Organization and Management - Staffing

Staffing

Definition and Nature of Staffing

  • Staffing Definition: The human resource function focused on identifying, attracting, hiring, and retaining qualified individuals to fill current and future job roles within an organization.
  • It involves filling all organizational job positions with suitable candidates.
  • The number of managerial and non-managerial staff needed relies on factors such as:
    • Size and complexity of operations.
    • Plans for expansion or product increases.
    • Turnover rates.
  • Identifying qualifications for each position ensures the most suitable individuals are hired.

2 Main Components of Staffing

  • Recruitment: The process of identifying and attracting individuals with the required qualifications.
  • Selection: The process of choosing which candidates to hire.

Steps in Staffing

  • Identifying job position vacancies, job requirements, and workforce requirements.
  • Checking the internal environment for available human resources.
  • External recruiting efforts.
  • Selecting candidates with essential qualifications.
  • Placing the selected applicant in the job.
  • Promoting employees.
  • Evaluating performance.
  • Planning employee career paths.
  • Training human resources.
  • Compensating human resources.

Recruitment

  • Recruitment: The process of identifying and attracting people with the necessary qualifications for open positions.

Types of Recruitment

  • Internal Recruitment: Filling job vacancies through promotions or transfers of existing employees.
  • External Recruitment: Seeking potential candidates from outside the organization to fill vacancies.

Methods of External and Internal Recruitment

  • External Recruitment Methods:
    • Advertisements
    • Unsolicited Applications
    • Internet Recruiting
    • Employee Referrals
    • Executive Search Firms
    • Educational Institutions
    • Professional Associations
    • Labor Unions
    • Private and Public Employment Agencies

Advantages and Disadvantages of External Recruitment

  • Advantages:
    1. Advertising and internet recruiting reach a large pool of applicants.
    2. Self-initiated applicants are often more serious about the job.
    3. Employee referrals are typically high-quality applicants.
    4. Executive search firms provide highly qualified external candidates.
    5. Educational institutions can recommend qualified graduates.
  • Disadvantages:
    1. External recruitment is costly and time-consuming (advertising, orientation, training, application sorting).
    2. Potential for bias in referrals and recommendations.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Internal Recruitment

  • Advantages
    1. Lower expenses for advertising due to internal communication channels.
    2. Less expensive and faster training/orientation due to familiarity with company policies.
    3. Faster recruitment and selection process overall.
  • Disadvantages
    1. Limited applicant pool.
    2. Potential for favoritism.
    3. Possibility of jealousy among employees not considered for the position and perceptions of bias.

Selection

  • Selection: The process of choosing who to hire.

Selection Process

  1. Establishing selection criteria.
  2. Applicants complete the application form.
  3. Screening applications to identify candidates meeting criteria.
  4. Screening interviews to identify more promising applicants.
  5. Interviews by supervisors/managers or panel interviews.
  6. Verifying information provided by the applicant.
  7. Psychological and physical examinations.
  8. Informing the applicant of the hiring decision.

Types of Job Interviews

  • Structured Interview: Uses a set of prepared questions (situational, job knowledge, job simulation, and worker requirement questions).
  • Unstructured Interview: Interviewer asks questions freely without a guide.
  • One-on-one Interview: Single interviewer.
  • Panel Interview: Multiple interviewers participate.

Types of Employment Tests

  • Intelligence Test: Measures mental capacity, cognitive speed, and ability to identify relationships in problematic situations.
  • Proficiency and Aptitude Tests: Assesses current skills and potential for learning new skills.
  • Personality Tests: Reveals personal characteristics and ability to relate to others.
  • Vocational Tests: Determines occupations best suited to the applicant.

Training and Development

  • Training: Short-term, job-performance-focused learning aimed at acquiring or improving job-related skills.
  • Development: Long-term learning geared towards individual skill expansion for future job roles and responsibilities.

Steps/Procedures in Training and Development

  1. Conducting the Training Needs Assessment
    • Task Analysis: Checking job requirements to see if they align with company goals; identifies areas for training or retraining.
    • Person Analysis: Determining which employees need training, avoiding unnecessary training expenses.
  2. Designing the Training Program
    • Learning Principles:
      • Modeling: Demonstrating desired behaviors or methods.
      • Feedback and Reinforcement: Providing comments from trainees, trainers, or peers to improve learning; encouragement and rewards.
      • Massed vs. Distributed Learning: Training through long hours vs. short, frequent sessions.
      • Goal-Setting: Explaining training goals and objectives.
      • Individual Differences: Accommodating different learning styles and rates.
      • Active Practice and Repetition: Frequent opportunities to practice job tasks.
  3. Implementing the Training Program
    • Various methods include on-the-job training, apprenticeship, classroom instruction, audio-visual methods, simulation, and e-learning.
  4. Evaluating the Training
    • Assessing participants' reactions, acquired knowledge, and behavior changes.

Compensation/Wages and Performance Evaluation

  • Compensation/Wages: All forms of pay given by employers to employees for their work.
  • Performance Evaluation: Annual process to measure employee work performance.

