Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 2.24.75.75 (talk) at 08:34, 15 August 2017. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article may require cleanup to meet Misplaced Pages's quality standards. The specific problem is: Article needs rewriting as parts of it are nearly unreadable. Please help improve this article if you can. (September 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Line management is a business term to describe the administration of activities that contribute directly to the output of products or services. Line management is a lower level of management (in contrast to top/senior management and middle management). It is the interface between the organization and its front-line workforce.

A line manager is a person within an organisation 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.

In a corporate hierarchy, a line manager holds authority in a vertical (chain of command), and/or over a particular product line. 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 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 equality 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
• Staff and line

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.

This business term article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• Business terms
• Management
• Business term stubs