Superintendents enforce administrative control
-Dr. Lalit Kumar
The role of superintendents and section
officers cannot be under-estimated in enforcing the administrative control. In
offices (both private and public sector organizations), the charge to enforce
the administrative and financial control is provided to head of the office and
the head further relies to a great extent upon section officer or superintendent to ensure the administrative control.
The efficiency of official functions depends upon the efficiency of
superintendent to a great extent. The role of clerks cannot be underestimated in enforcing
financial control in an office. The ministerial staff or
cutting edge officers worked under the direct control of superintendent. The
following organizational functions are performed by the superintendent to
enforce administrative control:
1. Attendance and presence of employees:
Each employee should be punctual and
work as per the office hours sincerely. In case any employee is arriving or not
working during office hours, it is the duty of the superintendent to take
necessary administrative action. The team-building skills of superintendent
make him or her efficient to supervise attendance and performance of each
employee. Like in a class, there is monitor to supervise the students to study
inside the class under teacher’s direction; a superintendent ensures that all
employees should be involved in performing the directions and functions of Head
of Office during office hours. Only physical presence of employee, made the
office suffered; therefore the superintendent ensures that the employees work
with full dedication during the office hours. The employees should not perform
their personal operations (chatting, exploring internet for personal purposes,
and other personal works during the office hours.
2. Perform functions allotted by Head of Office:
The superintendent should perform the
functions as directed by the Head of Office and ensure that in each function,
the deadlines are not missed. He/she can take the support of subordinate staff
to perform the functions. Each allotted function should be performed diligently
without any delay.
3. Maintenance of official records:
The files relating to organizational
functions are maintained under the overall supervision of superintendent. The
records are kept in custody of responsible staff members and properly arranged
in specific order so that whenever required, can easily be filtered and used as
basis of administrative decisions. It is the duty of superintendent to provide
the necessary information to Head of Office whenever required and asked to
provide information.
4. Inspection of records:
The superintendent ensures the proper
maintenance of records by the staff members under his or her control. The
inspection of records at regular intervals is required to be done so that no
irregularity takes place on the table of subordinate staff members. No receipt
or file should remain idle on the tables of staff.
5. Equal distribution of work:
The superintendent ensures the equal
distribution of work among employees; however the principle of “right job to
the right person” is kept in mind while distributing the work. It is the
discretion of superintendent to allocate the organizational functions among
employees.
6. Maintenance of Note-book as record of important decision:
The superintendent participates in the
meetings relating to administrative functions of Head of Office and maintains a
note-book containing important cases and rulings related to organizational
functions. The important decisions and directions discussed and decided in
meetings are noted in the note-book. These points of note-book are indexed in
specific order so that can be filtered for administrative purposes whenever
required.
7. Maintenance of registers including service books:
The superintendents maintain the
various types of registers related to organizational functions. The service
book of each employee is also maintained under his or her supervision,
containing the details of service as per the rules of organization. Apart from
service books, various other registers are maintained such as diary register
(record of daily receipts), daily movement register (record of movement of
papers inside and outside organization), and registers to record the
communication with higher officers related to office.
8. Safe custody of important orders and decisions:
The superintendents keep the copies of
important rules, orders, manual of instructions, decisions taken on files, work
distribution orders etc; in safe custody so that the same can be utilized in
administrative decisions whenever required. He/She will also keep the secret/
confidential papers and files under lock with keys to a responsible person.
9. Monitoring the pending works related to external organizations:
The superintendents in order to dispose
the work of organizations keep connections with the external organizations. In
order to quick disposal of work, it is the duty of superintendent to expedite
the files, communicate with the desired officers and perform the tasks as per
requirement. The superintendent will constantly keep close watch over progress
of any work and do the needful and communicate same to the Head of Office.
Why Records Management?
The efficiency in the functions of
office directly affects from the management of records. The well managed
records contribute in fast and effective decisions which on the other hand, the
inefficiencies increased if the records are not well managed. The management of
organizational information in such a way to support managers and administrators
to take good decisions, is the key to success of an organization. The use of
stationary, papers, and time of human resources on less managed records is
really costly to the organization. To reduce operations cost, most of the
organizations are switching to e-Office in India. The central government
departments 100% using e-Office today to manage the noting for official
correspondence.
Ineffective records management not only
fills equipment with unnecessary papers, takes space of office which can be
used for other important functions, but also directly increase the cost of
operations or works being performed in the offices. With the help of records
management, the efficiency and productivity of human resources can easily be
enhanced. Even the litigation risks related to delay in providing desired
information under the Right to Information Act 2005 can also be easily
mitigated.
Each employee of office is responsible
to maintain the records under the overall supervision of Superintendent or Head
of Office or Head of Department as per the designation of the employee.
Important Tips for Records Management:
To save time, money, and space in an
office; always remember, whenever a document is being kept firstly look at its
relevance in future. Whether it is useable or not. Unnecessary backup of information
becomes very hard to manage real useful information. (a) fix the responsibilities
of each employee to keep only the useful information and never create unnecessary
information in the files being dealt. (b) train the employees how to create,
manage, and store records in effective manner. (c) if a file becomes large, how
to break that file in parts that should be known to each employee. (d) The
unnecessary maintained files should be reviewed at regular intervals and follow
the procedure to keep such files in queue of destruction of the records. (e)
The indexing and catalogues which can help each decision maker to use the
desired information should be maintained in each record.
*Copyright © 2020 Dr. Lalit Kumar. All rights reserved.
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