Staffing Organizations

Chapter 1:
Staffing Models and Strategy

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 Learning Objectives for Chapter 1
• Define staffing and consider how, in the big picture, staffing
decisions matter
• Review the five staffing models presented, and consider the
advantages and disadvantages of each
• Consider the staffing system components and how they fit
into the plan for the book
• Understand the staffing organizations model and how its
various components fit into the plan for the book
• Appreciate the importance of staffing strategy, and review the
13 decisions that staffing strategy requires
• Realize the importance of ethics in staffing, and learn how
ethical staffing practice is established

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 Staffing Models and Strategy
The Nature of Staffing

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 The Big Picture
• Organizations are combinations of physical, financial, and
human capital
• Human capital
– Knowledge, skills and abilities of people
– Their motivation to do the job

• Scope of human capital

– An average organization’s employee cost (wages or salaries and
benefits) is over 22% of its total revenue
– Organizations that capitalize on human capital have a strategic
advantage over their competitors

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 Why Does One Company
Succeed and Another Fail?
 Differences in their strategic, financial, and technological
capabilities.
 Differences in organizational capabilities generated by
attracting, retaining, motivating, and developing talented
employees.
 Staffing therefore plays a central role in creating and
enhancing any organization’s competitive advantage.

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 Resource-Based View of the Firm
• Proposes that a company’s resources and
competencies (including its talent) can produce
a sustained competitive advantage by creating
value for customers by:
 Lowering costs of products or services
 Providing something of unique value
 Or some combination of the two

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 Resource-Based View of the
Firm
• Focuses attention on the quality of the skills of a
company’s workforce at various levels, and on
the quality of the motivational climate created
by management.
– Human resource management is valued not only for
its role in implementing a given competitive scenario
but also for its role in generating strategic capability.
– Staffing has the potential to create organizations that
are more intelligent and flexible than their
competitors, and that exhibit superior levels of
cooperation and operation.

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 Five Requirements of a
Competitive Advantage

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 The Nature of Staffing
• Definition
– “Staffing is the process of acquiring, deploying, and retaining a
workforce of sufficient quantity and quality to create positive impacts
on the organization’s effectiveness.”
• Implications of definition
– Acquire, deploy, retain
– Staffing as a process or system
– Quantity and quality issues
– Organization effectiveness

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 Staffing System Examples
• W.L. Gore and Associates
– Staffing jobs without titles
– Focus on culture in recruiting and selecting

• Pfizer Pharmaceuticals
– Hiring for flexibility in a rapidly changing market
– Focus on hiring individuals who can change roles quickly

• Enterprise Rent-A-Car
– Use a strong internal labor market
– Performance evaluation is used for placement

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 Quotes from Organization Leaders
• Staffing is absolutely critical to the success of every company
– Gail Hyland-Savage, COO, Michaelson, Connor, & Bowl

• At most companies, people spend 2% of their time recruiting and

75% managing their recruiting mistakes.
– Richard Fairbank, CE, Capital One

• I think about this in hiring, because our business all comes down to
people…In fact, when I’m interviewing a senior job candidate, my
biggest worry is how good they are at hiring. I spend at least half the
interview on that.
– Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon

• We missed a really nice nursing rebound…because we didn’t do a

good job hiring in front of it. Nothing has cost the business as much
as failing to intersect the right people at the right time.
– David Alexander, President, Soliant Health
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 Discussion Questions
• What would be the potential problems with a staffing process
in which vacancies were filled:
– On a lottery basis from among job applicants?
– On a first come-first hired basis?

• What would be the advantages of using one of the above

processes?

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 Staffing Models and Strategy
Staffing Models

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 Exhibit 1.2: Staffing Quantity

Jump to Exhibit 1.2: Staffing Quantity, Appendix

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 Exhibit 1.3: Person-Job Match

Jump to Exhibit 1.3: Person-Job Match, Appendix

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 Concepts: Person-Job Match Model
• Jobs are characterized by • Matching process involves
their requirements and dual match
rewards – KSAOs to requirements
• Individuals are – Motivation to rewards
characterized via
• Job requirements expressed
qualifications (KSAOS) and
in terms of
motivation
– Tasks involved
• These concepts are not new
– KSAOs necessary for
or faddish, this is an
performance of tasks
enduring model of staffing
• Job requirements often
extend beyond task and
KSAO requirements

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 Exhibit 1.4: Person-Organization Match

Jump to Exhibit 1.4: Person-Organization Match, Appendix

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 Concepts: Person-Organization Match Model
• Organizational culture and values
– Norms of desirable attitudes and behaviors for employees
– New job duties
– Tasks that may be added to target job over time
– “And other duties as assigned . . . “

• Multiple jobs
– Flexibility concerns - Hiring people who could perform multiple jobs
– Future jobs
– Long-term matches during employment relationship

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 Exhibit 1.5: Staffing System Components

Jump to Exhibit 1.5: Staffing System Components, Appendix

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 Discussion Questions
• Would it be desirable to hire people only according to the
person/job match, ignoring the person/organization match?
Why?
• How are staffing activities influenced by training or
compensation activities?

