have breached their contract of employment meaning their contract has ended and this is decided by employer not by employee

Question 7

What is redundancy?

Answer 7

Redundancy occurs when an employees job role is no longer required

The business might be reducing the number of staff they employ or is closing down or improvements in technology mean the role isnt required anymore

Redundancies are a cost to the business as they need to pay minimum redundacy payment to employees who have been with the firm for atleast 2 years

Some business will offer voluntary redundancy before they choose who will lose their job.

Question 8

What is a flexible workforce?

Answer 8

Its beneficial when a firms workforce is flexible as its easier

Question 9

What is a full/ part time contract?

Answer 9

A full time contract- Employees work full time usually at least 35 hours a week.

Part time workers work fewer hours than full time workers. Employing more part time workers is beneficial for a firm as it means they have got more staff that could cover an absence.

Question 10

What is a zero hour contract?

Answer 10

A zero hour contract is when a firm employs workers but doesnt guarentee them working hours. Staff only work as and when needed. Employers dont waste paying for labour when it isnt needed but staff are under no obligation to accept work so could be difficult to find workers to cover absences.

Question 11

Whats a permanent or fixed term contract?

Answer 11

A permanent contract has no end date whereas a temporary contract does.

Temporary contracts are beneficial for businesses as they as they can be used to issued to cover temporary increase in particular job or if a current employee will be off work for a long period of time.

Permanent contracts might be motivating for employees as they provide financial security.

Question 12

What is shift work?

Answer 12

Shift work is used when a job role needs filling for more hours in a day than can be completed by one worker

The day is divided into shifts ( day and night shifts). Staff work different shifts to make sure someone is always on the job. Shift work is necessary for businesses that need 24 hour coverage. e.g. factories.

Shift workers can pick the shifts they prefer so offers some flexibility for the employees.

Question 13

What is home working?

Answer 13

Home working is when employees can work from home on some or all days of the week. The employee saves on travel costs and can work around outside commitments. However workers may find WFH more harder and distracting. Employees gain extra office space for other workers. However its difficult to monitor the performance of the employees

Question 14

What is flexible hours ( flexitime)?

Answer 14

Flexitime is when workers complete a set number of daily/weekly/monthly hours at times that suit them (they may like to start work earlier to be able to leave work earlier at the end of the day). There are usually core hours of the day where all workers need to be present.

This helps workers to achieve a work-life balance and improves employee motivation. However it can be harder for a firm to set up meetings if not everyone is present.

Question 15

What is out sourcing?

Answer 15

Outsourcing is when businesses can out source some tasks to external businesses. e.g. they could get another business to assemble a product for them or produce the marketing materials.

This is advantageous to employees that dont have to invest money into training staff for doing tasks they may only need doing now and again.

Question 16

What is a multiskilled workforce?

Question 17

Why are employer-employee relationships important?

Answer 17

Because they need eachother, employers need hard working staff to contribute to the production of products that can be sold for a profit. Employees need a secure income to support themselves and their employees

Question 18

What is an individual relationship?

Answer 18

All employees are treated as individuals for some purposes such as employee appraisals

Question 19

What is individual bargaining?

Answer 19

Individual bargaining is when individual employees negotiate with their employer about their own pay and working conditions

Individual bargaining for pay means that the employers can pay an employee what they think he/she is worth. This provides a financial incentive for employees to work productively.

Question 21

What is a collective relationship/collective bargaining?

Answer 21

Collective bargaining is when a group of employees is represented by workforce representatives and these negotiate with the employers on issues such as pay and working conditions

Question 22

What is an example of workforce representatives?

Answer 22

Trade union.

UNISON is a large trade union that typically serves workers in the public sector. By joining with others and belonging to a union an employee streghthens their bargaining power in a way that wouldnt be possible if it was individual.

Question 23

What is recruitment?

Answer 23

Reecruitment is the process of finding the best person for a job role that needs filling

Question 24

What is job description?

Answer 24

Job description is a document including the jobs title, main roles and responsibilities of the job and the salary.

Question 25

What is job specification?

