Английский язык. Перевод, межкультурная коммуникация и интерпретация языка СМИ. Учебное пособие

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Management is defined as the process of coordinating resources to meet an objective. People working towards meeting objectives form an organization. Proper management is needed in all organizations, regardless of size.

THE FUNCTION OF MANAGEMENT

The four functions of management are planning, organizing, directing and controlling.

Planning is the most important function because it is one on which all the others depend. It involves the setting of goals and the determination of the best ways to meet them. Firms establish policies which become guidelines for their activity and that will allow the company to meet their objectives.

Organizations engage in both long-range and short-range planning. Long-range planning (usually a twoto five-year span) involves developing a statement of purpose, setting objectives, and developing policies that will allow the firm to meet its objectives. Short-range plans cover the types of situations likely to occur monthly or weekly and tend to be quite specific. In recent years many companies have employed strategic planning (or strategic management). This approach involves figuring out how best to deploy corporate assets in a grand scheme easily communicated to managers throughout the company.

Organizing is the process of arranging the firm’s resources (primarily people) to carry out the company’s plans. Managers must determine division of labour, by task and/or authority, best suited to accomplish the organization’s objectives. Whereas division of labour by task leads to specialization, division by authority results in accountability.

Getting people to work effectively and willingly is the responsibility of directing. This function involves both motivating workers and determining the proper leadership style. Because there is no single leadership style appropriate for every occasion, a manager must select the style best for the workers and best suited to the situation at hand.

The three general categories of leadership style are autocratic, democratic (or participative) and laissez-faire. Autocratic leadership emphasizes the straightforward use of authority (like in the army); to be effective the leader must have enough power to enforce his or her decisions. Democratic leadership employs group participation in decision making and encourages the free flow of communication. Lastly, lais-

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sez-faire leadership leaves workers almost entirely on their own with the leader acting mainly as a consultant.

Controlling is the process of ensuring that the firm’s objectives are actually being attained, and, if not, correcting any deviations. It involves comparing where the firm should be with where it actually is. Managers set up standards, or the goals against which performance is later measured. These standards may be framed in terms of market share, turnover, profitability, and so on. Managers establish reporting systems (feedback systems) to monitor the performance against the standards. The managerial staff usually consists of three levels of management. Top, or upper, managers have the most power and responsibility; middle managers have somewhat less; and supervisory, or operating managers, have their authority limited to narrow segment of the firm’s operation.

PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

The most valuable asset of any business is its people. Land, buildings, goods, and equipment may dominate a balance sheet, but they do not make a business successful: people do. The best businesses are the ones that have the best people – capable, creative, energetic people. Attracting them requires both ingenuity and initiative on the part of employers. But the payoff in productivity is worth it. Staffing your business with the best people should be one of the highest priorities.

Staffing, leading and controlling are important functions of management. The main aim of staffing is to fill and keep filled the positions in the organization structure with competent people. It also involves selecting, hiring, promoting, planning the career, compensating and training.

Many firms have a personnel department with personnel manager directly responsible for coordinating activities of the employees. Yet, whether or not there is a personnel department, all managers are responsible for managing human resources.

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It is important to realize that staffing is a complicated, ongoing process that involves finding qualified people, hiring them, making the best use of their skills and abilities and making them stay on the job.

The steps you must make before you hire anyone are (1) to analyse each job; (2) prepare job description, (3) apply to recruitment sources

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or mass media, (4) utilize job application forms, (5) conduct interviews, and (6) check information.

Job analysis is the most important step in staffing since it forms the basis for any hiring decisions that you make. It involves asking such questions as: What work is to be done? Does the firm need additional help to do it? How many people are needed? You may find that you don’t need to hire anyone after all. Or you may find out that one additional person isn’t enough. Or the job you thought anyone can do may in fact require someone with specific skills. Making a good decision in the beginning is the key to avoid a lot of problems later.

A job description is a written record of duties and responsibilities associated with a particular job. In preparing a job description, include the following details: (1) a general description of the job; (2) the duties to be performed; (3) the job responsibilities; (4) specific skills needed;

(5) education and experience required.

