STAFFING

“Our assets walk out of the door each evening. We have to

make sure that they come back the next morning” (as stated
by Narayana Murthy former, CEO of INFOSYS.)
In the simplest terms, staffing is ‘putting people to jobs’.
It begins with workforce planning and includes different other
function like recruitment, selection, training, development,
promotion, compensation and performance appraisal of work force.
Staffing is that part of the process of management which is
concerned with obtaining, utilising and maintaining a satisfactory
and satisfied work force.
Today, staffing may involve any combination of employees including
daily wagers, consultants and contract employees.
Staffing has been described as the managerial function of filling and
keeping filled the positions in the organisation structure.
Importance of Staffing
1.) helps in discovering and obtaining competent personnel for
various jobs;
2.) makes for higher performance, by putting right person on
the right job;
3.) ensures the continuous survival and growth of the
enterprise through the succession planning for managers;
4.) helps to ensure optimum utilisation of the human resources.
By avoiding overmanning, it prevents under -utilisation of
personnel and high labour costs. At the same time it avoids
disruption of work by indicating in advance the shortages of
personnel; and
5.) improves job satisfaction and morale of employees through
objective assessment and fair reward for their contribution.
Staffing as part of Human Resource Management
It is a function which all managers need to perform.
It is a separate and specialised function and there are many
aspects of human relations to be considered.
It is the job of managers to fill positions in their organisation and
to make sure that they remain occupied with qualified people.
Staffing is closely linked to organising since after the structure and
positions have been decided, people are required to work in these
positions. Subsequently, they need to be trained and motivated to
work in harmony with the goals of the organisation.
But as organisations grow and number of persons employed
increases, a separate department called the human resource
department is formed which has specialists in managing people.
The management of human resource is a specialised area which
requires the expertise of many people. The number of human
resource specialists and size of this department gives an indication
of the size of the business as well. For a very large company, the
Human Resources Department itself will contain specialists for
each function of this department.
Human Resource Management includes many specialised activities
and duties which the human resource personnel must perform.
These duties are:
Recruitment, i.e., search for qualified people
Analysing jobs, collecting information about jobs to prepare job
descriptions.
Developing compensation and incentive plans.
Training and development of employees for efficient performance
and career growth.
Maintaining labour relations and union management relations.
Handling grievances and complaints.
Providing for social security and welfare of employees.
Defending the company in law suits and avoiding legal
complications.
STAFFING PROCESS
(i) Estimating the Manpower Requirements:
You are aware that while designing the organisational structure,
we undertake an analysis of the decisions and the decision-making
levels, activities as well as relationship among them with a view to
evolving the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the structure.
Thus, various job positions are created.
Clearly, performance of each job necessitates the appointment of
a person with a specific set of educational qualifications, skills,
prior experience and so on.
Thus, understanding manpower requirements is not merely a
matter of knowing how many persons we need but also of what
type.
Given that we need to encourage women, persons from backward
communities and persons with special abilities (such as physically
challenged, visually and hearing impaired) to assume responsible
positions in our organisations, there is a need to understand, and
if the need be, to redefine manpower requirements accordingly.
Operationally, understanding the manpower requirements would
necessitate workload analysis on the one hand and workforce
analysis on the other.
Workload analysis would enable an assessment of the number
and types of human resources necessary for the performance of
various jobs and accomplishment of organisational objectives.
Workforce analysis would reveal the number and type available.
In fact such an exercise would reveal whether we are understaffed,
overstaffed or optimally staffed.
It may be pointed out that neither over-staffing nor under-staffing
is a desirable situation.
A situation of overstaffing somewhere would necessitate
employee removal or transfer elsewhere.
A situation of understaffing would necessitate the starting of the
recruitment process.
(ii) Recruitment:
Recruitment may be defined as the process of searching for
prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for jobs in
the organisation.
The information generated in the process of writing the job
description and the candidate profile may be used for developing
the ‘situations vacant’ advertisement.
The advertisement may be displayed on the factory/ office gate or
else it may be got published in print media or flashed in electronic
media.
This step involves locating the potential candidate or determining
the sources of potential candidates.
The essential objective is to create a pool of the prospective job
candidates.
