Everything you need to know about staffing. Staffing is concerned with manning various positions in the organisation.
Staffing involves the determination of manpower requirements of the enterprise and providing it with adequate competent people at all its levels.
Thus, manpower planning, procurement (i.e., selection and placement), training and development, appraisal and remuneration of workers are included in staffing.
Staffing is the function by which managers build an organisation through the recruitment, selection, development, of individuals as capable employees.
The staffing function of management consists of few interrelated activities such as planning of human resource, recruitment, selection, placement, training and development, remuneration, performance appraisal, promotion and transfers. All these activities make up the elements of the process of staffing. – Dalton E. McFarland
Thus, staffing plays a vital role in human resource planning. It ensures best utilization of manpower in the organization.
Staffing is the key to all other managerial functions. It helps to maintain a satisfactory workforce in an enterprise.
Learn about:-
1. Introduction of Staffing 2. Meaning and Objectives of Staffing 3. Definitions 4. Concept 5. Nature 6. Characteristics 7. Aspects
8. Common Factors 9. Importance 10. Elements 11. As Part of Human Resource Management 12. Functions 13. Process 14. Benefits.
Contents:
In a new enterprise, the staffing function follows the planning and organising function. In the case of running an enterprise, staffing is a continuous process. So, the manager should perform this function at all times. The staffing function includes recruitment, selection, training, development, transfer, promotion and compensation of personnel.
It is obvious that the management must ensure a constant availability of sufficient number of efficient executives in an enterprise for the efficient functioning of the enterprise. The selected personnel should be physically, mentally and temperamentally fit for the job.
Staffing is a basic function of management. Every manager is continuously engaged in performing the staffing function. He is actively associated with recruitment, selection, training and appraisal of his subordinates. These activities are performed by the chief executive, departmental managers and foremen in relation to their subordinates. Thus, staffing is a pervasive function of management and is performed by the managers at all levels.
It is the duty of every manager to perform the staffing activities such as selection, training, performance appraisal and counselling of employees. In many enterprises, Personnel Department is created to perform these activities. But it does not mean that the managers at different levels are relieved of the responsibility concerned assistance to the managers in performing their staffing function. Thus, every manager has to ensure the responsibility of staffing.
Staffing is concerned with manning various positions in the organisation. Staffing involves the determination of manpower requirements of the enterprise and providing it with adequate competent people at all its levels. Thus, manpower planning, procurement (i.e., selection and placement), training and development, appraisal and remuneration of workers are included in staffing.
The staffing function of management pertains to recruitment, selection, training, development, appraisal and remuneration of personnel. It is the duty of every manager to perform this function.
The responsibility for the efficient planning and execution of staffing function rests upon every manager at all levels. The responsibility increases as one moves up the organisational hierarchy. Many managers believe in the myth that the staffing function is the responsibility of the personnel department.
No doubt, the personnel department involves itself in staffing function. However, there cannot be a greater folly a manager can commit than throwing the entire responsibility on someone else’s lap. The responsibility for staffing is more at the higher echelons of the enterprise. The policymakers cannot shirk from this basic responsibility.
One important factor that needs special consideration is the estimation of the number of managers required in the enterprise. The number depends not only on its size but upon the complexity of the organisational structure, its plan for expansion or diversification and the turnover rate.
The degree of decentralization determines to a very large extent, the number of personnel required. If the estimation is to be accurate and if the enterprise wants to avoid any misadventure, then it must involve itself seriously in a manpower planning exercise.
Staffing function of management are as follows:
(i) Staffing is an important function of management.
(ii) The basic concern of staffing is management of manpower or human resources.
(iii) Staffing helps in getting right types of persons on right jobs.
(iv) Staffing is a pervasive function. It is performed by the managers at all levels of management.
Staffing is an integral part of the process of management. It may be defined as the process of hiring and developing the required manpower to fill the various positions in the organisation. Every organisation is very much concerned with the quality of manpower for managing the organisation effectively and efficiently.
As per views of Peter Drucker “man, of all the resources available to man can grow and develop”. It is concerned with recruitment, selection, placement, utilisation and development of employees of the organisation.
Important objectives of staffing:
(i) To procure right type of personnel for right jobs.