When you have put everything down on paper, you are ready to start looking for the person who fits the description. There are several ways to do so. You may apply to employment agencies, to colleges, schools, to trade unions or professional associations. One of the quickest means to reach large numbers of interested job applicants is advertising vacancies.

The applicants are required to write resumes and fill in application forms prepared by many companies in order to choose the most suitable and qualified personnel. These documents simplify the task of managers in making right hiring decisions. They can also serve as a starting point during an interview, suggesting questions or comments that make it easier to break the ice and establish contact with the applicant. Successful applicants are placed on the mob and get to know their new duties.

Many firms use some forms of training and developing employees. The goal of employee development can be to ensure their competence at a given job or to help employees qualify for promotion.

One of the tasks of a personnel department is to develop an efficient system of employee evaluation and promotion. The system must be aimed at determining whether an employee is doing his\her job as intended and to reward those who perform well.

Unfortunately, people do not always perform as intended. So there is sometimes a need for disciplinary action. There are three steps in an effective disciplinary program. First, standards of acceptable behaviour are set up. Second, specific penalties are established for violating these

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standards. And third, penalties are imposed fairly after guilt has been determined.

In order to attract and keep high-caliber employees, it is necessary to compensate them adequately. A company’s wage policy should be developed so as to reward employees on the basis of their qualification and achievements. This would motivate people to work harder and develop their skills.

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Recruitment is the process of obtaining a supply of new workers who would like to enter an organization. The process of recruitment involves preparing a job description, designing a means of advertising the vacancy, screening the applications received, interviewing a number of applicants and making a choice. Some organizations employ outside agencies, known as headhunters, to recruit staff for them, especially for managerial jobs.

By interviewing applicants you get the possibility to find out what each of them is really like. Before you get into the interview stage you will have screened the applicants. If the list is long, screening process will not be an easy task. After rejecting the majority of those who don’t seem suitable for the position, you are ready to start interviewing the remaining four of five candidates. You should prepare the questions that would make the interview more efficient. There may be, for example, ten questions, such as describing a typical event in your business and asking what each person would do in this situation.

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The method of recruitment that you decide to use depends on your business. Waiters and waitresses might easily be recruited at your local high school. Finding a qualified real estate broker or a skilled carpenter needs a different method. Some of the sources available for you are the following:

Public employment agencies operate in each state, finding and placing both blue collar and white collar workers. They do not charge fees.

Private employment agencies operate in the same way as public ones, except that they charge fees for their services that are paid either by the employer or by the person who is hired.

Newspaper advertisements enable you to reach for a large pool of interested applicants quickly. It is important to make your advertise-

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ment interesting, to give sufficient details of the job, to name the skills needed for the position, etc.

Professional associations assist employees in obtaining the services of their members. If you need help finding an accountant, sales manager, computer specialist or supervisor, the local association is a good place to apply.

RECRUITMENT PRESENTS CROSS-BORDER CHALLENGE

For senior executives across modern Europe, it is a challenge: attracting the best employees, whether for writing software or marketing pet food. Recruitment is one of the new corporation art forms, yet another measurement of a company’s competitiveness and managerial ability. Bruce Dorskind’s specialty is global recruitment strategy. His New York City-based Dorskind Group has worked with companies in 40 countries over the past four years and helped an advertising agency TMP conduct acquisition of 24 recruitment advertising firms and Internet sites, many of them in Europe. It turned TMP into the largest recruitment communications firm in the world, with a market capitalization of $ 1 billion.

Speaking about the trends in European recruitment, Bruce Dorskind states, that there’s consolidation in every industry and globalization. Companies need to introduce their brands or products to new markets. So there is a move towards cross-border recruitment, where the demand for talent is spreading across markets. Europeans used to sell products only in their own local markets, but now they are selling them all over the world. And they are looking for people to do that.

For example, now there are four or five pharmaceutical markets and one common language, English. Despite high unemployment rates in Europe, there is also a shortage of people in certain disciplines, especially in information technology, sales and marketing. Another example is consulting. Andersen Consulting in Germany recruits from Switzerland and Austria. Consulting firms are among the largest recruiters in absolute numbers.

