Staffing is the most critical function underlying organizational effectiveness because ‘’the people
make the place’’, labor costs are often the highest organizational cost, and poor hiring decisions are
not easily undone.
The big picture
Organizations are combinations of physical, financial, and human capital. Human capital is the KSAs
of people and their motivation to use these successfully on the job. “workforce quality’’ refers to an
organization’s human capital = a stock of human capital that it acquires, deploys, and retains in
pursuit of organizational outcomes.
- Staffing is the organizational function used to build this workforce through systems as staffing
strategy, HR planning, recruitment, selection, employment, and retention.
- A workforce is an expensive proposition and cost of doing business; average organization’s
employee cost is over 22% of its total revenue.
- A shift is now occurring from viewing employees as just a cost of doing business to valuing
employees as human capital that creates a competitive advantage.
- An organization’s focus on creating an effective selection system also has indirect implications for
a competitive advantage by enhancing employee’s well-being and retention. Study showed that
employees who perceive that their company uses effective selection practices (formal selection
tests, structured job interviews) are more committed to the organization.
Definition of Staffing
- Staffing is the (2) process of (1) acquiring, deploying, and retaining a workforce of sufficient (3)
quantity and quality to create positive impacts on the (4) organization’s effectiveness. –
1. Acquire, Deploy, Retain
Acquisition activities: external staffing systems that govern the initial intake of applicants into the
organization, such as planning systems, job requirements (KSAs), establishing the type of rewards,
conduct external recruitment campaigns, using selection tools to evaluate KSAs, deciding which
applicants are qualified.
,Deployment: the placement of new hires in the actual jobs they will holds, something that may not
be entirely clear at the time of hire.
- Also encompasses guiding the movement of current employees throughout the organization
through internal staffing systems that handle promotions, transfers, and new projects
Retention systems: seek to manage the inevitable flow of employees out of the organization.
- Sometimes these outflows are involuntary of employees (layoffs etc)
- Others outflows are voluntary in that they are initiated by the employees (leaving to another job)
- No organizations can seek to completely eliminate employee outflows, but is should try to
minimize the types of turnover in which valued employees leave for another/greener job.
2. Staffing as a process or system
Staffing is a process that established and governs the flow of people into the organization, within the
organization, and out of the organizations.
- They use multiple connected systems to manage these flows: planning, recruitment, selection,
decision making, job offer and retention systems.
- Actions in one system affect other systems: if planning activities show a forecasted increase in
vacancies, the recruitment system will need to gear up for generating more applicants.
3. Quantity and Quality
Attention to both the numbers (quantity) and the types (quality) of people brought into, moved
within, and retained by the organizations.
- Quantity: having enough people to conduct business
- Quality: having people with the requisite KSAOs so that jobs are performed effectively
4. Organizational effectiveness
Staffing systems should be used to contribute to the attainment of organizational goals such as
survival, profitability and growth.
Staffing models
1. Staffing Quantity: Levels
The quantity or head-count portion of the staffing definitions means organization must be concerned
about staffing levels and their adequacy. Figure below shows the basic model:
- The organization as whole forecasts workforce quanity requirements (the needed head count)
and the compared these with forecast workforce availabilities (the likely head count_ to
determine its likely staffing level position:
If there is a match fully staffed
If requirements exceed availabilities understaffed
If availabilities exceed requirements overstaffed
2. Staffing Quality: Person/Job Match
,= seeks to align (1) characteristics of individuals with (2) jobs in ways that will result in desired HR
outcomes.
- Jobs (2) are characterized by their requirements (interpersonal skills, previous experience) and
embedded rewards (challenge, autonomy, sales plan)
- Individuals (1) are characterized by their level of qualification (few interpersonal skills, extensive
experience) and motivation (need for challenge and autonomy).
- The job and person have to match with each other in order to positively impacts the HR
outcomes, such as attraction of job applications, job performance, retention, attendance and
satisfaction.
- A dual match is occurred: job requirement to KSAos, and job rewards to individual motivation.
3. Staffing Quality: Person/Organization Match
Applicants often assess how well they think they will
fit into the organization, in addition to how well they
match the job requirements and rewards. Four
matching concerns involving the broader
organization also arise in staffing: organizational
values, new job duties, multiple jobs, and future
jobs.
- Organizational values: norms or desirable
attitudes and behaviors for the employees, such as honesty and integrity, achievement and hard
work, and concern for fellow employees.
- New job duties: tasks that may be added to the target job over time. Organizations desire new
hires who will be able to successfully perform these new duties. This provides the organizations
the flexibility to complete new tasks without having to hire additional employees.
- Future jobs: forward thinking by the organization and the person as to which job assignment the
person might assume beyond the initial job. The applicant and organization thinking of long-term
matches over the transfers/promotions.
- Multiple jobs: hiring people who can perform multiple jobs (flexibility needed).
Both types of match (person/organization and
person/job) are frequently of concern in
staffing. Ideally, the organization’s staffing
systems focus first on the person/job match,
once this has been established,
person/organization match possibilities can be
explored during the staffing process.
4. Staffing system components
The core staffing process has several components that represents steps and activities that occur over
the course of the flows.
1. Staffing begins with a joint interaction between the applicant and the organization; the applicant
seeks the organizations and job opportunities within it, the organization seeks applicants for job
vacancies is has.
2. The initial stage in staffing is recruitment: the identification and attraction activities by both the
organization and the applicant.
, The organization seeks to identify and attracts individuals: advertising, job fairs, use of
recruiters, preparation, distribution of informational brochures.
The applicants identify organizations with job opportunities by reading advertisements,
contacting and employment agency, mailing resumes (CV) etc.
3. After recruitment comes the selection stage; the emphasis is on assessment and evaluation.
For the organization: use of various selection techniques (interviews etc) to assess
applicant KSAOs and motivation. These data are then evaluated against job requirement
to determine the person/job match.
For applicants: assessing and evaluating the job and organization on the basis of the
information from organization representatives (recruiter, manager etc), written info,
informal sources etc.
4. Employment stage: involves self-selection = deciding whether to continue in the staffing process or
drop out. This decision may occur anywhere along the selection process, up to and including the
moment of the job offer.
The above staffing components apply to both external and internal staffing.
5. Staffing Organizations
This is the overall staffing organizational model which depicts that the organization’s mission, along
with its goals and objectives, drives both organizational strategy and HR and staffing strategy, which
interact with each other.
- Staffing policies and programs result from such interaction and serve as an overlay to both
support activities and core staffing activities.
Organization, HR, and Staffing strategy
An organizational formulates strategy to express an overall purpose or mission and to establish broad
goals and objectives that will help fulfill its mission.
- Underlying these objectives are certain assumptions about the size and types of workforces that
will need to be acquired, trained, managed, rewarded and retained. HR strategy represents the
key decisions about how these workforce assumptions will be handles.
- Staffing strategy is an outgrowth of the interplay between organizational strategy and HR
strategy. It deals directly with key decisions regarding the acquisions, deployment and retentions
of the workforce.
Support Activities
= Legal compliance, planning, job analysis and rewards
- Legal compliance represents knowledge of the myriad laws and regulations, especially equal
employment opportunity and affirmative actions, and incorporation in all staffing activities.
- Planning serves as a tool for first becoming aware of key external influences on staffing, such as
economic conditions, labor markets, and labor unition. This shapes the formulation of staffing
levels (requirement and availabilities)
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