Zimpapers Logo

Davies Ndumiso Sibanda, Labour column
MANY managers and chief executives have failed to achieve their targets because of failure to effectively manage people.

Without effective human resources management an organisation is unlikely to achieve much as all other resources require people for things to happen and the new thinking has even gone beyond human resources management to human capital management as they see people as important investment if organisational goals are to be met.

It must be borne in mind that as one moves to the top, because at that point, results are achieved through others, the most important skill becomes people management, conceptual skills, decision making skills and technical skills come last.

This is an opposite of lower levels of management where technical skills are the most important followed by people management skills with conceptual and decision making skills coming last.

As percentages, roughly people management takes 40 percent of one’s time, conceptual skills 30 percent, decision making 20 percent and technical skills 10 percent.

These statistics are a result of several research exercises undertaken by various consultants.

It therefore follows that the chief executive of the organisation should be appointed on the basis of the given schools mix if the organisation is to succeed, very often, organisations send to the top, technical managers who have not been properly trained or developed to take on senior people management jobs.

I have liked the motto of the mining industry which starts with the “People” and everything else follows. This explains why most mines are doing well despite the fact that the miner’s job is one of the most difficult ones.

One general manager, while making a presentation on why his organisation was doing so well said that on one hand he carries technical and administrative concerns and on the other interpersonal relationships concerns.

He said without threading effective people management into your technical and administrative work, you are bound to fail.

This statement is so true for every organisation. Who then is responsible for your people? People management in your department or section is your responsibility. It is not the business of the human resources department as they are only internal consultants to provide support services.

Successful organisations have taken the responsibility of people from line managers and the chief executive periodically takes the temperature through interventions by a robust human resources function.

In conclusion, there are things that tell you there are problems with people management in your organisation such as subordinates frequenting the human resources department, too many disciplinary and grievance cases from your department, frequent absenteeism from your subordinates, large numbers of uncompleted tasks, ring leaders of collective job action coming from your department and many others.

Davies Ndumiso Sibanda can be contacted on: email: [email protected] Or cell No: 0772 375 235