Management of any kind can only function when it has personnel to carry out its organizational objectives. This is especially true of personnel management. Therefore, personnel management must seek to make the staff of the multimedia library effectively contribute to its success by developing a staff whose tasks are fulfilled in an economical and effective way. As seen from the point of view of the systems approach, it is imperative to remember that personnel management is an important function; an interdependent decision-making subsystem within the larger organization of the library.
The major objective of personnel management is to increase the individual employee’s effectiveness. Management endeavors to increase individual effectiveness with additional objectives which will give each employee an increased sense of personal satisfaction in the work and the work environment. The most important point that management has to consider in dealing with staff is how they feel about their work, their associates their supervisor, and the organization for which they work. The principles of personnel management which follow are essential to the fulfillment of this end.
The multimedia manager has the responsibility of meeting the library’s needs for personnel with people who have the skills and experience to do the job. The manager must be concerned with setting up the processes necessary to utilize these skills.
The personnel function is also an important aspect of the total management of the multimedia library because the manager has the responsibility for developing coordination among many people. Management must provide the leadership which will create effective coordination and utilization of both human and material resources toward the achievement of the objectives of the multimedia library. Management is not only a process, it is people. Accordingly, the organization and motivation of people becomes one of the central functions of management. This it is necessary for the media manager to develop a personnel management plan. This plan in turn should be based upon certain truths or principles. So the first step in the development of such a plan is to thoroughly review the foundation principles of personnel management. These principles relate to the way in which employees are viewed by their superiors, the way in which they are dealt with, the way in which they perceive their own roles, and the way in which they relate to fellow staff members and the users of the multimedia library. In the following paragraphs, discussion is given to these principles.
PRINCIPLES OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
APPRECIATION
Everyone likes to feel important, and this feeling is a significant aspect of motivation. How a person feels about an accomplishment has a great deal to do with efficiency and productivity. Accordingly, it is important for management to emphasize those factors in personnel work which enable the employee to experience recognition for work, attitude, and dedication. The employee who feels appreciated has a positive attitude and can relate this sense of worthiness to the work.
The following case helps to illustrate the negative feeling an employee may experience when appreciation is not shown for worthy effort. The head librarian in the reference area of a large public library found out, via the grapevine, that one of her best assistant librarians wanted to transfer back to branch work. The assistant had been brought to the main library in the first place on the assumption that she would replace the present head librarian upon her retirement. The assistant had worked very hard at creating a good situation, and the head librarian was more than satisfied with the work.
The rumor made the head librarian aware that her handling of the assistant had been remiss. Although she was most satisfied with the work of the assistant, she had never told her so, or communicated her appreciation for the good work the assistant had done.
In order to remedy this situation, Miss Blue, the head librarian, called the assistant to her office and reviewed her performance since coming to the main branch, expressing her appreciation for the assistant’s excellent work. Miss Blue followed up on this by expressing continued appreciation at every opportunity. This simple but important change put an end to the negative feelings experienced by the assistant, and she no longer considered transferring back to the branch library. The rumor was undone, and a positive, healthy relationship between the head librarian and her assistant was reestablished.
CLARITY
There should not be any confusion in any staff member’s mind as to duties and responsibilities. The person who clearly understands an assignment is most apt to be a productive employee. There are several principles of management which bear upon this problem. They may be summarized as delegation, single accountability, and authority. Each of these supports what we have called the principle of clarity in this paragraph. Delegation clarifies responsibility for doing something. Single accountability provides for clear definition of functional responsibility. Designation of authority removes any question of responsibility and directly assigns decision -making roles among staff members. If management follows through on these principles, it will be very clear to the staff just where their duties and responsibilities lie. Such clarity helps create good morale and eliminates frustration.
The following case study demonstrates what may happen when clarity, for example, fails to be considered in a library’s professional and managerial conduct.
Bill, a young man, was hired at a public library in a small Midwestern city. One of his main objectives, as agreed between himself and his head librarian, was to develop a publicity campaign. For this, he was given a small budget. Bill obtained some specially printed posters were placed in the windows of business houses and other agencies serving the public.
An influential patron who did not agree with the idea of “advertising” a library wrote to the head librarian. Miss Taylor, complaining about the money spent on the posters. Highly defensive about the patron’s complaints, Miss Taylor in turn wrote a memo to Bill informing him that he no longer had authority to expend publicity budget funds. Miss Taylor did this without consulting Bill personally. Bill felt her action was out-of-hand, that the publicity program idea was still a good one, but that he was now unsure of just what his duties and responsibilities were. The result: frustration and confusion on his part. Miss Taylor had not clarified his assignment; she simply took away the fiscal resources to do it.
