Elements Of Administration

Elements of Administration
Administrators, broadly speaking, engage in a common set of functions to meet the organization's goals. These "functions" of the administrator were described by HenriFayol as "the 5 elements of administration". Fayol was a key figure in the turn-of-the-century Classical School of management theory; he described a manager´s job as: planning, organizing, staffing,directing, controlling and budgeting; notice that most of these activities are very task-oriented, rather than people oriented.
* Planning - is deciding in advance what to do, how to do it, when to doit, and who should do it. It maps the path from where the organization is to where it wants to be. The planning function involves establishing goals and arranging them in a logical order.Administrators engage in both short-range and long-range planning.
* Organizing - involves identifying responsibilities to be performed, grouping responsibilities into departments or divisions, and specifyingorganizational relationships. The purpose is to achieve coordinated effort among all the elements in the organization (Coordinating). Organizing must take into account delegation of authority andresponsibility and span of control within supervisory units.
* Staffing - means filling job positions with the right people at the right time. It involves determining staffing needs, writing jobdescriptions, recruiting and screening people to fill the positions.
* Directing (Commanding) - is leading people in a manner that achieves the goals of the organization. This involves properallocation of resources and providing an effective support system. Directing requires exceptional interpersonal skills and the ability to motivate people. One of the crucial issues in directing is to find thecorrect balance between emphasis on staff needs and emphasis on economic production.
* Controlling - is a function that evaluates quality in all areas and detects potential or actual deviations...