The managerial skills required for the management of small/
medium firms are not very much different from those necessary in large
scale business. The managerial functions of planning, organising, staffing,
directing and controlling are common to both. But, the scale on which
various functions are performed by owner and manager are different and
in small scale, the degree of complexity is lower. The organization structure
of latter firms is simple due to presence of few employees. The owner
himself acts as the manager and can exercise personal control. However
as the business grows, owner/ manager finds it difficult to manage even
small business effectively. For this, it becomes necessary to increase
the amount of manpower in the enterprise.
Hence, several initiatives and steps are required to be
undertaken to recognise the weaknesses in management of small business
enterprises, which are largely plagued with difficulties and problems
in relation to human resource management. There is lack of trained and
experienced employees because small/ medium enterprises find it difficult
to afford remunerative salaries as well as to provide adequate training
facilities to their employees. Further, they find it difficult to recruit
and motivate skilled managerial and technical personnel who tend to look
for better opportunities in the large scale industries. Hence, they are
not able to get/hold best talent in the industry and/ or have to depend
on family members who do not have diversified and technical skills.
Although, small and medium sector is the second largest
employer of human resources after agriculture, providing employment to
large number of people in the rural and urban areas of the country. But,
it is right to say that small and medium scale enterprises faces huge
problem of recruiting required number of manpower and managing effectively
the recruited employees. Thus, more initiatives need to be taken at the
Centre and the State level to ensure proper management of human resources
in the small and medium scale enterprises sector. This would raise their
production capacity, improve their marketing and distribution network,
set links with people/ industries within different parts of India and/
or abroad, as well as motivate new and talented manpower to join the sector.
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