HEL LECTURE 4 HOME MANAGEMENT

What is Home Management?

Home management depends upon various managerial processes. Decision making is
essential for successful management. The process and nature of the work involved
must be clearly understood. Supervision and the successful use of proper methods for
the work process is also necessary. The work processes consist of a series of actions
aimed at fulfilling desired goals. The goals may be long or short term ones. They vary
from one family to another, depending on the availability of resources.
Home management is the process of effectively running a household. An example of
home management is taking care of children, providing meals, making sure the house is
clean and bills are paid and otherwise attending to the needs of the house.

FIVE PARTS TO A DEFINITION OF MANAGEMENT

1. Management is Co-Ordination:
The manager must effectively coordinate all activities and resources of the home
namely, men, machines, materials and money the four M’s of management.
2. Management is a Process:
The manager achieves proper co-ordination of resources by means of the managerial
functions of planning, organizing, staffing, directing (or leading and motivating) and
controlling.
3. Management is a Purposive Process:
It is directed toward the achievement of predetermined goals or objectives. Without an
objective, we have no destination to reach or a path to follow to arrive at our destination,
i.e., a goal, both management and organization must be purposive or goal-oriented.
4. Management is a Social Process:
It is the art of getting things done through other people.
5. Management is a Cyclical Process:
It represents planning-action-control-re-planning cycle, i.e., an ongoing process to attain
the planned goals.
However, we do not have unified views of authorities on what are the managerial
functions and what is management precisely. The differences of opinion and approach
are reflected in the following often quoted definitions of management.
THE MANAGEMENT PROCESS
Through management processes the available resources can be easily identified and
properly utilized for the achievement of family goals. According to Nickel and Dorsey,
“Home Management is planning, controlling and evaluating the use of resources of the
family for the purpose of attaining family goals.” Management process involves
decisions making that leads to action and accomplishment of both long and short-term
goals. The processes of management are interrelated and interdependent.
THE BASIC PROCESS OF MANAGEMENT
A. Planning
Planning is the most important step in management process. Planning enables to find
out various ways of using the available resources to achieve the desired goals. Planning
is considered the key activity in the management process? It consists of a series of
decisions regarding various activities of the family, utilization of resources changing of
family demands to reach the goals.
HEL LECTURE 4 HOME MANAGEMENT
The basic steps of planning are:
1. Recognizing the Problem
2. Searching for various alternatives
3. Choosing between alternatives
4. Acting to carry out the plan
5. Accepting the Consequence
B. Organizing:
All the plans made in a home each day need variety of activities and if these activities
are to be carried out effectively, some form of organization is essential. Organizing
consists of dividing and grouping of activities. Then they are assigned to all the
members.
According to G. Baker, there are three levels of organization:
1. One person is organizing a task. Sometimes this is called work simplification.
2. Another level is one person arranging his own efforts for the completion of
several tasks he needs to do, e.g. A mother employed outside her home is likely
to be organizing at this level.
3. In the third level the manager arranges the efforts of other who are doing the
work into a pattern. So that one or more tasks can be completed. Parents who
include their growing children in various homemaking tasks are organizing at
this level.
C. Controlling
For successful implementation of the plan, certain amount of control is essential.
Controlling involves a careful observation of performance. The Planners must be aware
of short-comings in the plan. Regular checks make the plan easier to carry out.
Controlling includes making changes when things seem to be getting off course. Such
checking may concern the quality of the work or costs in terms of either money or time,
or again it may have to do with the feelings or the satisfaction of people.
The different phases of the control step are:
(1) Energizing
(2) Checking
(3) Adjusting.
D. Evaluation
The final step of management process is evaluation. It looks towards both the process
of management and the results. Evaluation helps in judging the success and
achievement of a plan of action. Its main purpose is to see what has been achieved as
a result of effective planning and controlling. This forms the guidelines and basis for
future planning. A considerable amount of evaluating is associated with controlling.
It is through this process of evaluation that control is affected. Evaluation step is actually
a review of what has already taken place, with an objective towards better management
in future. The homemaker learns through experience about the effectiveness of a plan.
THE HOME MANAGER
“A professional manager is one who specializes in the work of planning, organizing,
leading and controlling the efforts of others and does so through systematic use of
classified knowledge, a common vocabulary and principles and who subscribes to the
standards of practice and code of ethics established by recognized body.” — Louis A.
Alien.
HEL LECTURE 4 HOME MANAGEMENT
The term "certified household manager" was created by Mary Louise Starkey of Starkey
International Institute in 1981. “At the time, terms like butler and majordomo existed, but
there was no way for women to enter the management aspect of private service,” she
says. “The term 'butlers' didn't work for me.”

What Does a Household Manager Do?

“The duties of a house manager will be different in each establishment,
Depending on the size of the house, how often the owners will be in residence and what
level of family, guests and functions take place,” shares Allred.
In a large, staffed home, the household manager supervises and trains the private
service employees and oversees the work of service contractors. This requires in-depth
technical knowledge in the areas of house maintenance, cleaning, entertaining, clothing,
food and menu planning. You could be doing even simple things like feeding the dog,
making coffee in the morning and putting the home back in order.

Is a Housekeeper a Household Manager?

Sometimes there is confusion about what a household manager actually is. Starkey
reiterates that the position is an administrative one. “The idea that families are now
calling a household manager somebody who cleans is not fair.”

Home Managers are health care professionals who supervise or manage private and
sometime public health and social care facilities. They handle administrative and
decision making responsibilities on a day to day basis.
A Home Manager usually performs many of the following tasks:
 Skills
 Decision making
 Teamwork
 Presentation and communication
 Leadership and people management
 Planning and prioritizing
 Marketing
 Organization and administration
 Budgeting
 Networking
 Multitasking
 Being professional and assertive
 Being motivational and amicable