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 Components of Staffing Organizations Model
• Organizational strategy
– Mission and vision
– Goals and objectives

• HR strategy
– Involves key decisions about size and type of workforce to be acquired,
trained, managed, rewarded, and retained
– Flows from organizational strategy
– Directly influences formulation of organization strategy

• Staffing strategy
– An outgrowth of the interplay between organization and HR strategy
– Involves key decisions regarding acquisition, deployment, and retention of
organization’s workforce
– Guide development of recruitment, selection, and employment programs
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 Components of Staffing Organizations Model
• Support activities
– Legal compliance
– HR planning
– Diversity management
– Serve as foundation for conduct of core staffing activities

• Core staffing activities

– Recruitment
– Selection
– Employment

• Staffing and retention system management

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 Staffing Models and Strategy
Staffing Strategy

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 Strategic Staffing Decisions: Staffing Levels
• Acquire or develop talent
– Acquire: employees who are ready to “hit the ground running”
– Develop: employees who need development to perform their jobs

• Hire yourself or outsource:

– Hire yourself: Use in-house staffing function
– Outsource: Hire an external vendor for hiring

• External or internal hiring

– External hiring: Focus on using an external labor market for job
openings
– Internal hiring: Promotion and transfer from within

Staffing Quality
©McGraw-Hill Education. Staffing Levels
 Strategic Staffing Decisions: Staffing Levels
• Core or flexible workforce
– Core workforce: regular workers attached to the company for long
periods
– Flexible workforce: temporary employees or independent contractors

• Hire or retain
– Hire: accept turnover rates and hire frequently
– Retain: extra efforts to increase employee retention

• National or global
– National: keeping all organizational functions in the home country
– Global: locating services and production in multiple areas

Staffing Quality
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 Strategic Staffing Decisions: Staffing Levels
• Attract or relocate
– Attract: transfer or relocate employees to existing locations
– Relocate: locate facilities where potential applicants are

• Overstaff or understaff
– Overstaff: have slightly more staff than needed as a buffer
– Understaff: have slightly fewer staff than needed to save costs

• Short- or long-term focus

– Short-term: address and focus on immediate needs
– Long-term: focus on future needs

Staffing Quality
©McGraw-Hill Education. Staffing Levels
 Strategic Staffing Decisions: Staffing Quality
• Person/Job or Person/Organization match
– Person-job: selection focused on one job’s task requirements
– Person-organization: focus on broader competencies and values

• Specific or general KSAOs

– Specific: fine-tuned KSAOs that address task-oriented skills
– General: broad KSAOs that relate to many broad skills

• Exceptional or acceptable workforce quality

– Exceptional: hire the best possible candidates at high cost
– Acceptable: reduce costs with willingness to hire less qualified candidates

• Active or passive diversity

– Active: policies go beyond eliminating discrimination, and include specialized
recruiting, training, and development to address diversity
– Passive: eliminate discrimination, and then let diversity happen naturally
Staffing Quality
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 Staffing Models and Strategy
Ethical Issues

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 Exhibit 1.8: Suggestions for Ethical Staffing Practice
• Represent the organization’s interests.
• Beware of conflicts of interest.
• Remember the job applicant.
• Follow staffing policies and procedures.
• Know and follow the law.
• Consult professional codes of conduct.
• Shape effective practice with research results.
• Seek ethics advice.
• Be aware of an organization’s ethical climate/culture

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 Ethical Issues in Staffing
• Issue 1
– As a staffing professional in the human resources department or as
the hiring manager of a work unit, explain why it is so important to
represent the organization’s interests, and what are some possible
consequences of not doing so?
• Issue 2
– One of the strategic staffing choices is whether to pursue workforce
diversity actively or passively. First suggest some ethical reasons for
the active pursuit of diversity, and then suggest some ethical reasons
for a more passive approach.

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