Answer 25

Job specification is a list that defines the skills and qualities that a company requires for a job role

Question 26

What is the selection process?

Answer 26

The selection process involves assessing candidates

Interviews are the most common way of choosing candidates. Candidates can be interviewed one to one or panel of interviewers. Phone interviews are seen to be less effective than face to face interviews

Assesment days is used to help test candidates and includes a range of activities to test the candidates

Question 27

What are interviews ?

Answer 27

Interviews are the most common way of choosing candidates. Candidates can be interviewed one to one or panel of interviewers. Phone interviews are seen to be less effective than face to face interviews

Question 28

What are assesment days in recruitment ?

Answer 28

Assessment days is used to help test candidates and includes a range of activities to test the candidates.

Includes:
psychometric testing which tests their personality
Aptitude tests which finds out how candiate is at job tasks
Group excercises to show how well candiates interact with other people in various situations

Question 29

What are in tray exercises ?

Answer 29

In tray excercises is when a candidate will be given a scenario where they play a member of staff and could be given a list of tasks that need completing

This could include telephone calls, emails meetings etc

The candiate needs to put the tasks in order of most important and say what action should be taken first.

Question 31

What are the benefits of hiring someone with positive attitude?

Answer 31

Hiring staff with positive attitude results in employees being more driven and may be motivated to learn new skills at a faster rate and are also likley to work better in teams and be more motivating for co workers

Question 32

What are the benefits of hiring staff who are already highly trained ?

Answer 32

This reduces the training costs for the business however if employee doesnt have positive attitude or lacks team working skills they might not be as enjoyable to work with and demotivate other emplpyees and it is easier to higher someone with positive attitude and train them for their skills.

Question 33

What is internal recruitment?

Answer 33

When a business recruits someone who already works within their business

Question 34

What is internal recruitment?

Question 35

What are the pros and cons of internal recruitment?

Answer 35

Pros:
Candidates already know the business
Short and cheap process
Motivates workers to go for promotion

Cons:
Leaves a vacancy in another department
can cause resentment among colleagues who arent selected

Question 36

What is external recruitment?

Answer 36

External recruitment is when a business hires someone from outside the business.

Question 37

What is external recruitment?

Answer 37

External recruitment is when a business hires someone from outside the business

Question 38

What are the pros and cons of external recruitment?

Answer 38

Pros:
Brings fresh new ideas
Brings experience from other organisations
Large number of applicants

Cons:
Long and expensive process
Candidates need a longer induction process
Will have only seen a candidate at recruitment might not be representative of what they are like at work

Question 39

What are the costs of recruitment to a business ?

Question 40

What are the costs of recruitment to a business?

Answer 40

• The cost of advertising the vacant post: adverts may be placed in specalist magazines or newspapers to attract the right staff which can be expensive or use social media sites such as linkenden so that businesses reach a large amount fo people
• Businesses might pay for specalist recruitment agency in order to help recruit proffesional staff and this is used for unique or more senior job roles. A recruitment agency advertises and shortlists the candidates and in some cases interviews and makes the final choice
• Shortlisting and assessing candidates may be done by existing staff and this costs money they cant do their usual job whilst taking part in short listing more senior the role the more expensive

Question 41

What is induction training?

Answer 41

• Businesses need to pay people to deliver training and there may be a handover period where new employee needs to shadow the role of a person who is leaving the firm- they will have to pay two sets of wages
• Important that training is effective due to the high costs
• If the person isnt trained effectively and for long enough they may leave the job
• The more people that leave the job the higher the labour turnover ( the % of employees that leave the firm over a certain period of time)
• This is costly as they ned to spend more on hiring and training the staff

Question 42

What is induction training?

Answer 42

Induction trainining is to introduce the new employee to their new job role

This usually starts with an intrpduction to the business, its histroy, key policies and procedures health and saftey and on the line managemt

Question 43

What is on the job training?

Answer 43

On the job training is where an employee/worker is trained by an expierenced worker already in the workforce. It is most suitable where practical skills are being taught providing its safe to do in a work enviroment

Question 44

What is off the job training?

