Organisation of Commerce and Management · Ch 2 — Functions of Management
Staffing
Staffing
An organisational structure is only a skeleton until it is filled with the right people. Staffing is the management function concerned with placing the right person in the right job — obtaining, developing, and retaining a competent workforce so that the organisational structure created during organizing can actually function.
Meaning
Staffing is the process of filling, and keeping filled, the positions in the organisation structure. It covers the entire cycle of human resource management: estimating how many and what kind of people are needed, finding and selecting them, training them, appraising their performance, and rewarding and developing them over time.
Features of Staffing
- Staffing is concerned with human resources. Unlike other functions that deal with material resources, staffing specifically deals with people, who bring skills, attitudes and behaviour into the picture.
- It is a continuous activity. Employees leave, retire, or are promoted, and new positions are created as the organisation grows, so staffing never fully stops.
- Staffing is performed by all managers. Every manager, regardless of department, is involved in staffing their own team, not just the human resources department.
- Staffing aims at the effective and efficient utilisation of human resources. Its goal is not merely to fill vacancies but to ensure the right person, with the right competencies, is placed in the right role.
- It involves both the acquisition and development of manpower. Staffing is not limited to hiring; it also covers training, appraisal, and career development of existing employees.
Importance of Staffing
Good staffing helps in discovering and obtaining competent personnel for various positions in the organisation, ensuring the workforce matches the needs of the job. It improves the quantity and quality of output, because well-selected and well-trained employees perform their jobs more efficiently. Staffing helps in the higher productivity of the organisation as a whole, since people are placed where their strengths are best used. It ensures the continuous survival and growth of the enterprise through effective succession planning, so that key positions do not remain vacant when someone leaves. Staffing also helps in promoting the best interests of the individual employee as well as the organisation, since proper placement, training and appraisal build employee morale and job satisfaction alongside organisational performance.
The Process (Steps) of Staffing
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Manpower / HR planning | Estimating the number and type of employees needed, now and in the future, based on the organisation's plans. |
| 2. Recruitment | Searching for and attracting a pool of potential candidates to apply for the vacant positions. |
| 3. Selection | Choosing the most suitable candidates from the applicant pool through tests, interviews, and other screening methods. |
| 4. Placement and orientation | Assigning the selected candidate to a specific job and familiarising them with the organisation's policies, culture and their role. |
| 5. Training and development | Improving the knowledge, skills and abilities of employees so they can perform their present and future roles effectively. |
The management function of filling, and keeping filled, positions in the organisation structure through manpower planning, recruitment, selection, training, appraisal …
The process of searching for and attracting a pool of potential candidates to apply for vacant positions …