Types of Compensation

  • Direct Compensation: Salaries, incentive pays, bonuses, and commissions.
  • Indirect Compensation: Benefits beyond financial remuneration (travel, education, health, etc.).
  • Nonfinancial Compensation: Recognition programs, rewarding jobs, management support, ideal work environment, and flexible hours.

Compensation: A Motivational Factor for Employees

  • Compensation represents a reward for good performance.
  • Pay Equity:
    • Fairness is essential.
    • The Equity Theory focuses on employees' response to pay, comparing perceived input to received output.
    • Pay should match the effort exerted.
    • Pay equity motivates good performance.
  • Expectancy Theory:
    • Employees are motivated by the attractiveness of potential rewards or benefits.

Bases for Compensation

  • Piecework Basis: Pay based on units produced.
  • Hourly Basis: Pay based on hours worked.
  • Daily Basis: Pay based on days worked.
  • Weekly Basis: Pay based on weeks worked.
  • Monthly Basis: Pay based on months worked.

Factors Influencing Compensation Rates

  • Internal Factors:
    • Organization’s compensation policies
    • Job importance
    • Employee qualifications
    • Employer financial stability
  • External Factors:
    • Local and global market conditions
    • Labor supply
    • Area/regional wage rates
    • Cost of living
    • Collective bargaining agreements
    • National and international laws

Purposes of Performance Evaluation: Administrative and Developmental

  • Administrative Purposes: Provide information for compensation decisions, promotions, transfers, and terminations.
  • Developmental Purposes: Provide information on employee strengths and weaknesses for training and development.

Performance Appraisal Methods

  • Trait Methods: Evaluate important work characteristics.
  • Graphic Rating Scales: Scales indicate the degree to which an employee possesses a characteristic.
  • Forced-Choice Method: Raters choose between two statements designed to distinguish between positive or negative performance.
  • Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS): Vertical scales for each important job strategy, numbered by importance.
  • Behavior Observation Scale (BOS): Measures the frequency of observed behaviors.

Why Some Evaluation Programs Fail

  • Inadequate orientation of evaluatees.
  • Incomplete cooperation of evaluatees.
  • Bias exhibited by evaluators.
  • Inadequate time for answering forms.
  • Ambiguous language.
  • Improperly evaluated job description.
  • Inflated ratings.
  • Focus on personality rather than performance.
  • Unhealthy evaluator personality.
  • Influence of organizational politics.

Employee Relations

  • Employee Relations: The connections created between employees as they perform their tasks.

Effective Employer Relations and Social Support

  • Social Support: The assistance or benefits resulting from effective employee relationships.

Barriers to Good Employee Relations

  • Antisocial personality
  • Lack of trust
  • Selfish attitude
  • Lack of self-esteem
  • Not a team player
  • Conceit
  • Cultural/subcultural differences
  • Lack of cooperation
  • Communication problems
  • Lack of concern for others' welfare

Ways to Overcome Barriers to Good Employee Relations

  • Develop a healthy personality.
  • Socialize with coworkers.
  • Minimize dependence on electronic gadgets.
  • Develop good communication skills.
  • Minimize cultural tensions.

Three Types of Employees

  • Engaged: Passionate and deeply connected to the company; drive innovation.
  • Not Engaged: Checked out; put in time, but not energy.
  • Actively Disengaged: Unhappy and act out their unhappiness; undermine engaged coworkers.

Employee Movements

  • Employee Movements: Actions initiated by employee groups toward a specific goal.
  • Unionism: Principle of combination for unity of purpose and action.
  • Labor Union: Formal union representing workers in their pursuit of justice, fairness, and collective interests.

Reasons Employees Unionize

  • Financial Needs: Complaints regarding wages, salaries, and benefits.
  • Unfair Management Practices: Perceptions of bias/unfairness in promotions, training, and discipline.
  • Social and Leadership Concerns: Need for affiliation and recognition.

Steps in Union Organizing

  1. Employee/union contact
  2. Initial organizational meeting
  3. Formation of in-house organizing committee
  4. Request for a representation election if sufficient support exists
  5. End of union organizing

The Collective Bargaining Process

  • Prepare for Negotiations: Collect data to support proposals.
  • Develop Strategies: Management develops proposals and limits, consider union goals and strike plans.
  • Conduct Negotiations: Bargaining, analyzing proposals, resolving issues; a deadlock may result if no agreement is reached.
  • Formalize Agreement: Create a binding document listing terms and conditions, ratified by employees.

Grievance Procedure

  • A formal procedure for the union to represent members in processing complaints.

Rewards System

  • Reward: Gift, prize, or recompense for merit/service/achievement, which motivates employees.

Different Types of Rewards

  • Monetary Reward: Finance or currency based reward.
    • Pay/salary
    • Benefits
    • Incentives
    • Executive pay
    • Stock options
  • Non-monetary Reward: Intrinsic rewards not related to money.
    • Award
    • Praise