(ii) To train and develop human resources.
(iii) To develop personnel policies as regards transfer, promotion, etc.
(iv) To mould effectively the human resources and motivate them for higher performance.
(v) To establish desirable working relationship between employers and employees and between groups of employees.
(vi) To ensure satisfaction of the needs of the workers so that they become loyal and committed to the organisation.
(vii) To build high morale among employees by maintaining good human relations.
According to Koontz and O’Donnell, “The managerial function of staffing involves managing the organisation structure through proper and effective selection, appraisal and development of personnel to fill the roles designed into the structure.”
S. Benjamin has defined staffing as – “The process involved in identifying, assessing, placing, evaluating and directing individuals at work.”
According to Theo Hainmann, “Staffing function is concerned with the placement, growth and development of all those members of the organisation whose function is to get things done through the efforts of other individuals.”
“Staffing can be defined as filling and keeping filled positions in the organisation structure.” —Koontz and Weihrich
Staffing is the function by which managers build an organisation through the recruitment, selection, development, of individuals as capable employees. The staffing function of management consists of few interrelated activities such as planning of human resource, recruitment, selection, placement, training and development, remuneration, performance appraisal, promotion and transfers. All these activities make up the elements of the process of staffing. – Dalton E. McFarland
‘Staffing is the process by which managers select, train, promote and retire subordinates.’ [J. L. Massie]
“Staffing is a process through which an organisation ensures that it has, on a continuous basis, the proper number of employees with the appropriate skills in the right jobs at the right times to achieve the organisation’s objectives.” —Caruth, Caruth and Pane
“Staffing can be defined as the process of acquiring, deploying and retaining a workforce of sufficient quantity and quality to create positive impacts on the organisation’s effectiveness.” —Heneman, Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller
‘Staffing is the process of analyzing the jobs of an organization in terms of manpower needs, recruiting and selecting candidates to fill them.’ ‘[W. Haynes]’
Thus, staffing plays a vital role in human resource planning. It ensures best utilization of manpower in the organization. Staffing is the key to all other managerial functions. It helps to maintain a satisfactory workforce in an enterprise.
From the above definitions of staffing it is observed that the staffing function has to perform a number of sub functions and covers from managerial personnel to lower level employees. It is the process of matching the jobs with capable people and tries to maintain and develop employees through appropriate training and development programmes.
Once the organisational goals are set, the plans are prepared and organisation is appropriately structured to pave the path for achievement of the set goals. The next step is to provide appropriate personnel to fill in the various positions created by the organisational structure. The process putting people to jobs is termed as staffing. Staffing, the management function involves appointing appropriate personnel, developing them to meet organisational needs and ensuring that they are a satisfied and happy workforce.
Staffing is defined as a managerial function of filling and keeping filled the positions in the organisational structure. The personnel appointed are a combination of permanent employees, daily workers, consultants, contract employees etc.
Staffing includes:
1. Identifying the requirement of workforce and its planning.
2. Recruitment and selection of appropriate personnel for new jobs or for positions which may arise as a result of existing employees leaving the organisation.
3. Planning adequate training for development and growth of workforce.
4. Deciding on compensation, promotion and performance appraisals for the workforce.
The following are the basic nature of staffing:
i. People-oriented – Staffing deals with efficient utilization of human resources in an organization. It promotes and stimulates every employee to make his full contribution for achieving desired objective of the organization.
ii. Development-oriented – It is concerned with developing potentialities of personnel in the organization. It develops their personality, interests, and skills. It enables employees to get maximum satisfaction from their work. It assists employees to realize their full potential. It provides opportunities to employees for their advancement through training, job education, etc.
iii. Pervasive function – Staffing is required in every organization. It is a major sub-system in the total management system that can be applied to both profit making and non-profit making organizations. It is required at all levels of organization for all types of employees.
iv. Continuous function – Staffing is a continuous and never-ending process. It requires constant alertness and awareness of human relations and their importance in every operation.
v. Human objectives – It develops potentialities of employees so that they can derive maximum satisfaction from their work. It creates an atmosphere where employees willingly cooperate for the attainment of desired organizational goals.
