Chapter FIve

Staffing an Organization
 Overview of HRM
HRM is a strategic and coherent approach

to the management of an organization’s most

valued assets–the people
The overall purpose of HRM is to ensure

that the organization is able to achieve

success through people.
The great investment made on employees

by organizations reflects that staffing is a

necessary part of management and one of
 Overview of HRM….
Staffing includes:-

Human resource planning

Job design,

Recruiting,

Selecting

developing and training

 5.1 The Nature of Staffing
Staffing is the obtaining of people with

appropriate skills, abilities, knowledge and

experience to fill jobs in the work
organization.
Pertinent practices are human resource

planning, job analysis, recruitment and

selection.
Staffing obviously, a company’s recruiting and
 The Nature of Staffing…
Traditional approaches to selection: match

applicants with job requirements, some new

views of selection may pose different
evaluation challenges.
Modern approach (David Bowen): primary

emphasis in matching applicants with the

characteristics or culture of the
organization, instead of the job.
The staffing function can be viewed as a series of activities
 5.2 The staffing process
The Staffing Process

Human
Human Recruitment Selection
Resource
Recruitment Selection
Resource
Planning
Planning

Performance Trainingand
and Inductionand
Induction and
Performance Training Orientation
Appraisal Development Orientation
Appraisal Development

Transfersor
Transfers or
rewards: Separation
Separation
rewards:
Promotion
Promotion
Demotion
Demotion
 The staffing process…
The staffing process involves the following

basic activities.
1. Human Resource Planning (HRP)
Determines the human resources required

by the organization to achieve its strategic

goals.
Is ‘the process for ensuring that the human

resource requirements of an organization

 The staffing process…
HRP is based on the belief that people are

an organization’s most important strategic

resource.
It is generally concerned with matching

resources to business needs

It addresses human resource needs both in

quantitative and qualitative terms, which

means answering two basic questions: first,
how many people? and second, what sort of
 The staffing process…
HRP also looks at broader issues relating to

the ways in which people are employed and

developed in order to improve organizational
effectiveness.
It covers three distinct activities:

Conduct manpower inventory (human

resource audit)
Forecasting future employee skill needs or

labor requirements
 The staffing process…
HRP and business planning
Conceptually, HRP should be an integral part

of business planning.
The strategic planning process should
define projected changes in the scale and types
of activities carried out by the
organization.
It should identify the core competences the

organization needs to achieve its goals and

 The staffing process…
In so far as there are articulated strategic

business plans, HRP interprets them in terms

of people requirements.
As Quinn Mills (1983) indicates, HRP is
decision making process that combines three
important activities:
i. Identifying & acquiring the right
number of people with the proper skills
ii. Motivating them to achieve high
 The staffing process…
Recruitment and Selection
The overall aim of the recruitment and

selection process should be to obtain (at

minimum cost) the number and quality of
employees required to satisfy the human
resource needs of the company.
The three stages of recruitment and
selection dealt with in this chapter are:
 The staffing process…
1. Defining requirements: preparing job
descriptions and specifications; deciding
terms and conditions of employment;
2. Attracting candidates: reviewing and
evaluating alternative sources of applicants
inside and outside the company, advertising,
using agencies and consultants;
3. Selecting candidates: sifting applications,
interviewing, testing, assessing candidates,
 The staffing process…
2. Recruitment
Activities of developing a pool of qualified

candidates from which the organization may

choose the most appropriate employees.
It is the practice that defines characteristics of

applicants to whom selection procedures are

ultimately applied.
It is an attempt to identify & attract potential

candidates to meet the requirements of the

 The staffing process…
Recruitment can also be defined as
announcing and advertising vacant
positions and developing sources of applicants
and receiving applications.
 There are two major sources of recruiting potential

candidates:
1.Internal recruiting or promote-from-within:
policies to fill higher-level positions.
Advantages :
 Less costly, familiarity with the organization,

 The staffing process…
2. External recruiting: recruiting newcomers
from outside or the labor market.
Applicants are provided by a variety of

outside sources including newspaper

advertising, state employment services,
private employment agencies, job fairs,
professional associations, at colleges and
universities, and employee referrals which is
one of the cheapest & most reliable
 The staffing process…
Requirements to recruitment
Ensure that recruitment practices conform to
the law.
 Equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws
stipulate that recruiting and hiring decisions
cannot discriminate on the basis of religion,
race, national origin, or sex.
 Affirmative action: use of goals, timetables, or

other methods in recruiting to promote the hiring,

development, and retention of persons historically
underrepresented in the workplace.
 The staffing process…
Realistic job previews
 Enhances recruiting effectiveness.