Both internal and external sources of recruitment may be
explored. Internal sources may be used to a limited extent. For
fresh talent and wider choice external sources are used.
(iii) Selection:
Selection is the process of choosing from among the pool of the
prospective job candidates developed at the stage of
recruitment. Even in case of highly specialised jobs where the
choice space is very narrow, the rigour of the selection process
serves two important purposes: (i) it ensures that the organisation
gets the best among the available, and (ii) it enhances the self-
esteem and prestige of those selected and conveys to them the
seriousness with which the things are done in the organisation.
The rigour involves a host of tests and interviews.
Those who are able to successfully negotiate the test and the
interviews are offered an employment contract, a written
document containing the offer of employment, the terms and
conditions and the date of joining.
(iv) Placement and Orientation:
Joining a job marks the beginning of socialisation of the employee
at the workplace.
The employee is given a brief presentation about the company
and is introduced to his superiors, subordinates and the
colleagues. He is taken around the workplace and given the charge
of the job for which he has been selected.
This process of familiarisation is very crucial and may have a
lasting impact on his decision to stay and on his job performance.
Orientation is, thus, introducing the selected employee to other
employees and familiarising him with the rules and policies of the
organisation.
Placement refers to the employee occupying the position or post
for which the person has been selected.
(v) Training and Development:
What people seek is not simply a job but a career. Every one must
have the opportunity to rise to the top. The best way to provide
such an opportunity is to facilitate employee learning.
Organisations have either inhouse training centers or have forged
alliances with training and educational institutes to ensure
continuing learning of their employees. The organisations too
benefit in turn.
If employee motivation is high, their competencies are
strengthened, they perform better and thus, contribute more to
organisational effectiveness and efficiency. By offering the
opportunities for career advancement to their members,
organisations are not only able to attract but also retain its
talented people.
(vi) Performance Appraisal :
After the employees have undergone a period of training and they
have been on the job for some time, there is a need to evaluate
their performance.
All organisations have some formal or informal means of
appraising their employee’s performance.
Performance appraisal means evaluating an employee’s current
and/or past performance as against certain predetermined
standards.
The employee is expected to know what the standards are and the
superior is to provide the employee feedback on his/her
performance. The performance appraisal process, therefore, will
include defining the job, appraising performance and providing
feedback.
(vii) Promotion and career planning :
It becomes necessary for all organisations to address career
related issues and promotional avenues for their employees.
Managers need to design activities to serve employees’ long-term
interests also.
They must encourage employees to grow and realise their full
potential. Promotions are an integral part of people’s career.
Being placed in positions of increased responsibility,more pay,
responsibility and job satisfaction.
(viii) Compensation :
All organisations need to establish wage and salary plans for their
employees.
There are various ways to prepare different pay plans depending
on the worth of the job.
Basically the price of the job needs to be determined.
Compensation, therefore, refers to all forms of pay or rewards
going to employees.
It may be in the form of direct financial payments like wages,
salaries, incentives, commissions and bonuses and indirect
payments like employer paid insurance and vacations.
Direct financial payments are of two types :
time based or performance based.
A time based plan means salary and wages are paid either
daily, weekly or monthly or hourly.
Performance based plans means salary/wages are paid
according to piecework.
For example, a worker may be paid according to the number
of units produced by him/her. There are many methods to
calculate the compensation under various incentive plans to
reward performance.
Certain pay plans can be created which are a combination of
time based pay plus incentives for higher performance.
Various plans may be formulated for paying employees time
based wage or salary as well as performance based financial
incentives and bonuses, and employee benefits.

ASPECTS OF STAFFING
There are three aspects of staffing: recruitment, selection
and training.
I.)Recruitment
Recruitment refers to the process of finding possible
candidates for a job or a function.
Defined as ‘the process of searching for prospective
employees and stimulating them to apply for jobs in an
organisation.’
Advertising is commonly part of the recruitment process,
and can occur through several means, through newspapers,
using newspaper dedicated to job advertisement, through
professional publication, using advertisements placed in
windows, through a job center, through campus interviews,
etc.

SOURCES OF RECRUITMENT
The various activities involved with the process of
recruitment includes
(a) identification of the different sources of labour supply,
(b) assessment of their validity,
(c) choosing the most suitable source or sources, and
(d) inviting applications from the prospective candidates, for
the vacancies.
