by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: April 14, 2010

Managers love to have the resources and authorities that they feel they need in order to make their departments shine. Managers complain endlessly about the constraints that they believe are tying their hands and preventing them from accomplishing the great goals that make a department shine.

The main components of a manger's resource kit are: enough staff to meet the workload demands without constant overtime; time away from the workload that allows the manager to train and to cross train staff; physical resources, such as office space, supplies and equipment; and inter department support when tasks must flow through or require the inputs of other departments within the company; and support and recognition by higher levels of management.

Managers eventually have to do battle with limited resources. When there is a full schedule of "work,work,work", there is no time for essential training, to lower overtime spending, and to accommodate the normal absenteeism from vacations and illness.

 When other departments create backlogs, there are work stoppages and delays for every other department in the work chain.

When higher management is aloof, distant and uninvolved, a host of morale and other problems develop, mostly from a disconnection with the company mission, goals, employee recognition, and other areas are outside of the manager's authority or ability to resolve.

But many times, the list is skewed or twisted in ways that benefit the manager, rather than the department. The first constraint is on staffing. Any manager who can pad the number of staff under their supervision has a significant enhancement to their resumes and standing within a company.

In reality, it is not the number of staff, it is the quality of staff that makes departments shine. Experienced and skilled workers cost more, but having too many entry level workers adds to the burden of an enlarged training program that is not in balance with the workload needs and delegation goals. Managers who get the bloated staff create resource and workload problems when they trade off for inexperienced and cheaper staff positions.

Resource constraints are a fact of management. They come and go, sometimes with little notice. As a result, either managers can create their own resource constraints by making the wrong decisions, or the higher management, budget cuts, or other situation can create resource constraints that are beyond the manager's control. 

The key to dealing with any resource constraints is to anticipate them, to make sound decisions when allocating resources, and to have plans that can be quickly implemented when periods of declining resources happen.  

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