Answer 44

Studying part time in a local college anf this is appropriate when the employee needs to know general information about the businesses procedures and it is also useful when employees are learning new skills that would be difficult to learn in a working enviroment

Question 45

What is labour turnover ?

Answer 45

The percentage of employees that leave a firm over a certain period of time

Question 46

What is an organisation?

Answer 46

Organisations usually have a hierarchial structure

Question 47

What is a hierarchy?

Answer 47

The series of levels in a business, organised by the amount of authority and responsibility that the workers have

Those at the top have more importance than those at the bottom

A typical business structure is a series of levels where each level has responsibility for or authority over the levels below

Question 48

What is an organisational chart?

Answer 48

An organisational chart sets out who has authority.

It shows who indiviual employees are accountable for/to who is directly above them in the hierarchy amd who employees are responsible for those below them

Question 49

What is the chain of command?

Answer 49

The chain of command is the flow of information, power and authority through the organisation

Those at the top of have more power and authority and they can delegate tasks to those subordinate to them

Question 50

What is the span of control?

Answer 50

Span of control is the number of people who report directly to a manager.

This is a number e.g. an employee that works as a head of department in a school may have 6 teachers working for them their span of control is 6 people.

Question 51

What is a tall structure?

Answer 51

A tall structure has lots of levels and a long chain of command and there may be lots of opportunities for a promotion.

Tall structures can negatively impact communication and efficeincy

• as they have vertical communication which takes a long time
• so therefore decison making takes a long time and
  -have alot of paperwork to deal with.

Question 52

What are the pros and cons of a tall structure?

Answer 52

Pros:
-Lots of layers so opportunities of promotion which can be motivating
-Supervisors usually have a small span of control so they can get to know their subordinates really well
- They can delegate the right tasks and make sure their team is well trained
- More opportunities in a tall structure.

Cons:
- Lots of layers sand long chain of command can mean that the business is very inflexible
- Communications within the organisations can be slow
- This is an expensive way to structure a business as theres more managers and supervisors

Question 53

What is a flat structure?

Answer 53

Flat structures only have a few layers in their hierarchy, people are given more responsibility and freedom

This can be motivation for employees as they have a wide span of control and short chain of command so information flows quickly throughout the organisation

They have horizontal communication (one level) can be slow in a flat structure due to the relativley large number of people on each level

Question 54

What are the pros and cons of a flat structure ?

Answer 54

Pros:
- Fewer layers of hierarchy between top and bottom which results in fast communication
- Lots of delegation means that staff are given greater responsbility which might mean more opportunities to use their abilities

Cons:
- Staff can become overstretched and overworked as there is less suspension which can cause stress and demotivating
- Can create power struggle if managers is rarely around as subordinates just the roles and responsibilities
- Wide span of control means managers have too many staff to manage and may lose touch with them

Question 55

What is Delayering?

Answer 55

Delayering means removing parts of the hierarchy it creaters a flatter structure with wider spans of control and helps lower costs
Pros:

• It can improve organisational structure as cutting management jobs can save alot of money in salaries
• It gives junior employees more respsonsibilities and can improve efficiency and communication
  Cons:
• It can cost businesses money in the short term as remainingf staff need to be trained in their new roles and businesses may need to give redundancy to people made redundant.

Question 56

What is a matrix structure?

Answer 56

A matrix structure organises staff by two differentr criterias there is more than one project running at a time and a matrix structure is more suitable than a standard hierarchy operations are protect based

Each project team has workers from different functions ensures that staff are pursing clearly defined objectives and oy encourages departments to build relationships with one another

This leads to increase employee motivation and efficiency but can lead to conflict between different departmentrs

Question 57

What are the pros and cons of a matrix structure?

Answer 57

Pros:
- Is ideal for a business that works a projectbyproject basis
- Very flexible structure means that staff from different departments can jump in and out of different job roles
- Perfect to exploit the specific skills of staff

Cons:
- In a matrix organisational structure there may be possible coordination problems between departments
- Employees can have conflict of interests across projects
- Staff can become stretched across different projects not spending time in their own departments

Question 58

What is centralisation?