vi. Individuals as well as group-oriented – Staffing is concerned with employees both as individuals and as group in attaining goals. It establishes proper organizational structure to satisfy individual needs and group efforts. It integrates individual and group goals in such a manner that the employees feel a sense of involvement towards the organization.
vii. Developing cordial working environment – It develops a cordial environment in the enterprise where each employee contributes his best for the achievement of organizational goals. It provides a very comfortable physical and psychological working environment.
viii. Interdisciplinary nature – Staffing has its roots in social sciences. It uses concepts drawn from various disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, and management. It has also borrowed principles from behavioural sciences. It is a science of human engineering.
ix. Integral part of general management – Staffing is an integral part of the general management. It is very much a part of every line manager’s responsibility. Every member of the management group (from top to bottom) must be an effective personnel administrator. It renders service to other functional areas of management.
x. Science as well as art – Staffing is a science of human engineering. It is an organized body of knowledge consisting of principles and techniques. It is also an art as it involves skills to deal with people. It is one of the creative arts as it handles employees and solves their problems systematically. It is a philosophy of management as it believes in the dignity and worth of human beings.
The following facts clearly bring out the characteristics of staffing as a function of management:
The first important characteristic of staffing is its relationship with human beings. It means that unlike planning and organising it is not mere paper work but involves the appointment of competent persons on various posts. Planning lays down what, when, how and by whom work is to be done. Similarly, an organisational structure chart is prepared under organising.
On the contrary, under staffing, competent individuals are selected and given training keeping in view the importance of the post and not only doing paper work alone. All the activities done to accomplish this work are connected with human beings-they may be recruitment, selection, training, promotion, etc.
The second important characteristic of staffing is that it is a separate managerial function. Separate managerial function means that far from being a major part of some function, it is in itself a major function. Staffing is included in the other categories of managerial functions like planning, organising, leading, and controlling. A little earlier, some management experts considered it a part of organising. But these days, on the basis of various researches, it is accepted as an important separate managerial function.
Staffing is essential at all managerial levels. The Board of Directors performs the function of staffing by appointing General Manager. The General Manager does so by appointing departmental managers, while the departmental managers perform this function by appointing their subordinates. It must be clarified here that the establishment of a separate personnel department does not free the concerned managers from this all-important function.
The aim of establishing this department is to assist the managers at every level in the performance of their function of staffing. It is important to note that the final responsibility regarding staffing lies with the managers concerned.
Staffing deals with human beings and man is a social animal. Since it is connected with human beings, the social responsibility of this function is born. In order to discharge this responsibility the managers should take care and be impartial while going through the allied functions of recruitment, selection, promotion, etc.
The performance of staffing is affected by the internal and external environment of the enterprise. The internal environment of the enterprise includes policies connected with the employees — like the promotion policy, demotion policy, transfer policy, etc. If as a matter of policy the vacant posts are to be filled up by promotion, the employees already working in the enterprise will have the opportunity to reach higher posts, and the people from outside will be appointed only on lower posts.
In this way the internal policy of the organisation does affect the function of staffing. The external environment affecting the enterprise includes government policies and educational environment. It can be the policy of the government that in a particular enterprise employees should be recruited only through employment exchange. Educational institutions can help in the development of the employees by organising special training camps. In this way, external environment also affects the function of staffing.
Staffing has three aspects:
1. Recruitment – Recruitment is a positives process which aims to attract larger number of people with desirable profile to apply for positions vacant in the organisation. Higher the number of applicants, greater is the possibility of finding a suitable employee.
2. Selection – Selection is a negative process which scrutinizes the applications received and selects only those who are most suitable for the vacant position. Recruitment invites applications but selection rejects applications.
3. Training – Training is another positive process which upgrades the knowledge and skills of employees and enhances the ability to perform better.
Organisations follow the process of recruitment, selection and training to ensure that all positions in the organisational structure remain Med with qualified and talented people. However, the business environment influences the way these processes are carried out.
Following is the list of few factors which influence staffing process:
1. Supply and demand of specific skills in the labour market
2. Unemployment rate
3. Labour market conditions
4. Legal and political considerations
5. Company’s image
6. Company policies
7. Human resource planning cost
8. Technological developments
9. General economic environment.
The staffing pattern varies from organisation to organisation as the size and structure of each organisation differs.