FAIRNESS
Fairness is a condition most important in personnel management because it greatly affects the feeling of staff members about management. Employees need to feel that supervisors are playing fair. In the exercise of criticism, decision making, determination of matters relating to compensation and the like, staff members must feel that the media manager is treating them fairly. Without this assurance, morale is adversely affected, and the informal organization, through the grapevine, may create inefficiency, disrupt harmonious relations among employees, and generally lower the performance of all concerned.
A case which emphasizes the need for playing fair in dealing with personnel is one concerning the hiring of a new circulation head on a university library. The basic educational and experience requirements for this position were a master’s degree and at least three years of professional library experience. Many librarians on the staff were interested in the job, but did not apply because of the professional experience requirement. One person, however, did apply, although he had only one year of applicable experience. As it turned out, this person was hired for the position on the strength of his record as a retired military senior officer. The selection was made by a five-person committee who apparently thought that command experience had something to do with commanding a circulation department.
A number of librarians in the staff protested immediately. They felt it was an unfair tactic for the committee to change the rules in the middle of the game without telling all the potential players. Fortunately, the selection was reviewed by higher administrative authorities and the appointment withdrawn. Everyone was in agreement that it was unjust to exclude staff members who would have applied for the position if, in the first place, the experience requirement had been stated as one year. The problem would not have arisen, however had the principle of fairness been taken into consideration at the time of initial selection.
INFORMATION
The manager must understand that employees need to have information on events and actions affecting them or in which they have an interest. Good rapport and high motivation can be assured by making certain that all employees are adequately informed about matters affecting their work and welfare. It is well to remember that it is better to provide correct information than to have the grapevine manufacture gossip and rumor. Sharing information can be an effective means of staff motivation. Secrecy breeds suspicion and frustration.
The circumstances surrounding a staff Christmas party provide an interesting case in point. For many years a large public library had allowed its staff to have a party on the last working day before Christmas. Gifts were exchanged, and refreshments consisting of potluck contributions created a great deal of variety and participation. It was one of the most important social gatherings of the year and did a great deal for morale and rapport.
Early in the Fall a new department head in circulation was approached by one of her staff members with the suggestion that each department should have its own Christmas party. This idea was brought to the director who set up a committee of there to review the Christmas party situation.
Almost before the committee got started, however, misinformation became a problem. The committee had only three members, so all departments were not represented. Neither did they keep minutes or circulate official information. So, as the holiday season grew near, rumors about the Christmas party became such an issue that the staff became polarized into three groups: status quo; Christmas parties by department; and no Christmas party. With the secrecy surrounding the three-man committee meetings, the director had a serious morale problem on his hands.
He solved the situation by requiring a representative from each department to serve on the committee; the minutes of all meetings were sent to everyone, and it was announced that a vote of all staff members would be taken by December 15. The entire staff overwhelmingly voted to keep the all-staff party, and further serious damage to staff morale and rapport was averted.
INITIATIVE
The media manager must encourage and inspire the staff to show initiative in thinking and executing plans. Subordinates should be allowed to exercise initiative within the limits provided by their hob assignments, and by normal tenets of respect for authority and discipline within the library.
The case of a new circulation librarian in a small college library exemplifies this principle. In delegating the responsibility of running a circulation desk, the head librarian had included the authority to adjust and forgive fines at the discretion of the circulation librarian. The problem in this case was one of getting the circulation librarian to take the initiative to make the decisions necessary in cases involving fines.
At first, she was conscientious in holding to the roles regarding fines and overdues. However then she had had a few confrontations with very belligerent students, she began passing the buck and referring the students to the head librarian. The head librarian quickly realized that the circulation librarian would have to be encouraged to use her own initiative in handling these situations. Realizing however that this could only be done by example, she called the circulation librarian into her office when student fine problems were discussed, after a few such experiences and with encouragement, the circulation librarian was able to take the initiative and handles these decisions herself.
CONSIDERATION
Management must give careful and thoughtful consideration to the probable effect each rule, notice, and practice established for the library will have on the feelings and performance of staff members. This is especially true when considering changes, especially if management is contemplating an action that may be interpreted as demeaning, for example, by any staff member, or one which will create resistance within the staff. It is best to involve the people affected.
