The effectiveness of management is determined by the achievement of the goal, at all stages of the movement to the result, the manager must exercise control and supervision of the process, resources, situation. Control is one of the most important functional purposes of a leader.
The concept of control in management
Management is necessary in order to effectively organize activities, rationally spend resources and achieve goals. Management traditionally has five basic functions: planning, organization, motivation, control and coordination. Each of them has its own specifics and significance. So, control, current or strategic, is an important activity of the manager in comparing the results of work with the plan at all stages of the production process, checking the results for compliance with standards and norms, as well as eliminating deviations that arise.
The importance of control is explained by the need to remove uncertainty about the state of affairs in the company and the progress of the production process. Also, control is a prerequisite for successful activity. It allows you to assess the situation and prevent the occurrence of crises. Control and supervision are necessary, but they can occur in various forms and perform a number of functions. Depending on the management style in the organization, control may be concentrated in the hands of one manager, usually senior management, or delegated to several employees.
Control functions
Control is an unpleasant moment of work for both the manager and the contractor, but it is necessary. In management, it is customary to talk about several basic control functions:
- Assessment of the environment, external and internal. During the control, the manager collects information and removes uncertainty regarding the understanding of the current process. The control allows you to detect negative or threatening factors in the external and internal environment and find opportunities for their elimination or accounting in the performance of activities.
- Response to deviations. The manager controls to keep abreast of all the details of the production process and manage to respond to changes and deviations. Control allows you to notice mistakes and threats on time and quickly restructure the production process.
- The allocation of resources. Tactical and technical control allows the most efficient use of available money, equipment, finding the right place for the competencies of employees. At the same time, control allows you to identify reserves and use them productively.
- Maintain feedback. The interactive function of control is that during its implementation, interaction is established between all elements of the system, between the leader and the executor.
- Assessment of staff. In order to competently motivate employees and effectively pay for their work, it is necessary to build a clear assessment system, this helps the manager control at all stages of production.
Types of control
The complexity of the supervision process leads to the existence of several control qualifications.
The frequency of the procedures distinguish:
- Preliminary control. Even before the start of work, steps should be taken to monitor and evaluate key resources: material, human, production. Its purpose is to prevent the possibility of the appearance of negative consequences of actions of performers. It allows you to make adjustments to the plan even before its implementation and before committing errors.
- Current control. It is carried out in the course of work, its purpose is to identify at the stage of occurrence and prevent errors and deviations. It aims to monitor compliance with norms and standards. Ongoing monitoring requires the constant flow of information and operational error correction.
- Final control. It is carried out at the stage of summarizing and assessing the achievement of results. The main goal of this type of control is to prevent similar errors in the future. The data obtained during this stage becomes the basis for creating new plans.
Based on the frequency of control actions, strategic, tactical and operational control are distinguished . According to their functional affiliation, experts call financial, production, marketing and personnel types of control. It can also be distinguished based on the direction of actions of the external and internal types of control.
Strategic and tactical control
The most important tool for implementing the plans of the enterprise are strategic and tactical control. The objective of these types of management activities is to track the fidelity of plans and ongoing actions. Strategic control is a systematic verification of the conformity of global goals, strategic programs and actions. The objectives of this type of activity are: determination of the fidelity of the chosen long-term goals and the correctness of the way to achieve them, identifying potential opportunities for the company. Tactical control is associated with checking the achievement of short-term, immediate goals. His tool is technical control, which is aimed at identifying the stringency of the production process with regulations, standards and norms.
Control at the stages of preparation
The entire management process is riddled with stages of control. There is a tradition of staged classification, in this case there are: preliminary, current and final control. Each of them performs its functions and has distinctive features. Preliminary control precedes the start of work, it is an integral part of planning. Its goal is to create conditions for the effective launch of production. At this stage, the readiness and competency of the staff, the availability of necessary resources, and documentary support of the activity are evaluated.
The current control, in contrast to the preliminary one, coincides in time with the production stages. Its main function is to improve the workflow. The manager constantly monitors the compliance of all production operations and actions of the executors with the approved plans and standards. Sometimes this stage is also called “intermediate control”, which emphasizes its main feature - the identification of shortcomings and deviations on the way to the goal. It applies to the assessment of solutions to both current and strategic tasks. Of particular importance is the final or final control. It is very different from other stages in its tasks and course.
Final control: specifics
The final stage of the production process is associated with the solution of several important tasks. This is the identification of the degree of conformity of the goals and results set, the assessment of the personnel’s work, the compilation of a list of miscalculations and errors in order to proceed to the next stage of planning. The final control should be carried out according to established criteria, so that the performers understand how their work is checked and how this will affect their pay. This type of supervision is associated with assessing the expenditure of resources, determining the effectiveness of strategies and tactics, and evaluating the correctness of previous decisions. The results of this stage are extremely important for the future organization, as its results can be used to avoid mistakes when creating plans for the future.
Control procedure
Control, current and final, is carried out according to one algorithm.
At the first stage, information is collected, then assessment criteria are formulated for each operation and process, then goals and control methods are determined. This is the preparatory phase. Further, the control enters the stage of the actual assessment of the process and actions. The last stage is the analysis of the information received and the formulation of conclusions, it is synonymous with final control. As a result of all these actions, a management decision must be born.
Control principles
The manager exercising control, current, strategic or final, must remember the basic principles of its implementation. These include:
- Timeliness. Some time should pass between control procedures, it should not be too frequent so that the employee does not feel that he is not trusted. But it should not be carried out too rarely so that the employee does not have the impression of lack of control.
- Flexibility. He must adapt to current conditions.
- Profitability. His goal is to save resources, so he himself should not require large investments.