Many young graduates in Europe seek international experience. They want to move to a foreign country, deal with a new language, mostly within Western Europe. Something else to consider is that most jobs in the US are created by new companies that are less than 10 years old. In Europe the majority of jobs still come out of older companies, although in new configurations, having gone through mergers, etc.

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If the companies are going to recruit in various countries, they need to establish an employer brand as well as a consumer brand. Organizations have to market their companies to potential employees and that’s not something they’ve been good at historically. Companies that want to be pan-European have to create recruitment campaigns in much the same way as they sell their consumer products.

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A well-organized interview is conducted with a sequence in mind. The sequence below is a suggested plan for an interview which covers the most essential points.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING. Education is an important factor in hiring employees. An applicant’s course of study, his or her likes and dislikes, and participation in extracurricular activities are all informative. The level of intelligence, quality of work, and absenteeism are points to consider in school and employment records.

WORK HISTORY. Begin with the first job. Discover whether it was fullor part-time, volunteer or paid, and progress step by step through the applicant’s work history. The number of jobs the applicant has had reflects upon his or her stability and job satisfaction.

OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES. A great deal can be learned about motivation and imagination by discussing how the applicant spends his or her spare time. Extracurricular activities show how active and interested the applicant can be.

EXPLORATORY QUESTIONS. When you want the applicant to reveal his or her feelings and ideas, use exploratory or open-ended questions. Ask questions that must be answered with explanations: what the applicant enjoys most about work, what would he or she change about the last job if such change was possible, etc. Don’t hesitate to ask personal questions, such as why the applicant wants the job you have to offer, and why the person left the last job. Interpreting the applicant’s answers, attitudes, and reactions is very important.

PREPARING FOR AN INTERVIEW

When preparing for an upcoming interview, read articles about the company you would like to get into. If you are well informed, you will be able to overcome your nervousness during the interview.

You should observe some basic rules common to most interviews. When greeting the company representative, wait until he/she

moves to shake hands with you.

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Wait until they offer you a seat. The most common questions are:

1.Why are you interested in joining our company?

2.Why do you feel qualified for the job?

3.What do you know about the company?

4.Are you willing to work overtime?

5.Tell me about your experience.

6.What are your three great strengths for the job? Recommendations:

In discussing your previous job, avoid criticizing former employers

or fellow workers.

Avoid discussing your personal or family problems unless you are specifically asked about them.

You can state the salary you want, but not until the employer has introduced the subject.

Sometimes if the employer wants to learn more about the applicant, he asks surprise questions about their likes (watching TV, animals, classical music), dislikes (movies, foreign cuisine, music), or hobbies (swimming, do-it-yourself work, cooking, knitting, etc.).

THE RESUME

A resume is either sent as an enclosure in the letter asking for an interview or is handed to the representative of the firm at the interview. A resume should contain:

The objective, i.e. what kind of position is wanted by the applicant; The abilities qualifying the applicant for the job;

Strengths and experience should also be written about. These should be given more space.

Details should be left out or given less space. A resume includes the following information:

1.Name, surname (last name), address and telephone number.

2.The position you want to get.

3.Experience (one should begin with the latest place of employment and list the jobs in the reverse order).

4.Education (one should begin with the last institution or courses attended).

5.Personal (residence, marital status, etc).

6.References (people the company can address to get information about the applicant).

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A foreman is directly responsible for the shop floor workers. Holders of this position may be called the first level of management in an organization. The person who becomes a foreman is usually promoted from within a group of workers. They receive increased pay for their extra responsibilities and have greater opportunities for training and promotion. Through foremen, decisions of management are passed to the workforce, while ideas and suggestions from the workforce are transmitted up to the management.

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An employee may be dismissed either because he/she has violated the contract of employment in some way, or when a fixed term contract has not been renewed. If an employee has been dismissed for no good reason, this might be considered an unfair dismissal and the employee can appeal to an industrial tribunal. A situation that results when an employee’s contract of employment ends because that job does not exist or is not needed, is called redundancy. Workers who have been made redundant have a right to receive compensation.

PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT

According to economists, the purpose of production is the satisfaction of «wants». Of course, human «wants» are not restricted to the acquisition and use of goods, but also extend to the use of certain services, for example, the services of professionals such as lawyers, architects, dentists or the use of libraries, transport or retailing systems.

In modern view, all business firms are involved in some type of production. It can be shown that even services such as dry cleaning begin with resources and end up with a product – clean clothes. Supermarket production operations include ordering and pricing goods, stocking the shelves, packaging, displaying and checking out groceries.

Production is one of the two principal functions of business. The other – marketing – is concerned with the study of customers’ demand and the development of various means to satisfy the demand. Production management is concerned with the decision-making necessary to organize and control the production function of the business. In other words, production managers must ensure that goods / services are produced in accordance with the required quality standards in the required quantities, at the required time and at a minimum cost.

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Very broadly, production can be described as a process that converts economic inputs into outputs that customers need, want and are willing to pay for. Production processes vary greatly in complexity, production time, the amount of information and planning needed, and the number of machines and employees required.

Production involves considerable human and physical resources, as well as the financial resources needed to pay for them – all planned carefully by production managers. At each stage of production process, managers must do a cost-benefit analysis to determine the optimum balance between physical and human resources, taking into account the available financial resources which usually act as a limiting factor.

Most production processes start with raw materials or components and include various activities designed to process them into final products. Modern production would be impossible without machines or equipment that facilitate the work of people. Increasing use of computers leads to greater automation and changing the balance between people and machines. Automation is the use of a mechanical system with the ability to automatically run and adjust itself to continuous operation as programmed.

An important responsibility of production managers is directing and supervising the work of the production personnel. Managers must plan for the efficient use of capable and well-trained people to run machines, use equipment, and perform work that cannot be performed by machines or for which machine production is not economical.

Another area of production management is production control which can be defined as a system for coordinating people, machines, and materials in order to reach the company’s objectives. The first step is production planning. It determines what goods or services will be produced, what kind of personnel, machines, and materials are needed to produce them and how to obtain the necessary resources at the right time. Then the best sequence of various production stages is established and the schedules are worked out.

A key part of production control is quality control. Most firms would like to produce the product which is best, based on the intended use. The quality, however, is limited by many factors and production managers usually try to establish the level of quality at the point that balances the customer’s needs and the lowest cost of production for the company.

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To operate reliably, production facilities require maintenance and repair. Preventive maintenance includes regular inspection to detect the need for repair or replacement so that breakdown of the equipment could be prevented.

Careful thought must be given to the arrangement of production facilities, i.e. the design and layout of factories, shop floors, departments and offices.

Ergonomics is the branch of technology concerned with the problems of optimizing the design of equipment, the environment and working procedures in order to improve the well-being of personnel and the effectiveness of the unit.

Being one of the central aspects of business, production has many links with other functions, particularly marketing, personnel and product research and development (R&D). Production managers should work in close cooperation with peers in other departments.

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We can name three methods of organizing production in a factory. In a flow production, a line of machinery, operating continuously, processes very large quantities of similar products. As examples, such processes as assembling cars, TV sets or refrigerators can be mentioned.

In some cases, manufacturing companies process products in batches. If we consider furniture production, for example, in week 1 it might make tables, in week 2 chairs and in week 3 cupboards. Businesses use batch production method in manufacturing products for which there are regular standard orders.

Job production is a way of organizing operations where firms produce different items or goods to special orders. For example, in manufacturing hand-craft furniture or jewelry quality and uniqueness rather than quantity would be appreciated.

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Production processes differ according to the way the inputs are processed into outputs. The most common types of production processes is the synthetic process and the analytic process. In the synthetic process, two or more basic inputs are mixed or assembled to form the final output(s). Classic examples of the synthetic process are assembling an airplane and an automobile. Other examples include making watches, books, bread, electronic equipment, hamburgers, etc.

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