Illustrate using the functions of management, the quality needed to become a good manager.

In a company, there is at least one manager to control and keep the operation of business and management. According to Samuel C. Certo (2009), management is the process of reaching organizational goals by working with and through people and other organizational resources. There are few definitions for management and the characteristics can be summary as below: i) ii) It is a continuing or series process and relevant activities it is commitment, involvement and concentration to achieve company goals. iii) It reaches these goal by working with and through other people and organizations In simple phase, it can be refers as the process that manager(s) follow(s) in order to achieve company goals.

Hotel management is used as the lead to explicate further on this topic.

Samuel C. Certo (3009) cited that In order to become a good manager, he/she should carry and implement the functions of planning, organizing, influencing and controlling.
Planning

Samuel C. Cert (2009) mentioned that, Planning can be defined as the process of determining how the organi zation can get, where it want to go and what what it will do to accomplish the its objective. Harry Jones added as mentioned by Samuel C. Certo (2009), planning is the systematic development of action programs aimed at reaching agreed-upon business objectives by the process of

analyzing, evaluating, and selecting among the opportunities which are foreseen.

A good hotel manager should implement the planning by going through the planning process:

1. State organization objectives A clear statement is important before planning can be begin i.e. to yearly updating the company mission statement and objective as per market trend, competitors and economic in order to come up an efficient plan.

2. List alternative ways of reaching objectives When a clear objective is outlined, the hotel manager should list down 360degree alternative plans for reaching the objective. For example, to increase hotels room revenue, the hotel manager not only could consider advertise at newspaper but could look into sms blitz, tele-marketing, e-mail, in-cooperate with on-line agents, participate travel exhibition & etc.

3. Develop premises on which to have base each alternative The planning shall be feasible and could be determined by premises or assumption for any alternative to reach maximize objective of an organization. For example, the hotel manager could decide on few alternative ways to increase hotel revenue, i.e. The hotel manager need to decide to use which alternative ways for when to get more revenue, a) concentrate on rooms sales b) focus on banquet events with room stay package.

4. Choose the best alternative for reaching objective An evaluation of alternative must include alternative evaluation. For example, the hotel manager should decide a) to allocate more rooms for travel agent in order to achieve room occupancy (lower room rate but more rooms sell out) or b) concentrate selling at higher room rate to walk -in guests (higher room rate but

lesser rooms sell out) or c) to engage more online booking agents (higher room rate but need to give commission to the agents).

5) Develop plan to pursue the chosen alternative After the alternative is chosen, the hotel manager must begin to develop strategy (long-term) & tactical (short-term). For example, a hotel manager may make decision to maximize its revenue by selling more rooms with higher rate and limited low budget banquet groups during school holiday. But dur ing low season (i.e. after school holiday), the hotel manager would plan ahead to grab as many as possible banquet event (even though with low budget groups) in order to maximize its banquet revenue and thus cover the low room revenue.

6. Put the plan into action. Once the short-term & long-term plans being finalized, the hotel manager should implement in due time and may update / revise the plan should they any obstacle occurred.

Organizing

Samuel C. Cert (2009) quoted that

organizing is the process of establishing Mr Samuel C. Cert (2009)

orderly use for resources within the organization.

briefed that Mr. A Tacket cited that orderly use of resources stress on the achievement of companys objective and assist the hotel managers not only plan their objective but also identify which resources that will be used to achieve them.

The organizing skill is very important as this is the primary mechanism for a good manager to activate their plan. Through detail organizing, the hotel

manager is able to identify when, where and how the organization resources

can be used for a specific activity. The hotel manager, thus able to minimize costly weaknesses, i.e. duplication of effort and idle organizational resources.

A good hotel manager will subsequently implement organizing function as per diagram below :

R fl

E t

St p 3 / uvu m j r t k i t u t k St p 4 All t r ur ir tiv f r u t k

A good hotel manager knows the responsibility of organizing people and company resources with cost efficient and effectively. For example, an Outlet manager need to decide and arrange staff for every shift. He / She has to justify how many staffs needed as workload is vary for morning shift, afternoon & night shift for low and peak period so that staff will not overloaded and work exhausted or not occupy with enough job. The staffs will then grow respect to manager with excellent supervisory techniques.

St p 1 t pl j tiv St p 2 li h m j r t k

Influencing

Influencing is the process of guiding the activities of organization member in appropriate direction , Meanwhile, according to Derek Torrington as mention by Samuel C. Cert (2009), It is a critical part of a good \ hotel managers job. In fact the ability to influence others is a primary determinant of a good manager to be (Samuel C. Cert, 2009), .

Managing and influencing is not the same act ivity. Managing is the function of directing employee to complete task by adhering to policies & procedures and completing as per deadline. A good hotel manager must have ability in

influencing i.e. leading employee, motivating employee whenever needed, considering groups capability, communicating and interact with all level of staffs , encouraging staffs creativity and innovation and building a good corporate culture and attitude to work and life . A good manager must able to inspired their staff in order to achieve companys goal.

Controlling

Samuel C. Cert (2009) revealed that controlling is the process managers must endure it. It is a systematic effort to compare performance to predetermined standard, plans, or objectives to dete rmine whether performance is in line with those standards or needs to be corrected. Heater Rothbuer-Wanish (2009)

quoted that the controlling function involve monitoring the firms performance as to ensure the achievement of objectives. A good hotel manager must follow the following main steps of controlling process:

1. Measuring performance He/ She must establish some units of measure i.e. how and where to measure in order to determine performance and observe the quality of the unit as generated by the item whose performance is being measured. 2. Comparing measured performance and standards Once the measurement of organizational performance is determined, a good hotel manager must continue the next step in controlling i.e. compare the measure with standard. A standard is the model rule set to evaluate

organizational performance. For example, if the company has set a target of increasing 3% in Sales revenue for the next 3 months, the good & effective hotel manager should share the information with employees and sales and marketing strategies to push up the next 3 months sales in order to develop involvement and faith of employees. 3. Taking correction actions After actual performance being measure and compared with the establish performance standard, a good hotel manger will analyze and take correction actions if necessary. Correction action is the method to improve and push up the organization performance as compared to measurement standard. A good manager must able to identify problems and sympt oms that created the problems. For example, a good Banquet Manager must conduct a post mortem meeting after every function ended. From the meeting, he/she could identify what are the mistake, weakness, omitted details and the improvement or remedial actions to recovery the groups or for future groups.

As a

good hotel manager involving in multiple of work task s, he/she must

equally balancing the function of planning, organizing, influencing and controlling in order to gain respect and trust from his/her employees.