The following are common factors that are followed in every organisation to design a staffing pattern:
The quantum of human resources of organisation are determined by the size of the organisation. The size may be small, medium and large. The organisation structure determines the size and in term the staffing pattern of the organisation. If the size is small the number of employees will be less. The optimum size will determine the comfortable staffing pattern.
The type of skills needed by the organisation also influences the staffing pattern. Normally there types of skills are identified in workers – (a) Skilled workers (b) Semi skilled workers and (c) Unskilled workers. Generally skilled and semiskilled workers will be less number as compared to unskilled workers. The staffing pattern is determined by these types of skills needed in the organisation.
The total number of employees required in an organisation also determines the staffing pattern. In labour Intensive Unit, the number will be more and staffing pattern provides for more levels. In capital intensive unit the labour will be less and accordingly the staffing pattern will be designed.
Consumer behaviour towards the organisation also determines the staffing. If the clientele is more, the activity of the organisation will be high and requires more personnel. The expansion and diversification may also encourages the restructuring of staffing pattern.
The financial position of an organisation also influences the staffing pattern. The financial constraints may come in the way of recruiting the required staff, On the other hand, sound financial position may have way of availing required staff.
The location of business unit also determine the staffing pattern of one organisation. Business units close to business centers may operate with less staff and distant units may have to work with more staff.
Staffing fills the positions in the organisational structure by finding right people for the right job. It is the human resource, which helps business to achieve greater heights therefore, having right kind of workforce is the most fundamental and crucial function of management. Earlier staffing meant appointing personnel to get jobs done but today, due to rapid changes in the business environment staffing as a management function has gained greater significance.
The continuous advancement in the technology, changing human behaviour and increase in size of business requires staffing to appoint people who not only have the specialized knowledge but also the right attitude, aptitude, commitment and sense of loyalty for the organisation. Success of an organisation depends upon the quality of its human resources. Thus, staffing is a very important managerial function.
Let us understand the importance of staffing:
Staffing identifies the requirement of workforce to fill in the positions in the organisational structure and selects right people for the right job. It ensures that people with adequate competencies are employed.
For example – Your school principal identifies the departments, which are short of teachers, and works towards finding the adequate teachers.
By deploying right people on the right job helps business enterprises to use physical resources in the most optimum manner leading to higher productivity, better efficiency and improved performance.
For example – To get best results, teachers with proficiency in Business Studies are the right people to be appointed in the commerce department to teach Business Studies.
Proper training and employee development programmes updates managers with the changes in business environment. The succession planning for managers ensures the continuous survival and growth of the enterprise.
For example – Whenever there is a change in the syllabus or marking of papers, CBSE Board holds workshops for teachers so that they are aware of the changes and are able to incorporate the same in their teaching plans.
Staffing identifies the workforce requirements and plans appointment of people accordingly. This ensures that there are adequate personnel available to avoid under-utilisation or disruption of work due to under-staffing.
For example – Adequate number of teachers in each department ensures that each class has an assigned teacher.
Staffing provides opportunities for growth through internal promotions, appreciates and rewards the contribution through continuous appraisals. This keeps the workforce satisfied and in high morale.
For example – At the end of academic year schools may plan appraisal for each teacher to give ‘teacher of the year’ award. This brings satisfaction for the teacher who worked hard and also motivates others to work harder. You may also observe that your school principal was a teacher once. She/he was promoted to this position as an appreciation of hard work.
From the above discussion on staffing, you must have realized that human resources are the principal assets of an organisation. For the success and growth of an organisation, it is a must that positions in the organisational structures are filled at the right time with the right number and the right kind of people. Incompetent people will lead to wastage of resources, time, energy and effort.
Therefore, to use resources optimally, achieve maximum productivity and produce good quality products it is a must that people with appropriate knowledge and experience are appointed. Employees should be trained to adapt to the changes in business environment. To keep the jobs filled there should be proper compensations and incentives for achieving targets.
While performing the staffing function, the manager has to see that men are fit for jobs and jobs are not altered for men.
