Purchasing

Mary Walker

Levels of Management
March 10, 2008

I was sitting at a table recently with some of my purchasing associates and the topic of discussion was how many layers of management do you go through to reach the top? Now at this table, we had a Vice President, Director of Purchasing, Purchasing Manager and then the buyers, purchasing agents and whatever they want to call us these days.

It seems there is no set rule within companies on how many layers of management a company wants to have. It seems you have the President or Chief Executive Officer which oversees the management. 

Level 1 - Top Management – Top Managers are responsible for long-range planning that establishes the overall mission and goals. It is called strategic planning that makes companies grow in the future. Top managers work with the President or CEO to formalize the strategic plan.

Level 2 – Middle Management – Middle managers focus on their goals on a shorter time frame, usually ranging from one month to one year. They develop plans and resources to achieve organizational objectives in a process called tactical planning. 

Level 3 – Lower Management - Lower managers are supervisors and team leaders, supervise operational employees and carry out day to day operational plans. 

Level 4 – Operational Employees – These employees primarily use systems to enter and receive data they need to perform their jobs. Operational employees also need information to handle tasks and make decisions that were assigned previously to supervisors.

It seems responsibilities are shifting in the levels. It seems buyers are taking on more responsibilities that the supervisor or lower management level used to handle. Some at the table felt they were being dumped on. Others felt they were given more responsibility and authority in their job.

As employees in the purchasing profession, how many of us can actually put our hands on a current job description?

The questions we came up with:

1. Do you have a job description?
2. Is your job description current?
3. Does your job description actually reflect what you do?
4. Does your job description offer you title, ranking, or salary range?
5. Does it indicate who you report to?

Is this a thing of the past? Is this only used in government employment? 

Posted by Mary Walker on March 10, 2008 | Comments (2)