Essential Tools for Operations Management: Tools, Models and Approaches for Managers and Consultants

CHAPTER 5

PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION

This final chapter recognizes that key to the operation and success of businesses is the role of people in undertaking both individual and team activities. As such, whilst the wider topic of human resources management (HRM) typically covers recruitment, selection, development, policy setting, etc., it is noted that for some larger companies this may be outsourced to a professional HRM service provider leaving in-house retained HR staff in a more advisory governance role with little capability or authority to interpret operational policy to suit business unit or individual circumstances. In this way outsourced HR delivers operational strategy with the retained HR staff ensuring compliance with corporate governance. This chapter focuses not on these policy undertakings but on behavioural management aspects of people from both an individual and team performance basis. It also presents a view on task management which is a key operations management activity drawing on both individual and team actions and suggests that the attributes of project management may be seen as an example of task management in action.

The leadership task is to effectively undertake three inter-related activities; in John Adair’s Action-Centred Leadership model this is represented by three circles representing the core management responsibilities of achieving the task, ...