Question

Hitesh started a garment manufacturing company recently. However, he soon began facing several problems like targets not met, conflicts among managers, high labour turnover, etc. He hired a management consultant to find out what was going wrong. The consultant conducted investigations and gave the following observations :
(i) In Production Department, workers were receiving instructions from both, the Production Manager and the Marketing Manager. As a result, there was a lot of confusion regarding tasks to be done.
Identify and explain the two principles of management given by Fayol which are not being followed in Hitesh’s company.

Hint:

Unity of Command = One Person, One Boss.
If a worker has two bosses, they can use the orders of one as an excuse to ignore the orders of the other.

Answer 1

Step 1: Identify the concept being tested.
Workers in the Production Department were taking instructions from both the Production Manager and the Marketing Manager, which is a case about Fayol's principles of management being violated.
Step 2: Explain the first principle being violated.
When one person is answerable to two managers with possibly conflicting instructions, it violates the Principle of Unity of Command. Fayol's principle states that an employee should receive orders from one superior only, so responsibility stays clear and there is no confusion about whose instruction to follow.
Step 3: Explain the second principle being violated.
The fact that the Production Department was effectively being directed by two different managers, each perhaps pursuing separate goals, also violates the Principle of Unity of Direction. This principle states that all activities having the same objective should be directed by one manager using one plan, so efforts are coordinated instead of scattered.
Step 4: State the final answer.
The two principles being violated in Hitesh's company are the Principle of Unity of Command, since workers answer to two bosses at once, and the Principle of Unity of Direction, since the department lacks a single, coordinated plan and head.