The requisite positions may be filled up from within the
organisation or from outside.
Thus, there are two sources of recruitment – Internal and
External.

INTERNAL SOURCES
(i) Transfers:
It involves shifting of an employee from one job to another,
one department to another or from one shift to another,
without a substantive change in the responsibilities and
status of the employee.
It may lead to changes in duties and responsibilities, working
condition etc., but not necessarily salary.
Transfer is a good source of filling the vacancies with
employees from over-staffed departments.
It is practically a horizontal movement of employees.
Shortage of suitable personnel in one branch may be filled
through transfer from other branch or department.
Job transfers are also helpful in avoiding termination and in
removing individual problems and grievances.
At the time of transfer, it should be ensured that the
employee to be transferred to another job is capable of
performing it.
Transfers can also be used for training of employees for
learning different jobs.
(ii) Promotions:
Business enterprises generally follow the practice of filling
higher jobs by promoting employees from lower jobs.
Promotion leads to shifting an employee to a higher position,
carrying higher responsibilities, facilities, status and pay.
Promotion is a vertical shifting of employees.
Improves the motivation, loyalty and satisfaction level of
employees.
It has a great psychological impact over the employees
because a promotion at the higher level may lead to a chain
of promotions at lower levels in the organisation.
MERITS OF INTERNAL SOURCES
(i) Employees are motivated to improve their
performance. A promotion at a higher level may lead to
a chain of promotion at lower levels in the
organisation. This motivates the employees to improve
their performance through learning and practice.
Employees work with commitment and loyalty and remain
satisfied with their jobs.
Also peace prevails in the enterprise because of promotional
avenues;
(ii) Internal recruitment also simplifies the process of
selection and placement. The candidates that are
already working in the enterprise can be evaluated
more accurately and economically. This is a more
reliable way of recruitment since the candidates are
already known to the organisation;
(iii) Transfer is a tool of training the employees to prepare
them for higher jobs. Also people recruited from within
the organisation do not need induction training;
(iv) Transfer has the benefit of shifting workforce from the
surplus departments to those where there is shortage
of staff;
(v) Filling of jobs internally is cheaper as compared to getting
candidates from external sources.
LIMITATIONS OF INTERNAL SOURCES
(i) When vacancies are filled through internal promotions,
the scope for induction of fresh talent is reduced.
Hence, complete reliance on internal recruitment
involves danger of ‘inbreeding’ by stopping ‘infusion of
new blood’ into the organisation;
(ii) The employees may become lethargic if they are sure
of timebound promotions;
(iii) A new enterprise cannot use internal sources of
recruitment. No organisation can fill all its vacancies
from internal sources;
(iv) The spirit of competition among the employees may be
hampered; and
(iv) Frequent transfers of employees may often reduce the
productivity of the organisation.

II.)EXTERNAL SOURCES
(i) Direct Recruitment:
A notice is placed on the notice-board of the enterprise
specifying the details of the jobs available.
Jobseekers assemble outside the premises of the
organisation on the specified date and selection is done on
the spot.
Followed usually for casual vacancies of unskilled or semi-
skilled jobs. Such workers are known as casual or ‘badli’
workers and they are paid remuneration on daily wage basis.
This method of recruitment is very inexpensive as it does not
involve any cost of advertising the vacancies.
It is suitable for filling casual vacancies when there is a rush
of work or when some permanent workers are absent.
(ii) Casual Callers:
Many reputed business organisations keep a database of
unsolicited applicants in their offices.
Such job-seekers can be a valuable source of manpower.
A list of such job-seekers can be prepared and can be
screened to fill the vacancies as they arise.
The major merit of this source of recruitment is that it
reduces the cost of recruiting workforce in comparison to
other sources.
(iii) Advertisement:
Advertisement in newspapers or trade and professional
journals is generally used when a wider choice is required.
Most of the senior positions of industry as well as commerce
are filled by this method.
The advantage of advertising vacancies is that more
information about the organisation and job can be given in
the advertisement.
Advertisement gives the management a wider range of
candidates from which to choose.
Advertisements may be placed in leading newspapers.
