Meaning

Staffing is the process of filling the positions created in the organisation structure with the right people. After planning what to do and organising how to do it, the next logical step is to put people into those roles. In the simplest terms, staffing means ‘putting people to jobs’.

The function begins with workforce planning — figuring out how many and what kind of people are needed. From there, it branches into a chain of activities: recruitment, selection, training, development, promotion, compensation, and performance appraisal of the workforce. In other words, staffing is that part of management which is concerned with obtaining, utilising, and maintaining a satisfactory and satisfied workforce.

Today, staffing may involve any combination of employees — daily wagers, consultants, and contract employees. It recognises the importance of every single person employed by an organisation, because it is the individual worker who is the ultimate performer.

Staffing has been described as the managerial function of filling and keeping filled the positions in the organisation structure. This is achieved by:

• Identifying the requirement of workforce
• Recruiting, selecting, and placing personnel
• Promoting, appraising, and developing them to fill the roles designed into the organisation structure …