Answer 58

Centralisation is when a business has its organisation of managment and adiministration at one central head office amd the business has one central shared budjedt and all decisions are made by senior managers at the top of the business

Question 59

What are the pros and cons of centralisation?

Answer 59

Pros;
- Business leaders have lots of expierence of business decision making
- Managers get an overview of the whole business, so decisions are consistent throughout the business
- Senior managers arent biased towards one department so they can make the best decisons quickly because they dont jave to consult to anybody else

Cons:
- Not many people exert enough to make decisions about all aspects of the business
- Excluding employees from decision making
- The organisation reacts slowly to change allowing its competition to get ahead and this is because the senior managers who make decison dont spend time on the shop floor so theyre slow to notice consumer trrends

Question 60

What is decentralisation?

Answer 60

Decentralisation is where a business divides up the organisations into areas e.g. north, south, east, europe, africa.

The business will have separate budgets for each area a decentralised structure authority is shared out to more junior employees

Question 61

What are the pros and cons of decentralisation?

Answer 61

Pros:
- Involvment in decison making motivates employees
- Employees can use expert knowlege of their sector
- Day-day decisons can be made quickly without having to ask senior managers

Cons:
- Junior e,ployees may not have enpugh expierence to make decisons
- Incosistencies may develop between decisions in a business
- Junior employees may not be able to see the overall expierence situtation and needs of an organisation.

Question 62

What is employee motivation?

Answer 62

Motivation is doing something because you want to do it and having motivated staff leads to greater productivity which means less wastage and higher profitability for a business

Question 63

What is Taylor’s scientific management theory?

Answer 63

Taylors scientific management theory (1909)
-He thought that workers were motivated by money and he believed in fair days pay for a fair days work and that employees would do the minimum amount of work if not supervised
- He carried out time and motion stidies and wanted to figure out the most efficient way to do the job
- He favoured division of labour: breaking work down into lots of small repetitive tasks and he believed in paying them for the quantity they produced more productive staff led to less staff needed and concern of quality of productions

He found that the main motivation is higher wages as they equalled higher output and a managers job is to tell employees what to do and a workers job is to do what they are told and get paid accordingly.

Question 63

What is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Answer 63

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

His theory was that we all have a pyramid of needs, start at the bottom with (basic physical needs) such as food and water, then safety ( secure job meeting safety needs, then social needs (teamwork, friendly co workers, then self esteem ( responsibility and promotion) then self actualisation which is where we reach for our potential

This theory is appealing as each of the five needs have importance to workers and it isnt obvious what level a worker is at and different workers may put their needs in different order

Question 64

What is Herzberg’s two factor theory?

Answer 64

Herzberg two factor theory

Frrederick Herzberg worked in the 1960s, his theories are still studied today and he interviewed accountants and engineers to find out what motivated them

His theory was that employees have motivating factors, interesting work, recognition and personal achievement, responsibility and scope to develop

He also found that there were hygiene factors which if not met would dissatisfy the employees, but if they were met did not motivate them anymore than they were already

These included: Good working conditions, pay, relationships with other employees

Question 65

What is Mayo’s human relations theory ?

Answer 65

Mayo human relations theory (1930)

• Mayo based his assumptions on research undertaken with workers at the hawthorne factory of the western electric company in chichago

He changed the working conditions such as break rimes and duration of ladies who worked in the relay assembley room at the factory

• He found that just by being studied the employees level of motivation increased and that working in teams was more important than money

Non financial motivators were the most important and boring and reptitive work can be a de-motivator

Mayo stated that everything depends on how they see eachother the employees, managers, directors and about how well theyc ommunicate with eachother
Its the recognition and appreciation that increases the internal job satisfaction of any person as a result of the overall productivity is increased

The relay assembley production was not increased because of the enviroment it was feeling of being recognised and appreciated plus more social interaction among the employees that caused the internal satisfaction and increase productivity.

Question 67

What is piecework and pros and cons ?

