Management Planning

The various roles of management play important parts of the decision making process. Senior managers set the goals and clarify the mission of the organization. They engage primarily in strategic planning. This means they develop and analyze the company's mission, goals, and allocate their resources. Front-line management implements the goals set by the senior managers.

Senior managers include president or CEO. They focus on emphasizing the control and direction of the work the employees have to do to accomplish the team goals. For example, senior management includes the president of HNI. The company would not be successful without him. He is the behind the scenes guy. Although he is not seen very often, he makes very important decisions that affect the company and the employees who work there. He is responsible for the growth of the company as a whole.

Middle management use tactical planning. This enables them to interpret goal and provide specific ideas for their department that can be accomplished within a year. For example, the vice president of HNI focuses on gathering financial and operational reports. Doing this enables him to support the president decision and ideas. At HNI, the president and the vice president work fairly close together. Although they focus on different parts of the decision making process, they influence each other's decision a great deal.

Front-line management is typically supervisors and group leads. They implement operational plans. Supervisors set standards, create schedules, and report progress. For example, at HNI have many different levels of supervisors. The production supervisor and the Lean supervisor have very different responsibilities. A production supervisor focuses on C.O.T (Correct and On Time) issues. They also focus on customer demand. When upper management request to expedite an item and they need it by a certain time, the responsibility lies on the production supervisors to get the unit out on time. On the other hand, the lean assessment supervisor focuses on improving and to make changes within the company to make things more productive and efficient. HNI has a safety supervisor also; they focus on making sure everyone of their members is safe. When a member gets hurt the safety supervisor focuses on ways to prevent another injury. Although these supervisors are front-line management, they all have very different roles. (Thomas S Bateman, 2007)

Here are 10 steps that should be taken in the planning process. HNI has a mission statement. It describes what the company does and what the company is about. Upper management has an annual meeting. In this meeting we go over our mission statement, HNI calls it "The Brand Promise."

This statement is also posted in the factory hallways. The next step is analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This analysis is critical for any strategic plan. Then the company should identify opportunities and recognize any threats from his competition. Is customer demand changing? How is our competition meeting customer demand? Are there new competitors? These are some of the questions management asks them selves as they create a plan. Setting strategic goals and objectives is the next step. When