There may be times when a manager is forced into a situation where higher authority has put out a directive that is not within the manager’s control- a directive which will be distasteful to the staff. If this happens, the best thing to do is seek reasons for such a change, and explain them to the staff. In this way members become involve. People like to be involved. They like to think that they have something to say about change.
Consideration means that management is considerate of all staff members. The manager should ask, “What do you think?” Each time management implements a change or sets up a new rule, careful, thoughtful consideration as to how the change may be expected to affect the staff should precede such a move.
A case that focuses on this problem occurred in a small public library that had just hired a new library school graduate with a master’s degree in library science to head its circulation area. The rest of the circulation staff was made up of clerical assistants who had been on the staff for years.
Almost immediately the new library, uncompromisingly putting into effect her professional training, ran into problems. She arbitrarily insisted that each patron show an ID card instead of giving the number verbally, and ordered her staff to insist upon it. Other changes she instituted were also based on what she had learned in library school. The problem: these changes created animosities among the staff who felt they had been dealing with this library’s patrons for thirty years and should have been consulted before such changes were made. They could easily ask for ID cards, but the matter was more personal than procedural. They had known many of their patrons for years and felt they could trust the patron to give the correct ID number verbally. Putting g them arbitrarily in a position of compromising an accepted trust in this instance was inconsiderate and unworkable. The new circulation librarian should have realized this and realized that new members of an organization have to be cautious about making changes without being considerate of the staff affected.
PARTICIPATION
Participation can be considered a strong tool of motivation for the manager to use in creating better relationships with and among employees. This principle is concerned essentially with stimulating greater employee participation in decision making and policy development. More information can be brought into the decision making process by involving more people. People who must follow instructions from higher authority accept them more readily when they have contributed to the decisions and policy statements upon which such instructions are based.
This principle also contributes to a feeling of importance in the employee. Being given an opportunity to help with the decision-making process, and seeing that suggestions are taken, valued, and desired, the staff member is more positively motivated to carry out the related duties as assigned.
A case which has to do with employee participation in d4ecision making and policy development may be cited here. It concerns a high school district and its libraries. The district had recently acquired a computer, and the district librarian thought that perhaps it could make a contribution to many pressing library problems.
The district librarian met with all librarians and presented the idea to them. At this meeting different problems were identified and a committee was established to suggest computer uses. All of the librarians were involved in researching problems and suggesting computer utilization which would help in solving them.
The committee’s primary proposal was to develop a centralized, district-wide book catalog produced through the computer. It was felt that knowing what was in all of the collections would create better use of resources through interlibrary loans and student access to all of the district’s resources. It would also be a first step in developing centralized bibliographic and acquisition procedures.
When the proposal was presented to the librarians, there was some opposition just out of sentiment and simple hostility to change. This hostility, however, was soon resolved. The heavy participation by all opened the way to discussion and compromise, and the district librarian was able after additional meetings to resolve a majority of the differences and convince the several librarians to support the computer proposal.
PRAISE
Everyone likes to receive recognition for work well done. Praise should be used by management as a tool of motivation. Good work should be rewarded with praise. The manager must learn to use praise judiciously, however, because it is impossible to praise everything and everybody constantly. In handling personnel, when and how to use praise as a motivational tool must be learned.
The case presented here is a simple situation where recognition for work will done was needed. A high school librarian had hired a library technician to handle the classroom AV equipment and the production of transparencies and other materials. The technician had shown a great deal of initiative as well as planning ability. He had organized the different tasks in such a way that after a year the librarian needed to have little concern for this particular operation.
When the technician started the second year, he was doing such a good hob that the librarian practically ignored the operation. This continues until after a Christmas vacation when the librarian received a few faculty complaints about the technician’s belligerent attitude.
The librarian decided to discuss the situation with the technician to see if the problem could be identified. She started out by praising the technician’s work, and then asking if he felt there was a problem. With this approach, the problem surfaced. The technician felt he had worked hard and done well’ however, his immediate supervisor had not recognized his work-she had not praised him for it. He interpreted this to mean that the faculty was unhappy with his performance. Thus, his belligerent attitude toward faculty members. The head librarian assured him that she had been remiss in not giving him due praise and recognition. Good relations were again established between the technician and the faculty.
