Organizational goals are crucial to success in the workplace. This paper entails how to incorporate organization and goals into the workplace and the benefits it secures.
The first step to running a successful company is to ensure proper organizational planning has taken place. Proper planning is an obvious route that allows a manager to prepare for and foresee any future issues. Setting goals and markers ensure that all departments are working within expected time restraints and budgeting time effectively. Planning enables a manager to predict how much time and energy needs to be spent on specific tasks and prioritize as well as anticipate upcoming hiccups and take preventative measures. Managers can often reflect back on previous blunders to learn from prior mistakes, and take actions to prevent them from happening again. Planning is often the manager’s responsibility, but the entire department is accountable for their productivity and therefore need to be honest and realistic when considering strategies and creating a game plan. “Planning and controlling are inseparable parts of the management system.
Standards are set in planning, and the controlling system uses those standards to identify and correct problems.” Reilly, M., Minnick, C., & Baack, D. (2011). A manager should call a weekly meeting to review the past set goals and redistribute work when necessary. At these meetings a manager will assess how much time has been assigned to tasks and assist the team in any errors or mishaps that may come along. The manager is then able to realistically see how much time is being allotted to individual assignments and revise as necessary. The team can use this time to see the big picture and express any concerns or issues they have with the work thus far. The team should maximize the time spent in this meeting to ensure their responsibilities are well understood and any lapses in communication is put to rest.
Once a team is in understanding of the assignments they are aware of what is expected of them and can divide the workload amongst the team and work at maximum efficiency. Setting realistic expectations and goals are crucial to providing an operational plan. Goals clarify performance expectations, establish a frame of reference for feedback, and provide a basis for self-management (Reilly, Minnick, Baack, 2011).Both parties need to be aware of their expectations in order to operate with little oversight and micromanaging. With a solid plan in place, a manager is able to expect a smooth road to completion and the team is able to work independently to complete their tasks reducing the amount of time wasted in communication breakdowns, fusses over workloads, and incompetence. Once a plan is in place, the second most important step is the art of organizing. Without a solid foundation of organization even the best planning can be worthless. Organization is an essential tool contributing to the success in business. Knowing your team and their abilities is the first step. Directing a team is the manager’s responsibility and in order to direct a team effectively, one must understand their team’s strengths and weaknesses.
A manager must be able to rely on their workers and have full confidence in their abilities. One mistake often seen in the workplace is lack of organization. Knowing where and how the information you rely on as well as the materials you need will save you time, energy and stress. A vital role in organizing is ensuring your staff is well assigned to their duties and responsibilities therefore eliminating time wasted. Materials need to be made available to employees to implement their plans and provide a well-organized flow of work. Employee organization is fundamental when assigning tasks and projects. In most professions it needs to be clear on who is running what project and where they are able to seek help as well as distribute work they are unable to handle. Working within deadlines means that everything needs to run smoothly because time is not often a luxury. Often plans can go awry; and when that happens the most productive employees are the ones who know how to “put a fire out” as well as who to seek in case of a problem; in other words, a well-organized employee.
“Planning and controlling are inseparable parts of the management system. Standards are set in planning, and the controlling system uses those standards to identify and correct problems.” Reilly, M., Minnick, C., & Baack, D. (2011). Setting realistic company standards and ensuring your meeting those standards with regular meetings and oversight are great ways to ensure your planning for success. Overseeing goals and employee performance regularly can lead to new and more efficient planning processes. Giving extra attention to what processes have worked in the past and adjusting workloads accordingly are great ways to ensure that a company is planning and organizing for the future. This type of planning and organizing helps keep the company up to maximum potential. Rewarding quality work and adjusting where improvements can be made help keep the company on track and moving towards positive goals and benchmarks.
When considering all the planning and organizing we need to remember that the absolute failsafe is hiring and staffing capable and competent employees. The first step to strategic staffing is identifying needs. Assess what positions are crucial to the company’s overall functions. (Carabelli, 2011) Hiring and employing a staff that’s capable and proficient directly reflects your department’s abilities and reliability. Staff planning for your department is maintaining, balancing, and preparation for a company’s human assets. Companies need to be able to retain workers that prove valuable and balance the overall skill and talent so that there are no shortages or surpluses. Shortages and surpluses of work talent can create unhappy workers or lower motivation while maintaining worker production in the case of a surplus. Preparation is perhaps the most important aspect as far as helping achieve organizations strategic objectives. Let’s compare a company to a baseball team.
In order to be successful, you need a team made up of a balance of different talents. You can’t have all pitchers, because you’re team most likely won’t bat well. If you have too many outfielders, some will have to sit the bench or play in the infield where they make more errors. A speedy player with great bunting skill is a huge weapon in key situations, but if you had a whole lineup of bunter’s teams would guard against it and make you play to your weaknesses because there is no balance. With the right balance of talent in each area of the team, offense, defense, pitching, etc., a team will be most effective. That’s why teams have to strategize what players to bring in or sign, they need to plan how to have a balance of good talent and put in them in the best position to make the most successful team. Companies are very similar; they analyze talent and try to create the best balance and mix of it under a budget to succeed. Organizing a team is a crucial part of planning for success.
