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Line management refers to the management of employees who are directly involved in the production or delivery of products, goods and/or services. As the interface between an organisation and its front-line workforce, line management represents the lowest level of management within an organisational hierarchy (as distinct from top/executive/senior management and middle management).

A line manager is an employee who directly manages other employees and operations while reporting to a higher-ranking manager. Related job titles are supervisor, section leader, foreperson and team leader. He or she is charged with meeting corporate objectives in a specific functional area or line of business. As an example, one type of line management at an automobile conglomerate might be the "light truck division", or even more specifically, the "light truck marketing line". Similarly, one type of line management at a financial services firm might be "retention marketing" or "state municipal bond funds".

Responsibilities

Line managers are responsible for implementing and enabling, through their staff, an organisation's people policies and practices in alignment with business objectives and core values. Their main functions with respect to employees include:

• recruitment and selection,
• training, mentoring, coaching and staff development,
• performance management and appraisal,
• motivation,
• well-being,
• team building.

Line managers' activities typically include:

• planning the aims, objectives and priorities of their work area and communicating this to staff as appropriate;
• deploying the resources within their control (e.g., staff time; funding) to achieve plans;
• complying with policy and legislation;
• providing structure, direction and purpose to their teams;
• scheduling regular meetings with staff members to discuss progress and any issues.

Line management is also responsible for adopting (with the support of senior management) any type of organizational culture change.

The line management function will often cross into other functions vital to the success of a business such as human resources, finance, and risk management. Indeed, at corporations, responsibility for risk management is vested with line management. Human resources obligations are also increasingly being assigned or "devolved" to line managers.

See also

• Staff management
• Project management
• Performance management
• Staff and line
• Employee engagement
• Management by objectives

References

1. Role and Challenges of a Line Manager. F. John Reh, February 4, 2017
2. The Scope of Change Lynda Bourne, February 11, 2010
3. "Making enterprise risk management pay off". Thomas L. Barton, William G. Shenkir, Paul L. Walker. Retrieved 2009-07-10.
4. "International human resource management". Hilary Harris, Chris Brewster, Paul Sparrow. Retrieved 2009-09-03.

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