PRIDE
A feeling of at least a reasonable degree of pride in objectives, methods, and accomplishments is certainly a most important component of personnel management. Human beings must have pride in their accomplishments. If employees do not have at least some degree of pride, adequate performance cannot be expected. Management must, therefore, encourage a reasonable degree of dedication among staff members toward doing a good job. The manager implements this principle by clearly defining objectives and outcomes expected, communicating these to the staff, and recognizing achievement when a task is well done.
In the multimedia library organization, this is important because there is more specialization and clear-cut assignment of functions and tasks. Yet there are those who would minimize the principle of pride in today’s world because, it is suggested, society has created such mechanization and disregard for individual accomplishment that it is difficult for the manager to create pride in task accomplishment.
Nothing is further from the truth. Most people continue to have a desire to enjoy a sense of pride in their work, and if the job they do can provide this worthwhile feeling, it can be utilized very effectively as a management technique in the accomplishment of library objectives. Management must constantly seed ways to develop and utilize the principle of pride.
The value of this principle is in the worthwhile feeling created by its application. The following case demonstrates this application. The school involved in the case was an elementary one in an urban ghetto area. Under a federal grant, a media center was started with great success. The success was so great, in fact, that after the grant had terminated, the district continued to support the media center, including a full-time media specialist. Clerical help was supplied only on a part-time basis-a clerk who was shared by other elementary libraries. As a result the media specialist had to depend to some degree on volunteers.
The media center facility was very crowded, with poor working conditions, and to keep volunteers motivated and interested in doing a good job, the media specialist had to work especially hard to create pride and dedication. Without this it just wasn’t possible to keep or use volunteers as a work force.
Monthly workshops were conducted. The media specialist explained the need and value of the volunteers’ work. The need to keep objectives in mind and how to achieve them was emphasized over and over again. With application of the principles of praise and appreciation also, the pride created by this approach kept the volunteers dedicated to their tasks, and their contribution remained a real factor in the continued success of the media center.
SECURITY
All employees need a feeling of security, freedom from uncertainty. Management must provide this feeling. Good morale in a job depends upon such security. Very little efficiency, dedication, or high-level work performance can be expected from someone who is afraid of being fired at any moment.
Fear is far from an effective tool of management despite the fact that it has been used as a means of controlling employees by many managers. Typically with negative management practices, the “boss” creates fear in the employee so that a job will get done. After a time when the threat dies not materialize-even though he may have fallen short of doing his best-he rationalizes that it is not going to happen. He slackens up a bit in his performance. So management must create new fear, to keep him on his toes.” This becomes a cycle. The manager keeps building fear until the objective of management becomes one of creating more fear instead of developing positive attitudes in the employees toward the fulfillment of genuine organizational objectives.
It is important that management do its utmost to maximize employee performance. A reasonable sense of job security is mandatory as an incentive in developing such performance. The importance of job security is emphasized by the following example.
For the past ten years, a certain junior high school has been using as library a considerable collection of books supervised by a clerk, Mrs. Downs. It has been functioning smoothly all of this time, with regular class visits. Now, the principal, vitally interested in individualized learning, and feeling that a well-developed media center is necessity, discusses this with the district, and puts in for an ESEA Phase II Project. The project is approved, and as a result, it becomes necessary that the district obtain the services of a professional librarian.
With the addition of a full-time professional librarian, Mrs. Downs becomes very concerned about the security o her position. She feels threatened because a stranger is being brought in to take over “her library” since Mrs. Downs has been doing a satisfactory job for many years, has excellent rapport with the staff, and is familiar with the school and community, it is important to retain her and to take steps to keep her a happy, productive employee.
In order to give Mrs. Dons security, the librarian decided to entrust her with the specific responsibilities of processing book materials and handling circulation. By giving her these specific responsibilities, along with authority which required supervision of another clerk and student assistants it sis possible to create an adequate sense of security for Mrs. Downs, and at the same tine implement the learning center concept.
SELECTION
Careful personnel selection, which makes use of every available device and technique to be sure that, as nearly as possible, each person selected is suited to the work assigned, is one of the first essentials of good personnel management practice. The techniques or devices utilized to accomplish good selection include carefully prepared job descriptions, appropriate test, thorough interviews, completion of well-developed applications, evaluation of experience information, review of placement papers, recommendations, and educational preparation. If employees selected for a job are suited to their assigned tasks, they will be happier employees and have better morale.
Job description or specifications are an absolute necessity in hiring practice. If the job requires a particular personality or set of psychological traits, such factors must be considered during selection. Careful evaluation of prospective employees is indispensable in making sure that they are physically, mentally, and temperamentally suited to the job they will do.