A few loose cannons or lazy workers can create a world of chaos in an already stressful work environment and therefore careful selection as well as assessing work relationships among employees is vital. Employees’ who work well together will communicate more effectively, be more willing to work as a team and help each other out, as well as distribute work evenly and fair. Positive interoffice relations are important because the work flow is such a delicate process and a simple breakdown in communication can be fatal to a time sensitive project. People need to be able to rely on one another and be able to work with, as well as over and under their team. Recruiting quality staff isn’t easy, and although someone may be qualified, they need to be manageable. Someone with an oversized ego may be overqualified but difficult to work with. Another common issue in my workplace is someone feeling overworked and underappreciated. Employees should feel as if they are each pulling their weight and working together for the final project. If an employee feels abused or neglected they often perform under par and can therefore cause a weak link within your department.
Rewarding quality work and adjusting where improvements can be made help keep the company on track and moving towards positive goals and benchmarks. Company moral is important when considering a happy employee is a fruitful employee. Ensuring employees feel validated and appreciated isn’t easy, but a manager who oversees their staff regularly and meets often is more aware of the employee’s issues and can help to resolve them before becoming a problem. A manager who often addresses any employee concerns when conducting weekly goals and actualization of projects can help prevent putting additional stress or strain on the team by correcting the issues before they become a major issue. Employee retention is an essential goal for a company and in order to achieve that goal one must consider the reasons employees succeed. Erg is a theory constructed of needs. The abbreviation E stands for existence needs. Existence needs are physical and material welfare needs. These existence needs are met with basic life motivators such as food, clothing and shelter. Often these are easily met but must be considered when regarding motivators. The abbreviation R stands for: Relatedness needs.
The relatedness needs are “wants for satisfying interpersonal relationships.” (Schermerhorn, 2012) Ensuring an employee has their relatedness met is important because a healthy work/life balance is a great way to ensure a happy and content employee. The abbreviation G stands for: “Growth needs are desires for continued personal growth and development.”(Schermerhorn, 2012) This is the true motivator in manager’s eyes. Giving the opportunity for advancement in the workplace is a great way to motivate employees as well as better train and develop yours staff. There are no losers in this approach and therefore a top leader choice. Most employees succeed when they are well trained and developed for their roles. An employee who has confidence and the ability to do their job well; will often find satisfaction within their job and take pride in their work. When developing an employee; management can play a major role in aiding the employee to better educate and further train themselves therefore becoming more of a company asset.
“Boosting motivation within an organization is a great way to keep things moving in a positive, efficient, and effective manner.” (Yousesef, 2012) Employees who are well educated and feel as if their company is willing to support them in furthering their education will often stay with a company rather than outgrow their position. Someone who was hired in an administrative position might educate themselves further to create more opportunity within their workplace and adding skills to their resume. Ensuring the staff is well maintained, trained, and motivated is a great way to realize your goals to the best of your abilities. Employees need to be well trained and efficient as well as willing to be developed to the best of the companies abilities. Developing employees is a great way to boost company moral because it shows the managers are aware of the hard work put forth by an employee and reward that with additional resources, attention, and opportunity.
Continual training is a great way to see that your staff is operating at maximum potential. Knowledge is power and a more knowledgeable staff is a more powerful staff. On the job training can be used in downtime to further develop evolving employees and help them reach their full capabilities. When evaluating to see if education and training is effective testing and feedback are great ways to assess if the investment has held value. If an employee enriches themselves through training and therefore bring more to the table for the company, the company made a good investment. If the employee was incapable of learning from the training the company may want to reconsider investing any more time and money into training someone not able to make the most from the opportunity.
Employees who value the opportunity and see it as a wager in their favor will take the opportunity seriously and put forth a solid effort to make the most from it. People who appreciate and value their jobs and wish to create a future within the company will put forth the effort, dedication, and commitment to further development. By creating a team that is fully capable, educated, motivated, and happy; you are planning for success. Retaining high aspirations and goals are great for workplace organization and planning, but within moderation. Creating a plan and sticking to it is easier said than done. Adjusting your plan as needed when hiccups do arise is key. Often; when plans fail people lose patience and faith. Planning can be frustrating, but understanding how the plan failed is important when considering how to plan for the future.
Schermerhorn, J., Osborn, R., Uhl-Bien, M., & Hunt, J. (2012). Organizational behavior. (12th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN: 9780470878200 Reilly, M., Minnick, C., Baack, D. (2011). The Five Functions of Effective Management. San Diego: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Carl Carabelli, Demand Media. “ What Are Some Overall Strategic Staffing Functions?” Houston Chronicle. (2012) Hearst Communications
Youssef, C. (2012). Human resource management. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education.