Answer 67

Piecework is when employees are paid per finished item/unit and is also called output workers

Employers chose to pay either the minimum wage or a fair piece rate based on average time taken to complete the product

Pros:
- Expierenced and efficient workers can earn more
- Incentive to complete the work
- Employeees may work more hours to get job done
- Home workers can start and finish when they want which means work-life balance

Cons:
- As workers speed up they may cut corners
- Quality may suffer
- Slower workers may fall under the NMW.

Question 68

pros and cons

Question 69

What is commission?

Answer 69

Commision is the sales people may be paid commsion only, ot low basic salary and commison

OTE on target earnings and in job advertisement lets the candidate know the potential top earnings that can be made in tne jon

The commision may be paid a % of unit price/ per unit sale

Pros:
- Skilled salespeople can make very good money
- Employer is ot paying for downtime when the employee is not selling
- Motivates employees to sell more

Cons:
- Salespeople on commisison only could earn no money at all
- Not a steady income
- Risky in reccision
- Employees arr selling rather than meeting needs of customers
- Temptation to pressure sell or oversell

Question 70

What is a bonus?

Answer 70

An employee bonus is a lumpsum paid on top of their salary or wages this can be for: sales, meeting customer needs, performance, for meeting output or quality targets, christmas, as a yearly bonus ( footballers get bonuses)

Pros:
- A bonus payment to an employee can be used as an incentive especially in a field where employees must make sales or meet specific goals
- A bonus payment can aslo be used as a a means of appreciation for an employees hard work throughout the year or specified amount of time

Cons:
- A cash bonus can be costly for any company, so a business might offer gift cards instead
- When an employee receives a bonus it becomes a part of his total income at the end of the year. The employee will also be paying taxes on the bonus they they receive.

Question 71

What is profit share

Answer 71

Profit share is where employees may be paid an annual dividend based on the level of profits made by the firm
Employees keep costs down ( dont overspend budgets) to keep profits high
Employees become more loyal to the firm (John Lewis)

Pros:
- Brings employees together to work towards common goal . Their sole aim will be a success to the company
- Motivation levels will be high which encourages team work
The employees focus will be on profitability
Increases commitment to the organisation among the employees

Cons:
- The salaries of individual employees go up equally, not on the basis of merit or promotion this doesn’t necessarily motivate individuals
The focus of the employee may be on the profit share rather than on the quality customer service

Question 72

What is perfomance related pay

Answer 72

Performance related pay is a system of motivation introduced in the 1990s in banking and public sector, a line manager sits with a worker in an appraisal and decides a set of criteria or objectives that the employee will fulfil. Excellent employee gets 10% bonus on pay
Good employees get 5%
satisfactory no bonus is paid

Pros:
- Advantage is there is a
direct link between the
performance of an
employee and how
much they are paid
-Easy for the business to
rank their staff when
look at who to promote

Cons:
-Critics say it causes jealousy and
unrest
-Those that don’t meet the target blame the line manager and can become demotivated.
-Bonuses are often too low to act as an incentive
to work towards targets.

Question 73

What is Delegation?

Answer 73

Delegation involves allocating more complex tasks to employees, the manager and supervisor delegating needs to have the authority to delegate
The manager makes lists of everything they do then divide up some of the tasks amongst their subordinates in the organisational hierarchy

Pros:
- Gives managers self confidence, empowers managers to make decisions and allocate tasks to the most approriate member of staff
- Makes sure the teams potential is maximised
- Builds trust between the manager and the employee

Cons:
- Managers sometimes allocate tasks when overloaded with work and not wjen they want to motivate an employee
Managers may not always choose the most suitable employee to delegate to.

Question 74

What is consultation

Answer 74

Consultation involves giving employees a chance to take part in the decision making process with management on topics such as how to improve productivity, cut cost or problem solve
By law businesses have to consult with their employees e.g. health and saftey, changes to contract, redundancies etc

Pros:
-Gives managers self confidence, empowers managers to make decisions and allocate tasks to the most appropriate member of staff Makes sure the team’s potential
is maximised
-Builds trust between the
manager and the employees

Cons:
- Employees may not know what it takes to run a successful business keeping costs low
-Employees may come up with grudges againts the company or amongst themeselves.