The following case demonstrates how careful selection may be carried out. It indicates how a mistake in preparing a job description can disturb an excellent selection procedure. The personnel director of a large school district had the responsibility for the supervision of the selection procedure and the authority to validate the final selection.
When a librarian was due to retire at the end of a school year, the personnel office put into motion the machinery to obtain a replacement. The position was for a traveling elementary school librarian who would cover three schools. The personnel office prepared the job description, screened applicants, and then turned the selected applicants over to an interviewing team made up of a principal and two librarians.
All applicants were screened, the list was reduced to twelve, and the team was informed of the time and place for interviews. On the appointed day the selection team found that the first three applicants did not know that they needed a car. One of them indicated that he was not interested in a traveling job.
The problem was in the language of the job description, which mentioned only that an elementary librarian was needed. No mention was made of the need for a car or that the job required traveling. As a result, the interview team had to first determine if the applicants could travel, and whether they had their own transportation. It was also necessary for the personnel office to rewrite the job description and contact all applicants with a new job description.
One of the responsibilities toward employees most likely to be overlooked by management is that of making each person as compatible as possible with every other person in the activity so that working will prove to be a satisfying social experience. This does not mean that everyone has to be a close friend to everyone else; it does mean, however, that the manager should create an atmosphere in which personnel look forward to an enjoyable experience during the day. It is necessary to create some kind of congeniality, an environment in which people can work together. An example would be to provide a comfortable and pleasant atmosphere for such social opportunity as coffee breaks.
Personality conflicts are another matter of great concern to management. At one time or another all managers must face this problem. Some solve it by either separating the individuals or creating a situation where the problem is minimized.
No matter what approach is used, sociability is a key aspect of individual effectiveness. Most people acre about other people and want to get along with them. Management sensitivity to this very real human characteristic is an important key to successful personnel practices.
This principle is emphasized in the following case. In a large university library, a brilliant new beginning librarian had a personality clash with a clerk who had been a staff member for many years. After the new librarian had been on the job for about three months, the problem had come to the point where they were both complaining to the director about each other. And the effectiveness of both employees was being jeopardized.
Instead of accepting the responsibility of trying to create a congenial environment, however, the director told the two parties to settle their differences between themselves. Of course, the differences were not settled and the librarian moved on to another position. The librarian, who had great potential for this library, was lost, and the clerk, who was due for retirement in a few years remained, but was now in a position to have to learn to relate again to a new professional.
The director should have discussed the problem with both parties at the same time. In this way, the differences would have been out in the open and perhaps resolved. If there was still no understanding, the director should have transferred one or the other to a different until in the library.
TEAMWORK
Teamwork is necessary to insure coordination among the various operating units of the multimedia library as well as within each unit itself. Such coordination and communication provide a basis for a continuity of effort toward the fulfillment of objectives. An accepted teamwork concept among employees will also dramatize the need for overall management controls and direction for the entire organization, making such controls less threatening to the personal feelings and initiative of the individual employee.
The following situation demonstrates the need for teamwork even in the context of a nitty gritty day-to-day management problem. A simple request for a telephone extension caused an involved problem in a large university librarian. In one of the workrooms at this institution there was only one phone to handle a large number of incoming calls. The person working nearest the phone was constantly interrupted to answer the insistent ring. If this individual and others in the immediate area were away from their desks, as was frequently the case, the phone was often unanswered, and the constant ringing became irritating to everyone.
The problem boiled down to one of adequate phone coverage so that one or two people were not always being interrupted. The manager of the area decided to utilize a teamwork approach, and the problem was presented at a staff meeting.
Staff response was most gratifying. Additional extensions, an intercom system, agreed that the responsibility of answering the phone would be rotated among the staff members, and a schedule was worked out to facilitate this. Flexibility of this schedule and cooperation among the staff insured teamwork and offered an efficient and workable solution to the problem.
WELCOME
A welcome, especially from someone in authority, will count mush toward building the feeling of personal adequacy so essential to efficient work. When a new employee has been through the selection and hiring procedures, it is imperative that management make the new worker feel a member of the team. It takes time for a new employee to become acclimatized and reach a high level of efficiency in performance. The manager must drop around regularly, ask how things are going, and if there are any problems. The manager working directly with a new person can give encouragement, answer the many questions that inevitably arise on a new job, and resolve problems and difficulties which can perplex a new employee.