Elements of Staffing:
It consists of many inter related activities such as:
(i) Human Resource Planning – This is the first step in the process of staffing in which a planner forecast and determine the number and kind of manpower required by the organisation in future. It has two aspects viz., short term and long term.
(ii) Recruitment – It refers to identification of the sources of man power availability.
(iii) Selection – It is the process of choosing and appointing the right candidates for various positions in the organisation.
(iv) Placement – It involves placing the selected candidates on the right jobs after given orientation training.
(v) Training and Development – It involves improving job and work knowledge skills and attitudes of employees on a regular basis so that they may perform their work effectively and efficiently.
(vi) Remuneration and Compensation – It is necessary to pay equitable amount of wages and salaries to the employees. In order to achieve the objectives of the organisation.
(vii) Performance Evaluation – It is the appraisal system of various categories of employees in terms of their behavior and work performance at the work place.
(viii) Transfer – It is the moving of employees to similar positions in the other work units.
(ix) Promotion – It is the moving of employees from low position to higher position in the organisation. It is also called vertical movement upward direction.
(x) Working Environment – It is the responsibility of personnel department to provide good working conditions to the employees in the organisation. It certainly influence the motivation and morale of the employees.
Human Resource, ‘the people working in the organisation’ is the most important asset for an organisation. It is the competence and performance of human resource, which helps an organisation to achieve its goals. To ensure that the positions in the organisational structure remain filled with qualified people, staffing as a function of management recruits, selects, trains and motivates people working in the organisation.
In organisations with small number of employees, it is possible for a manager to perform all functions related to staffing single-handed. However, with the increase in scale of operations, number of employees increase, making it difficult for a manager to manage all the aspects of human relations.
Therefore, to manage people effectively organisations with large number of employees create a separate department called Human Resource Department. This department like any other department of the organisation, is managed by people with expertise in each function of staffing.
The Human Resource Department evolved as a result of changes in the business environment. Industrial Revolution and introduction of factory system led to employment of thousands of people under one roof. It required management to assign the responsibility of hiring people which included recruitment, selection and placement of personnel. The rapid advancement in technology further necessitated the need to train employees so that they acquired relevant skills.
The human relations approach recognized that the most important instrument of success in an organisation is its human resource. The increase in scope of work changed the role of personnel officer. The personnel officer became personnel manager and was finally replaced with a human resource manager.
The, personnel working in the Human Resource Department perform specialized activities and duties, which may include:
1. Recruitment of qualified people.
2. Preparing job descriptions, developing compensation and incentive plans.
3. Training and development of employees for efficient performance and career growth.
4. Maintaining labour relations and union management relations.
5. Handling grievances and complaints.
6. Providing for social security and welfare of employees.
7. Defending the company in lawsuits and avoiding legal complications.
You will agree that today staffing is an inherent part of human resource management as it is the practice of finding, evaluating and establishing a working relationship with people, for a purpose.
Thus, Human Resource Management is a much broader concept and includes a wider gamut of activities.
1. Manpower Planning:
Manpower may be planned for short-term and long-term. The short-term manpower planning may achieve the objectives of the company at present conditions. The long-term manpower planning should be concerned with the estimation of staff members required in future.
2. Development:
Development is concerned with the development of staff members through adequate and appropriate training programmes. The training is given only to the needy persons.
3. Fixing the Employment Standards:
It involves the job specification and job description. These enable the management to select the personnel and train them scientifically. Job description is a systematic and organised written statement of the duties and responsibilities in a specific job. Job specification is a statement of personal qualities that an individual must possess if he is to successfully perform the job.
4. Sources:
It is concerned with the method by which the staff members are selected. The sources may be internal and external sources. Internal source means that a vacancy is filled up by the company out of the staff members available within the company. The external source means that a vacancy is filled up by the company from outside the company. The person selected may be unemployed or working in any other company.
5. Selection and Placement:
It includes the process of selection of the staff members. The placement includes giving a job to a person on the basis of his ability, education, experience and the like.
6. Training:
The training may be arranged by the company itself. In certain cases, the staff members may be sent out by the company to get the training. The expense is borne by the company. The training may be required not only by the new staff members but also by the existing staff members.
