Q.Which of the following is NOT a step in the staffing process?
(A) Recruitment
(B) Selection
(C) Setting performance standards
(D) Performance appraisal

Staffing covers the employee lifecycle from hiring through appraisal, but "setting performance standards" as a defined benchmarking step belongs to the controlling process, not staffing.

Recruitment, selection and performance appraisal are all genuine staffing steps; standard-setting is where controlling begins.

This question tests whether a student can distinguish staffing-process steps from controlling-process steps, since both processes include some form of "appraisal" or "measurement" and are easy to conflate.

(A) Recruitment — incorrect option to select as the answer, because recruitment (searching for and attracting candidates) genuinely is a staffing step.

(B) Selection — incorrect option to select as the answer, because selection (choosing the most suitable candidate from the applicant pool) genuinely is a staffing step.

(C) Setting performance standards — correct answer (this is NOT part of staffing). Setting performance standards is the first step of the controlling process — it establishes the benchmark against which actual performance will later be measured. While staffing does include "performance appraisal" of an individual employee's work, the broader activity of setting organisation-wide performance standards belongs to controlling, not staffing.

(D) Performance appraisal — incorrect option to select as the answer, because performance appraisal (evaluating an employee's job performance) genuinely is a step within the staffing process.

Students confuse "performance appraisal" (a staffing step evaluating an individual employee) with "setting performance standards" (a controlling step establishing the benchmark for the whole organisation or a work unit). They sound similar but belong to different functions.