The value of giving a welcome to new employees is demonstrated in a case involving volunteers in an elementary school district. There were six schools in this district, with only a professional district librarian. This meant that Miss Turner, the district librarian, had to depend on volunteers to staff six libraries.
Being new, Miss Turner wanted to be sure that this system of volunteers would work. An orientation session was set up and a manual of operations developed. A substitute list was prepared and given to the library chairperson of each school.
The system seemed to be working, so Miss Turner turned her attention to other duties. In a short time, however, a high percentage of volunteers had dropped out of the program, and by the end of the school year, library hours were not generally regular, and in some cases, libraries could not even be opened.
Miss Turner decided to get to the bottom of this problem and see if it could be rectified for the next school year.
She selected a sample of the volunteers and contacted them for their views. One item kept coming through in all of her interviews: the volunteers did not feel welcome. They thought the orientation and manual were fine, but when they first appeared on the job no one bothered to give them a welcome, or to acknowledge their presence in the library.
Miss Turner decided to find a way to treat the volunteers as special people. She arranged her schedule so that she saw and welcomed each volunteer personally. She followed this up by either telephoning or personally contacting each of them before the opening of the school year, to be sure they felt welcomed and needed.
Miss Turner followed this up with a show of consideration in the form of brief individual notes to each volunteer on special occasions during the following year. A telephone message system was also set up, messages on special projects were left for the volunteers, and they knew Miss Turner would respond if they called for help. These procedures had good results. The libraries were open during their scheduled hours, staffed by volunteers who felt needed and appreciated, and Miss Turner’s problem was resolved.
CONDITIONS
The quality of equipment, physical facilities, and working conditions provided for an employee on the job are highly important factors in achieving efficiency and high production. The better the working conditions the higher the efficiency and production with the same amount of human effort.
How working conditions can affect the production of an employee is demonstrated by the following case which occurred in a large high school where an auditorium was converted into a spacious library. The plan was to have the library and a study hall combined. An office and workroom in one corner were partitioned space, since no walls were put into the room itself. Acquisitioning, cataloging, and processing were done in the partitioned area.
However, typing noise from the office bothered students who were assigned to study hall; an eight-foot high partition provides very little sound protection. Students flipped pennies over the partition to irritate the clerk when she started typing in the office area. The clerk’s efficiency and production were seriously impaired, and the problem became a serious matter of concern. Among suggestions considered were to leave the tables next to the partition empty; another, to find an effective way of locating clerical duties elsewhere. This was done, and the improved conditions permitted better work by the clerk, and eliminated interruption of study hall activities.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLAN
The principles discussed in the preceding section will not by themselves assure an effective personnel management program. They must be brought together, along with other factors of management, within what may be called a management plan. The following section will discuss how such a plan may be developed, whether for a large organization where management functions are departmentalized, or in the smaller unit where personnel management is only one of the responsibilities of the multimedia manager.
PREPARATION
In preparing a personnel management plan, the manager must carefully consider in advance every detail required in the development of a successful and adequate program. The manager must understand that all aspects of personnel work interact and have a cause and effect relationship on one another. Particularly with relation to personnel selection the manager needs to be aware of the effect of decisions made at this stage, and the orientation procedures and later in-service training that will be needed. If the people involved in selection of personnel are well trained, and thus able to more carefully employ the appropriate people, there will be less subsequent training required for new employees. This is one of the values of the paraprofessional or library technician programs that are now appearing at community colleges. Selection of new employees out of such programs will often provide better people for library positions from the time of initial hiring.
A personnel management plan designed within the management by-objectives (MBO) concept stars with the determination of objectives. The objectives for personnel management have been clearly defined in a previous section of this chapter, but the importance of objectives in the personnel management plan cannot be overemphasized. The development of an effective personnel plan absolutely requires that objectives be definite and well understood so that policies and decision making can relate to those objectives.
PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT PROCESS
It is now necessary to develop a personnel management process so that predetermined objectives can be accomplished. There are three functions that are vital in this process: acquisition of personnel, improvement of personnel, and maintenance of personnel.
The first of these, involving the selection of personnel, has been discussed earlier. The second step will be examined here, assuming that the manager, and not a separate personnel department, will have the responsibility for implementing or delegating to staff members the three steps in the process.
