Entry 1: The Manager

In this entry, I have interview someone who holds a management position in a company. The person I have interviewed is my cousin. She works in Malaysia, but she came down to Singapore for a weekend, and I took the opportunity to interview her. In the company, she holds a management position; Credit Control Manager.





Details of the interview/interviewee are as follows:











Name: Chu Yuen Mun



Age: 37



Designation: Credit Control Manager



Company: Blacktop Industries Sdn Bhd



Briefly describe your job responsibilities as a manager.


My responsibilities as a Credit Control Manager involves two main areas; Creation of new credit accounts for Customers and Monitoring Credit Account to minimise credit risk.

(i) Creation of New Credit Accounts for Customers
- Credit Account is given to Customers who wants to pay for their purchases on a credit term of 30 days or 60 days from date of invoice after supply of products.

Approval of Credit Account is subjected to submission of relevant documents by customer to substantiate their application. Documents such as latest financial statements, bank statements, trade reference will be crucial in evaluating the credit worthiness of the customer.

(ii) Monitoring Credit Account to Minimise Credit Risk
- Once the credit account is approved and delivery commences, Customer's account is monitor to ensure total supply do not exceed the stipulated credit limit.

Part of my job is to monitor the overdue debts and payments received from customer.

What is your management style?

One of the most important tasks for me as a manger to be able to motivate my staff to achieve peak performance in their job functions for betterment of the Company. Employees have to be trained to be result orientated, driven and able to work independently.

(i) Positive Feedback

I believe in giving positive feedback and consciously reminding myself to acknowledge when they do something right without being told. I encourage talents.

People with low performances, I shall handle the situation with professionalism to reach a positive conclusion. Of course, giving negative feedback is inevitable in our daily work life. however, i believe the manner that is communicated is extremely important. I do not believe in yelling, screaming or putting the person down. Mistakes identified should be corrected immediately in a professional manner and not by raising your voice. You will lose the respect you have over your employees.

(ii) Let people make mistakes

While i try to be proactive and prevent mistakes done by my employee by giving careful instructions and create clear, strict standards. Some level of mistakes from time to time are inevitable and unavoidable and when a mistake is made, I expect my employees to learn from it and do not repeat it again.

(iii) Respect their time

I avoid making my employees stay back after normal working hours as I respect their time and personal commitments. If I have to hold them back for long hours, I will ensure that they will be paid accordingly.

(iv) Know your employees

Managers must take time to find out and understand the motivating factor(s) of their employee as every individual is different and every employee is motivated by different things.

What are some of the difficulties you face as a manager?

(i) Employee who are not receptive to change/new ideas

I am happy when my staff is able to purpose new methods or ideas to improve current system. I do not like to have a dead wood in my department who is at work daily year in year out without any positive contribution.

(ii) Employees who are unable to work as a team

Very often, I find employees from different educational background and work experiences have problems working together. As such, their methods to perform a task differ immensely and often unable to co operate with one another.

How do you overcome this difficulties?
(i) External training

I believe in continually upgrading the skills and knowledge of employees in order to move along with the evolving business environment.

(ii) Organise social events

It can be as simple as lunch or gathering to bring the employees of different departments together. I can only hope that they take opportunity to mingle around and understand one another better and hopefully, able to work to together better in future projects. Also with social events, I am able to get to know my employees and have not just a employer-manager relationship, but also get to know them outside of the office walls, as their friend.

In your opinion, what makes a good manager?
(i) Know your job.

I feel that managers must fully comprehend the business, the industry, the company. They must stay on top of change and technology and be aware of the 'latest thing' that might change the business, the inputs, the processes, and the outputs of our employees.

(ii) Good interpersonal skills

Managers must have the ability to work with and motivate people, garner their respect, influence their actions and productivity of their employees.

(iii) Able to delegate

A manager must be able to teach and empower their employees to do a good job when delegated. They must be able to understand strengths and weaknesses of employees and learn how to anticipate problems to coach them properly and assign them work according to their strengths.

By delegating other to do much of the day-to-day work of the company, managers get more time to manage, plan and take on more complex work.

(iv) Treat everyone equally

Avoid favoritism among employees. Manager must recognise who makes the biggest contributions to the company. By doing so, an employee who gets recognition and appreciation for their contribution will walk that extra mile to achieve the Company's goals.

(v) Able to maintain a good office atmosphere

A manager should be sensitive towards others in the workplace. A happy atmosphere would only lead to more productivity for the company. I will also look into the physical working environment of the work place. If the place is not clean, it wouldn't be a good working environment for our employees and clients won't thinking very highly of it.

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From the interview, I understand that she is a Middle Manager. Because she still reports to an upper management and she monitor activities of subordinates.

From what I can understand after the interview, is that her management style consists mainly style approches. Which is the Classical School of Management and Human Relations School of Management.

From the Classical School of Management, under administrative management, Henri Fayol's 14 principals of management, I can see that her style of management comprises on some of the 14 points. I will bring out a few as examples:

1. Division of work - she observes and understands the strenght and weaknesses of each employee, and is therefore able to delegate work accordingly. When the employee does something that he/she is relatively good at, it would increase output by making employees more efficient.

2. Unity of Command - As a middle manager, she reports to the top manager (there is only one top manager) daily, so does first-line manager. This will ensure that they recieve instructions from only one manager. This would reduce confusion and communication breakdown.

3. Remuneration - workers are paid for their work, they even get paid if they work over time.

4. Equity - she is kind and fair to her employees. She does not practice favourtism and is aware of her staff's welfare.

5. Esprit de corps - by organising social events for her employees, it promotes team spirit. It builds harmony among workers and thus building unity in the organisation. This will ensure that they will be willing to put in effort for the company, as they feel part of it.

From the Human Relations School of Management, under Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, I can see that she understands that each employee is motivated by different needs. Therefore, she is bound to use different techniques to motivate people according to their needs.

From the Human Relations School of Management, under Herzberg's Hygiene and Motivator Factors, she sees that hygiene/environment is important to the productivity of the employees. And she also knows her employees and is able to identify their needs and reward them accordingly.

Also from the Human Relations School fo Management, Theory Z, she sends her staff for relevant training that will help employees to move along with the evolving business environment. She always delegates work, which means that someone in the management position would have to make the decisions in an organization and then assign them to the workers accordingly. Interpersonal relationship is stressed, and the company organises social events for the employees and managers to mingle and get to know each other better. She also believes that managers must have good interpersonal skills, therefore having the ability to work motivated people as well as work together with them. With good interpersonal skills, you are able to win the respect of the employees and influence their actions and increasing their effectiveness to the company.