 Gives applicants all pertinent and realistic

information (positive and negative) about the job
and the organization.
 It enhances employee satisfaction and reduce
turnover because they facilitate matching
individuals, jobs, and organizations.
 Individuals have a better basis on which to

determine their stability to the organization and

 The staffing process…
E-Recruitment
 E-recruitment or online recruitment uses web-

based tools such firm’s public internet site or its

own intranet to recruit staff.
 The processes of e-recruitment consist of
attracting, screening and tracking applicants,
selecting, and offering jobs or rejecting
candidates.
 It has been estimated by Cappelli (2001) that it costs

only about one-twentieth as much to hire someone

 The staffing process…
3. Selection
The next step for managers is to select

desired employees from the pool of

recruited applicants.
In the selection process, employers attempt

to determine the skills, abilities and other

attributes needed to perform a particular job.
Then they assess applicants'
characteristics in an attempt to
 The staffing process…
Thus, selection is defined as the process of

evaluating and deciding the best and

qualified candidates out of the pool of
applicants developed in the recruitment
process for job opening based on their
abilities, skills and characteristics.
A good place to start in making a selection

decision is job analysis (job description and

job specification).
 The staffing process…
 Job analysis is the process of gathering,
analyzing, and recording accurate and
complete information about each job in a
firm through a systematic examination of job
content. It is performed on three
occasions:
(a) When an organization is just starting,

(b) when a new job is created, and

(c) when a job is changed significantly as a

 The staffing process…
Job description lists the important duties to

be performed on a job. It is a series of

statements about the job's duties and
responsibilities that specify about the
workers duties, how they are performed, and
the conditions under which they are performed.
 Job specification is the knowledge, skills

and abilities as well as physical

characteristics, experience and other desirable
 The staffing process…
Information collected through job analysis
helps to answer the following questions:
1. What tasks are performed? That is, the
performance dimensions on which employees
should be evaluated and the worth of the job for
compensation purpose.
2. What knowledge, skills, and abilities are required'?
That is, the qualifications on which the
incumbents need to perform a job adequately.
3. What physical activities are required?
 The staffing process…
The Employee Selection Process
 The staffing process…
4. Induction and Orientation
After the hiring decision has been made, the

final phase of the selection process is induction

and orientation.
 Orientation is the process that introduces

new employees to their new work

environment.
It mainly involves:
1. Making introduction of new employee to
 The staffing process…
3. Explaining the organization's history, rules,
policies, regulations and objectives.
4. Familiarizing the products, processes, and
major operation of the organization.
5. Introducing the line and staff relationships in
the organization.
The purpose of induction and orientation

is to:
1. Establish an environment in which the new
 The staffing process…
1. Bring the new employee into the
mainstream of the organization as quickly
as possible.
2. Transfer the clear message that the new
employees are valued and the organization is
willing to invest in them,
3. Reduce start up costs that always occur
when an employee is first hired.
4. Reduce the amount of fear of job failure that
 The staffing process…
5. Training and Development
Training and development represent a
planned effort by an organization to
facilitate employees learning of the job-
related behaviors.
According to Flippo "Training is the act of

increasing the knowledge and skills of an

employee for doing a particular job." Training
involves the specific job.
 The staffing process…
 Training is different from education.

 Education is a broader term concerned with

increasing the general knowledge and

understanding of the employee's total
environment.
 The staffing process…
Purpose of Training
Training is the act of enhancing the
knowledge and skills of an employee for
performing a particular job.
The main objective of training is to achieve a

change in the behaviour of the trainees.

In order to achieve this objective, any

training programme should try to bring

positive changes in :
 The staffing process…
Benefits of Training
(a) Benefits of Training to the Organization :
The major benefits of training to the organization

are:
1. Quick learning : Training helps to reduce the
learning time to reach the acceptable level of
performance.
2. Higher production : Training increases the
skills of the employee in the performance of a
 The staffing process…
4. Less Supervision: If the employees are given
adequate training, the need of supervision is
lessened. Training does not eliminate the need for
supervision.
5. Economical operations: Trained personnel will be
able to make better and economical use of
materials and equipment.
6. Higher morale: The morale of employees is
increased if they are given proper training.
 A common objective of training programme will
 The staffing process…
(b) Benefits of Training to Employees :
Training helps the employees/workers in the
following ways:
1. Confidence: Training creates a feeling of
confidence in the minds of workers.
 It gives safety and security to them at the

workplace.
2. New Skills: Training develops skills which
serve as a valuable personal asset of the worker.
5. Adaptability: Training develops adaptability
 The staffing process…
4. Promotion: Training paves/covers the way for
promotion and self-development.
4. Higher Earnings: By imparting skills, training
facilitates higher remuneration and other monetary
benefits to the workers.
Training Principles and Techniques
According to Pigors and Myres, training principles
and techniques include :
1 The trainee must want to learn. His motivation to
improve his job performance or to learn a new
 The staffing process…
2 There should be some reward at the conclusion
of training viz., promotion or a better job.
3 The trainer should tell the trainee as to
whether he is learning the job correctly. This is
known as feed back.
4 This is best accomplished through learning by
doing rather than by listening.
5 The material to be learned should be developed
in stages.
 The staffing process…
Training may occur in a variety of forms. The