The multimedia manager usually retains responsibility for selection, assignment, training, and development of the professional staff. The manager generally delegates to other professional staff members the responsibility of handling paraprofessionals, clerical people, aides, student assistants, and volunteers, remembering, of course, that management can delegate this part of the supervision, but it cannot delegate its final responsibility for the effective and economic fulfillment of objectives by these people. In the personnel management process a supervision and control system must be set up to reserve, for the manager, final judgment and responsibility for overall performance by all employees.
A third step in the personnel management program that the multimedia manager must be concerned with is the development of policies which will serve as guidelines for performance at all levels within the system. Such policies need to be developed by the manager in concert with those other professional on the staff who will be involved in putting these policies into practice.
It is also necessary for the multimedia manager to include in the preparation of the plan any fiscal concerns or budgetary matters involved in fulfilling the personnel management plan that will bear upon policies and standard operating procedure within the center.
TWO-TRACK PROGRAM
In preparing the personnel management plan, it is well to understand that it will be a two-track program. One track will consist of the personnel management process itself; the actual implementation of the functions of acquisition of personnel, improvement of personnel, and maintenance of personnel. The other track is the management responsibility per se; those activities that are involved in overseeing and directing the total operation. Management has the basic responsibility for preparing the plan, designing the system to carry it out, and then supervising and controlling that system. Delegation of responsibility does not in any way relieve the manager from continued concern with each and every fob to be done in the library. It simply clarifies roles and responsibilities up and down the line, and permits the manager to assign tasks and decision making within the staff. Quality and thoroughness of fulfillment of these assignments are still management’s final responsibility.
To sum it up: the media manager must establish policies to guide all members of the staff toward the achievement of desired objectives. Policies furnish guidelines for those to whom responsibilities have been delegated, and help them avoid undesirable decisions and misuse of authority. Policies provide standards for action and decision making, standards which are developed on the basis of previous decisions that have been found to be desirable.
The media manager’s main concern in preparing the personnel management plan, however, is planning itself. Every good manager is going to have to go through some kind of a creative process involving planning to help determine what should be done in advance of any action. The MBO approach is built upon planning as the first step in management development. The ingredients of good planning are exemplified by concern for efficient methods, clearly defined responsibility, and careful delegation of authority reflected in, and supported by, thoughtfully developed policy statements.
RATIONALE FOR THE PROCESS
The first step in any planning procedure for the personnel management plan is to clearly define its objectives. The total procedure is visually presented in Figure 22. One of the basic goals of any personnel management plan is to create a staff which has the skills and motivations to accomplish the stated objectives. As in business, the multimedia library has a service or product objective. In the case of the multimedia library it is the creation and distribution of its material and services for use by patrons, and, in the newer concept of learning center, to create, as an end product, learning by its patrons. Not only do the objectives of the specific operational departments or divisions have to be considered, but the personnel objectives of the staff must be taken into consideration as well. These include such factors as prestige, recognition, security, and other aspects that affect human and individual self-concepts.
Certainly the librarian of today is also very much involved in community and social problems of which the multimedia library, and the people who work and study there, are a part. Such problems are important factors to consider in determining personnel policies and in laying out personnel management procedures.
DESIGNING THE PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE
The nest step in the development of a personnel management system, after the preparation of an overall plan and guiding policies for its implementation, is the design of a working structure to carry out the plan. In short, the nest step is to get organized so that the duties of each member of the staff having personnel management responsibilities are clearly described, delegated, and understood.
Two components have to be so organized: (1) the overall working functions of personnel management, and (2) the delegation of responsibility, authority, and accountability for fulfillment of these functions. The main and most difficult task in this step is the development of a conceptual plan which can relate each and every one of these functions so that all of the many jobs performed in the personnel management scheme contribute to the working efficiency of the total system.
Let us mow restate the three functions which are central to the personnel management process: acquisition of personnel, improvement of personnel, and maintenance of personnel. Each of these is considered a function because each is a task that can be simply and easily view apart from the others. The basic principles and premises involved in organizing a personnel management system were covered in the earlier chapter on Organization (chapter 2). It is well, however, to review these steps again, and give some further discussion to certain of them because the organizing of any activity utilizes basically the same approach, and many of the same principles.
One basic principle that must always be observed in organizing an activity of any kind is that principle which could be said to affect the span of control. Especially is this true in the development of a personnel management plan because the media manager must delegate personnel management functions within the prescribed limits of the span of control felt to be most effective for each of the duties provided.
Source: Managing Multimedia Libraries by Warren B. Hicks and Alma M. Tillin
