Coordination among the people working together is essential to get the maximum output. In an organization, there are several departments where hundreds of employees work together to achieve a common organizational goal. Therefore, coordination is one of the essential features of an organization that helps organizations to operate effectively and harmoniously. Hence, it is necessary for anyone who is part of any organization or the owner of any organization to understand the concept of coordination.
In this article, you will learn about the definition of coordination, what is the coordination, meaning, and purpose of coordination.
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Definition of coordination
Coordination can be defined as an organizational function in which the resources, responsibilities, and activities of an organization are synchronized in such a way that the corporate objectives are achieved efficiently. Coordination is one of the main functions such as controlling, monitoring, and organising of the management.
Mooney and Reiley define coordination as an orderly arrangement of group efforts to achieve common goals of the organization by applying unified efforts of the people working in the organization.
Whereas, Charles Worth defines coordination as an integration of several parts together to achieve a common purpose of understanding.
What is coordination?
The coordination is a function of management to synchronise, control, and integrate the efforts of the members of an organization. The primary purpose of coordination is to make sure that all actions in the organisation are performed to achieve the common goals of the organisation.
Coordination is a hidden force that keeps all the other functions of an organisation together. The coordination in the organisation is achieved through essential tasks of management such as organising, planning, directing, staffing, and controlling. Therefore, it is right to say that coordination is an integral function of management because it is the role of management to achieve harmony among the efforts of the members of the organisation to achieve the organisational goals.
It is the job of the management to effectively achieve coordination among functions like planning, organising, staffing, directing, and controlling. The role of a manager is very crucial in the organisation. He is responsible for creating rhythm in the activities of the organisation and forging unity among the members of the organisation.
The coordination in the organisation can be performed through the following functions:
1. Coordination through planning
Planning is one of the main features of an organisation. The management is required to plan beforehand for the projects they want to undertake in the future. They plan to make the effective use of resources available in the organisation. For example, the coordination between the financial budget and project to be undertaken is created through planning.
2. Coordination through Organising
Organising means arranging resources in order to use them effectively. Coordination is an essential part of organising. It is achieved by dividing work among the different departments of the organisation and assigning managers to each department.
3. Coordination through staffing
The staff of an organization is an essential resource. It is crucial for a manager to keep in mind that the right number of personnel with the right skills and education are required to perform the right job. This can only be achieved through coordination.
4. Coordination through directing
Once the duties of each member of the organization are decided, it becomes the responsibility of the manger to address those jobs to the staff members of the organization so that desired results can be achieved.
5. Coordination through controlling
Once the roles are assigned to the members of the organization, it becomes the job of management to control the actions of the staff members so that they perform their duties as desired and don’t waste their time doing unproductive work.
Meaning of coordination
Coordination is considered one of the main functions of management. It is the role of the management to make sure that all the departments and the work of people working in those departments are well synchronized. The purpose of coordination is to create unity, employees, departments, and different groups of the organization.
Coordination plays a crucial role when different tasks of different nature are required to be performed to achieve a common goal. For example, when a car manufacturing builds a car. The different parts of a car are manufactured in various departments and are assembled to construct the final product. Coordination is necessary among different departments to get the final product on time.
Coordination is necessary for the synchronization of the work of all departments of the organisation. Coordination among the various departments is required when there are several departments in the organization. The coordination among the different employees of the organization is achieved through communication and preplanning the work.
Without coordination, all the work in the organisation will become chaotic. Due to which the resources of the organisation will be wasted. Because of this reason, organisations give more stress on hiring people with excellent skills for the top positions of the organisation.
Purpose of coordination
The following are the primary purpose of coordination.
1. To create synchronization among the different departments and employees of the organization.
2. To maintain harmony in various departments of the organization.
3. To make the most use of the resources available in the organization.
4. To create a healthy relationship among the employees of the organization.
5. Coordination stresses the unity of efforts.
6. Coordination is necessary for the tasks of a dynamic nature.