Question 75

What is empowerment?

Answer 75

Empowernment involves allowing employees more authority to delegate tasks to others. This means that the person most suitable to make the decision gets the responsibility of taking it and can be held accountable

Pros:
- Staff that are recognised for their ability, trusted and given control over decisions, therefore are less frustrated with the business and have increased productivity levels.
-Empowered employees are close to issues and problems, may be more effective at problems solving at that level
-Great involvement means greater loyalty to the business

Cons:
- Sometimes regarded as a cost cutting, a way of
delayering, making management redundancies, makes managers insecure and
has an associated cost of training
-Some see this as giving employees more to do
for the same pay, so that mangers can be
made redundant
-Lack of experience in the job can increase risk
of mistakes being made

Question 76

What is team working?

Answer 76

Team working involves grouping employees to work in teams, team working is becoming more common in a variety of work setting, through collaborations and discussion a team can often provide a better product or solution than working as an individual on their own

Pros:
- Team working means pooled talents,
-Individuals can specialise,
-shared responsibility,
-Fresh business ideas can be gained through brainstorming sessions, making the business more innovative
-Well managed work-place teams can
produce better results
-Peer pressure in the group can help to
keep motivation levels high

Cons:
- Tensions can occur, not everyone gets along,
-teams suffer from too many meetings, a team is not the solution to
every problem sometimes an individual approach
would be better

Question 77

What is flexible working (flexitime)?

Answer 77

Flexitime involves offering a variety of working patterns so that employees can achieve a work-life balance e.g. part time working, WFH, term time etc

Pros:
Greater cost effectiveness and efficiency, such as savings on overheads when employees work from home or less
downtime for machinery when 24-hour shifts are worked
-The chance to have extended operating hours
-More job satisfaction and better staff motivation
- Reduced levels of sickness absence

Cons:
- It can be difficult to to fit shifts and
schedules to suit everyone
- Some staff may take advantage of the flexible system and not work as
hard or when they should e.g. working from home the temptation
may be to do something else

Question 78

What is job enrichment?

Answer 78

Job enrichment involves giving the employee greater variety of tasks of higher responsibility
This means the hob may be redesigned so that it is more challenging and less repetitive

Pros:
- The employee benefits from having a more interesting job role, which can be very motivating and improve employee
productivity and lower absenteeism rates
-The employee will feel more loyal to the
organisation and they get the sense of achievement (Maslow?)
- Prepares the employee for possible promotion in the future (succession
planning)

Cons:
-Some employees may just feel that the job
has become harder
-May mean the employee will need to be trained on new machinery, in ICT or other job skills to perform the new tasks
-Not all jobs can be enriched e.g. bin man

Question 79

What is job rotation?

Answer 79

Job rotation involves moving employees from one task to another
This means that staff can be trained in a variety of skills so can be better utilised when there are shortages

Pros:
- Advantage is the business gets multi-skilled employees who can carry out more than one task
-The job can be less monotonous and
boring for the employees, reducing labour turnover rates
-It is an easy and cost effective way to motivate employees and improve productivity

Cons:
-Convincing employees that job rotation is
a good thing can be a time consuming process, they may be unwilling to leave a job they know well or work with a different team
-It also takes time for employees to learn
the new skills and get up to speed

Question 80

What is job enlargement?

Answer 80

Job enlargement involves givibg an employee more tasks of the same level of responsibility This is designed to prevent the employee from getting bored and to extend the scope of their job at the same level as it can given employees more interesting and varied tasks

Pros:
- This method can make the job less boring, less repetitive, and can get the maximum use out of an employee e.g. administrator given
some recruitment tasks such as shortlisting candidates
-Employee productivity may be improved
-Improves employee retention and
absenteeism

Cons:
- May be seen as more of the same if the employee regards it as just more tasks to get done in a working day
-Needs to be linked to a clear career progression to make sense to the
employee

Question 81

What is leadership?