Other Functions:
The other function of staffing includes co-ordination, promotion, transfer, record maintenance regarding employees, rating of employees, motivation, etc.
Staffing starts with the estimation of manpower requirements and proceeds towards searching for talented personnel to fill the various positions in an organisation. Staffing, therefore, should follow a logical step by step process.
Following are the important steps involved in the process of staffing:
The process of manpower planning can be divided into two parts. One is an analysis for determining the quantitative needs of the organisation, i.e., how many people will be needed in the future. The other part is the qualitative analysis to determine what qualities and characteristics are required for performing a job.
The former is called the quantitative aspect of manpower planning in which we try to ensure a fair number or personnel in each department and at each level. It should neither be too high nor too low leading to overstaffing or under-staffing respectively. The second aspect is known as qualitative aspect of manpower planning wherein we try to get a proper fit between the job requirement and the requirement on the part of personnel in terms of qualification, experience and personality orientation.
The second step after manpower planning is recruitment and selection. These are two separate functions, which usually go together. Recruitment aims at stimulating and attracting job applicants for positions in the organisation. Selection consists of making choice among applicants. To choose those which are most suited to the job requirement keeping in view the job analysis information.
Selection processes must begin by precisely identifying the task to be performed and also drawing a line between successful and unsuccessful performance. Thereafter, the process of selection tries to find out how far a job applicant fulfils those characteristics or traits needed to successfully perform the job.
Placement refers to place the right person on the right job. Once the job offer has been accepted by the selected candidate, he is placed on his new job. Proper placement of an employee reduces absenteeism, employee’s turnover and accident rates. Orientation/Induction is concerned with the process of introduction or orienting a new employee to the organisation.
The new employee is introduced to fellow employees, given a tour of the department and informed about such details as hours of work, overtime, lunch period, rest rooms, etc. They are mostly informed about the company, the job and work environment. They are encouraged to approach their supervisors with questions and problems.
It is more accurately considered as a process of skill formation and behavioural change. It is a continuous process of the staffing function. Training is more effectively conducted when the actual content of jobs for which people are being trained and developed is known.
Training programmes should be devised to impart knowledge, develop skills and stimulate motives needed to perform the job. Development involves growth of an employee in all respects. It is a wider concept. It seeks to develop competence and skills for future performance. Thus, it has a long-term perspective.
It means evaluating a performance employee’s current and past performance as against certain predetermined standards. This process includes defining the job, appraising performance and providing feedback.
Managers must encourage employees to grow and realise their full potential. Promotions are an integral part of people’s career. They usually mean more pay, responsibility and job satisfaction.
It refers to all forms of pay or rewards paid to employees by the employer/firm. It may be in the form of direct financial payments (Time based or Performance based) like salaries and indirect payments like paid leaves.
It is of utmost importance for the organisation that right kinds of people are employed. They should be given adequate training so that wastage is minimum. They must also be induced to show higher productivity and quality by offering them incentives.
In fact, effective performance of the staff function is necessary to realise the following benefits:
1. Efficient Performance of other Functions – Staffing is a key to the efficient performance of other functions of management. If an organisation does not have competent personnel, it cannot perform planning, organising and control functions properly.
2. Effective Use of Technology and other Resources – It is the human factor that is instrumental in the effective utilisation of latest technology, capital, materials, etc. The management can ensure right kinds of personnel by performing the staffing function.
3. Optimum Utilisation of Human Resources – The wage bill of big concerns is quite high. They also spend money on recruitment, selection, training, and development of employees. In order to get the optimum output from the personnel, the staffing functions should be performed in an efficient manner.
4. Development of Human Capital – The management is required to determine the manpower requirements well in advance. It has also to train and develop the existing personnel for career advancement. This will meet the requirements of the company in future.
5. Motivation of Human Resources – The behaviour of individuals is shaped by many factors such as education level, needs, socio-cultural factors, etc. That is why the human aspect of organisation has become very important. The workers can be motivated through financial and non-financial incentives.
6. Building Higher Morale – Right type of climate should be created for the workers to contribute to the achievement of organisational objectives. By performing the staffing function effectively, management can show the significance it attaches to the personnel working in the enterprise. This will increase the morale of the employees.
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