following are the most frequently used training

methods are:
A. On-the-job training and job rotations:
This is when an experienced employee is asked

to take a new employee and show the

newcomer how to perform job duties.
 The organizations senior employees often conduct

in-house training.
 It can reduce costs for training facilities,
 The staffing process…
B. Off-the-job training or classroom training:
 Includes lectures, films, audiovisual
techniques and, simulations such as university
management and apprenticeship programs.
C. Orientation training:
 In which newcomers are introduced to the

organization's culture using company owned

training centers.
 The staffing process…
D. Programmed and computer
 assisted instruction in which the employee
works at his or her own pace to learn from
the text that includes exercises and quizzes to
enhance learning.
E. Conference and case discussion groups
 In which participants analyze cases or discuss

topics assisted by a training leader.

 The staffing process…
Distinction Between Training And
Development
The terms 'training' and 'development' appear

to be synonymous. But there are some

differences in the content and techniques of
employee training and development.
1. Training is the act of learning basic skills and
knowledge necessary for a particular job or a
group of jobs. Where as, Development, means
growth of the individual in all respects. An
 The staffing process…
2. The term 'training' is used in the context of
imparting skills to operative workers. But the term
development is used in the context of
management development.
3. Training program are directed towards
maintaining and improving current job
performance, while development program seek
to develop skills and competence for future
jobs.
 The staffing process…
6. Performance Appraisal
 Performance appraisal is one of the important

sub-functions of staffing function in

management.
 Human behaviour is a complex phenomenon
because no one can anticipate accurately what
exactly a man is going to do.
 The individual joins an organization to satisfy his

objectives. But the organization also has its own

goals, which need not to be in conformity with the
 The staffing process…
 Performance appraisal is the process of
determining the extent to which an employee is
performing a job effectively.
 It is the process of observing and evaluating an

employee's performance, recording the

assessment, and providing feedback to the
employee.
 Evaluating performance against planned objectives

developed initially for each individual is another

important technique for developing an effective
 The staffing process…
A valid performance appraisal system serves a number
of purposes:
1. It provides employees with feedback so that they
will know how well they are performing.
2. It develops valid data for pay (salary/bonus) and
promotion decisions.
3. It develops commitment to an organization by
identifying career opportunities and encouraging
career planning,
4. It motivates employees through recognition and
 The staffing process…
Significance of Performance Appraisal
 Performance improvement

 Compensation adjustments

 Placement decisions

 Training and development needs

 Career planning and development

 Feedback to human resources

 The staffing process…
The Appraisal Process
Establish performance standards
↓
Communicate performance expectations to the
employees
↓
Measure actual performance
↓
Compare actual performance with standards
↓
Discuss the appraisal with employee
↓
If necessary, initiate corrective action
 The staffing process…
The most commonly used techniques
involved in performance appraisal includes:
Managers appraisal of subordinates
using:-
graphic rating scales and paired comparison

methods,
self appraisal by subordinates,

peers appraisals,
 The staffing process…
7. Transferring
Transferring is moving a person from one
job, organizational level, or location to another.
It includes:
Promotion: this is moving an employee to

a higher-level position that have more

prestige, higher status, higher pay and
greater responsibility based on his or her
 The staffing process…
Demotion: is shifting a person to a lower-

level position in the hierarchy (less pay and

less responsibility) due to inefficiency or in-
competency to meet the assigned task.
Some managers use it as a punishment tool

while most refuse it and use financial

penalty and suspension.
 The staffing process…
Lateral transfer: is movement of
employees from one position to another
at similar levels (pay and responsibility)
within the organization.
It is typically used to fill temporary
vacancies, to staff new operation by
competent and experienced person
(productive transfers'), to replace a person,
or to correct wrong placement.
 The staffing process…
8. Separation (Termination)
Separation is the termination of the
relationship b/n the workers and the
organization due to various reasons.
Some will retire, others will depart voluntarily

from their jobs (resignation), and still others

will be forced out through mergers and
cutbacks (layoffs).
 The staffing process…
Purposes Separation (Termination)
1. Employees who are poor performers can
be dismissed.
Low-performing employees who are allowed

to stay with the company and receive pay and

benefits comparable to others can be
cutback.
 The staffing process…
2. Employers can determine why employees
are leaving by conducting an interview with
the departing employees (exit interview).
The exit interview is an excellent and

inexpensive tool for learning about the

reasons of dissatisfaction within the
organization and hence for reducing future
turnover.
 The staffing process…
3. When there is voluntary separation such
as due to retirement and the natural course
of the business operation, it will help
management to determine layoff procedures.
Thank You!