Answer 81

Leadership is the action of leading a group or organisation or the ability to do this.

Leaders have a vision which they share with others while pushing them into the right direction. They often think in long term and are always thinking of ways to improve and innovate
The power held by a leader can be temporary and is held only as long as the leader continues to inspire and motivate those that are following them

Question 82

What is management?

Answer 82

**Management **is the process of dealing with or controlling things/people the responsibility of a company or organisation.

• Managers make decisions that affect the day-to-day running of a business. They set objectives for their department and for the people under them.
  They decide what work needs to be done to meet objectives and what resoruces and staff they need
• Managers tend to focus more on meeting targets and maintaining the status quo than on innovation. Good managers should also show leadership skills that way employees wont just follow instructions because they’re obligned to but because they feel motivated and inspired by the manager

Question 83

What is Aucratic style?

Answer 83

Aucratic style is when the leader makes decisions on their own. They idnetifyt the objectives of the business or department and say exactly how theyre going to be achieved.

Its usual when dealing with lots of unskilled workers and in crisis management.

This method requires lots of supervision and workers cant make their own decisions this demotivates able and intelligent workers

Pros:
- Clear chain of command in the hierarchy
-Works well in environments
where clear directive leadership
is needed
-Allows for quick decision-making
-Useful in stressful or
life-or-death situations (public services)

Cons:
-Can have a negative impact on employee motivation
-Ignores the creative solutions to
problems, that the employees might have
-Relies heavily on the
competency of the leader
-Creates a culture of dependency

Question 84

What is democratic style?

Answer 84

Democratic style is when the leader encourages workers to particpate in the decision making process. They discuss issuses with workers, delegate responsibility and listen to advice

This style shows leaders have alot of confidence in the work enviroment and leads to increase in employee motivation.
It also takes the weight off decision making off the leader/manager

This is difficult to implent in firms with many employees and too many people involved means longer decision making

Pros:
Employees are motivated as they feel valued and listened to as they have increased participation levels
-Allows and encourages
employees to grow and develop into their roles
Suitable in situations where the employees are highly skilled
Business benefits from the ideas of the employees

Cons:
- Decision-making may take time,
as employees need to be
consulted on the decision
making
-Depends on the skills and
knowledge of the employees
-Staff may have their own agenda or be unreliable

Question 85

What is parenatistic style?

Answer 85

This style involces a softer form of autocratic style and is used in similar situations.
This style focuses on employee motivation and wellbeing more than autocratic style

The leader consults the workers before making decisions then explains the decisions to them to persuade them that the decisions are in their interests

Parentalistic leaders think that getting involved and caring about human relations is a positive motivator

Pros:
- Loyalty from employees, who will feel protected and cared for
-Low rate of employee turnover, which will reduce recruitment costs
-Effective in environments with lots of low skilled and
inexperienced workers, who require direction and guidance

Cons:
- If the wrong decision is made, the employees can become demotivated and productivity will suffer
-Not using the skills and
knowledge of the employees
-Still a dictatorial style of
leadership where employees are told the outcome of a decision

Question 86

What is laissez- faire?

Answer 86

Laissez-Faire ( let-do) is a very hands off form of leadership. Leaders mighr iffer employee coaching and a support but very rarely interfere in the running of the business

This style of leadership is approriate for a small highly motivated team of able workers. Employees can carry out employee activities and make decisions, Work in very relaxed enviroment etc

Pros:
- Suitable for creative
environments such as artistic studios
-It encourages the employees to
grow and develop
-It encourages innovation, often found in high-tech industries
-It allows for faster
decision-making

Cons:
- Disadvantage; lack of supervision
may lead to poor productivity and
lack of motivation
-Can be regarded by employees and
customers as avoidance of
responsibility (Ron Swanson video)
-Can lead to blame culture when objectives are not met

Question 87

What is transformational leadership?

Answer 87

This style of leadership is used when a business needs to drastically change

The leader has highly innovate ideas about how to improve the business and will inspire the employees to make these decisions

This style requires an existing balanced structure that needs fixing and is best used in businesses that need more housing to to help small businesses.