Job Responsibilities of General Managers
A General Manager is expected to do at least the following:
1. Fully study and understand the mission of the company.
2. Establish ongoing goals for every department within the company.
3. Organize and oversee each department to make sure they are operating efficiently and goals are being met on time.
4. Hire and fire employees to keep every department fully staffed with qualified people.
5. Perform analysis and prepare detailed reports, which are routinely presented to senior level management or the business owner.
A General Manager job description could never be comprehensive about the roles and duties of a General Manager. Mangers are expected to do their absolute best to keep the business operating efficiently, and drawing in a profit. They must completely understand the goals of the business as a whole in order to do that.
That said, the basic required duties may vary from one business to another. If daily operations are running smoothly and corporate goals are being met, then chances are theGeneral Manager is doing a good job.
Training and Education Requirements for General Managers
There are some General Managers who have worked their way up from lower positions, into management, and later into higher management positions. They are able to move up based on their working knowledge of all departments in the business. Those who tend to be the most successful are those who make the effort to go back to school for a four-year degree in business, and perhaps an MBA. Even if they do not start out with an education in business, many managers will go back to school in order to secure higher positions with better pay.
When companies hire from outside the company a General Manager position, they are typically looking for candidates with at least a bachelor’s degree in business. Some industries may also accept a bachelor’s degree in a field related to the business in some manner. Higher paid positions with large corporations will often require a Masters of Business Administration, or MBA.
Regardless of formal education, someone trying to fulfill the General Manager job description will typically need to go through on-the-job training before they officially take over their new position. Managing a company requires in-depth information on every department. Training on-the-job will typically include time spent in each department, learning how they are operated and how they work together.
Salary and Wages for General Managers
A General Manager can typically expect to make at least $40K a year. In some industries, the pay can get close to $80K a year. This may not seem like a lot of income for some people, but this position can be a stepping stone to more lucrative positions in management. Most positions will also include some type of reward or bonus program, where a General Managerearns extra money for operating the company with a profit.
General Manager Certifications
There are no certifications that a General Manager must have to work in this field, though many consider the MBA to be their certification for higher end management positions. There are some corporations which may set a rule that the General Manager has to obtain a particular degree, but otherwise there is no certification needed to take on the General Manager role.
General Managers Professional Associations
There are no professional associations related directly to General Managers, but there are many associations related to a variety of general industries. General Managers typically seek active membership in organizations related to the industry they are working, or in which they wish they could work in the future. Through regular participation and reading literature produced through the organization, a General Manager can learn a lot about their position while developing new strategies that might make their job more efficient.
This General Manager job description should give you a good idea of what the position requires. This is a more advanced position than departmental managers, so more pay should be expected as well. Yet, a General Manager is not quite upper level management. It is sort of in the middle, but the responsibility goes up considerably from positions as departmental head.