Its disadvantage is that it may bring in a flood of response,
and many times, from quite unsuitable candidates.
(iv) Employment Exchange:
(v) Employment exchanges run by the Government are
regarded as a good source of recruitment for unskilled
and skilled operative jobs.
In some cases, compulsory notification of vacancies to
employment exchange is required by law.
Help to match personnel demand and supply by serving as
link between job-seekers and employers.
Unfortunately, the records of employment exchange are
often not up to date and many of the candidates referred by
them may not be found suitable.
(vi) Placement Agencies and Management Consultants:
In technical and professional areas, private agencies and
professional bodies appear to be doing substantive work.
Placement agencies provide a nationwide service in
matching personnel demand and supply.
These agencies compile bio-data of a large number of
candidates and recommend suitable names to their clients.
Such agencies charge fee for their services and they are
useful where extensive screening is required.
These professional recruiters can entice the needed top
executives from other companies by making the right offers.
Management consultancy firms help the organisations
to recruit technical, professional and managerial
personnel.
They specialise in middle level and top level executive
placements.
They maintain data bank of persons with different
qualifications and skills and even advertise the jobs on
behalf of their clients to recruit right type of personnel.
vi) Campus Recruitment:
Colleges and institutes of management and technology have become
a popular source of recruitment for technical, professional and
managerial jobs.
Many big organizations maintain a close liaison with the universities,
vocational schools and management institutes to recruit qualified
personnel for various jobs.
Recruitment from educational institutions is a well-established
practice of businesses. This is referred to as campus recruitment.
vii) Recommendations of Employees:
Applicants introduced by present employees, or their friends and
relatives may prove to be a good source of recruitment.
Such applicants are likely to be good employees because their
background is sufficiently known.
A type of preliminary screening takes place because the present
employees know both the company and the candidates and they
would try to satisfy both.
viii) Labour Contractors:
Labour contractors maintain close contacts with labourers and they
can provide the required number of unskilled workers at short notice.
Workers are recruited through labour contractors who are
themselves employees of the organisation.
The disadvantages of this system are that if the contractor himself
decides to leave the organisation, all the workers employed through
him will follow suit.
(ix) Advertising on Television:
The practice of telecasting of vacant posts over Television is
gaining importance these days.
The detailed requirements of the job and the qualities required to
do it are publicised alongwith the profile of the organisation
where vacancy exists.
(x) Web Publishing:
Internet is becoming a common source of recruitment these days.
There are certain websites specifically designed and dedicated for
the purpose of providing information about both job seekers and
job opening.
In fact, websites are very commonly visited both by the
prospective employees and the organisations searching for
suitable people.
MERITS OF EXTERNAL SOURCES
(i) Qualified Personnel: By using external sources of
recruitment, the management can attract qualified and
trained people to apply for vacant jobs in the organisation.
(ii) Wider Choice: When vacancies are advertised widely, a large
number of applicants from outside the organisation apply.
The management has a wider choice while selecting the
people for employment.
(iii) Fresh Talent: The present employees may be insufficient or
they may not fulfill the specifications of the jobs to be filled.
External recruitment provide wider choice and brings new
blood in the organisation. However, it is expensive and time
consuming.
(iv) Competitive Spirit: If a company taps external sources, the
existing staff will have to compete with the outsiders. They
will work harder to show better performance.
LIMITATIONS OF EXTERNAL SOURCES
1. Dissatisfaction among existing staff: External recruitment
may lead to dissatisfaction and frustration among existing
 employees. They may feel that their chances of promotion
are reduced.
2. Lengthy process: Recruitment from external sources takes a
long time. The business has to notify the vacancies and wait
for applications to initiate the selection process.
3. Costly process: It is very costly to recruit staff from external
sources. A lot of money has to be spent on advertisement
and processing of applications.
SELECTION
Selection is the process of identifying and choosing the best
person out of a number of prospective candidates for a job.
The candidates are required to take a series of employment
tests and interviews.
Process of Selection
The important steps in the process of selection are as
follows:
(i) Preliminary Screening:
Preliminary screening helps the manager eliminate
unqualified or unfit job seekers based on the information
supplied in the application forms. Preliminary interviews
help reject misfits for reasons, which did not appear in the
application forms.
(ii) Selection Tests:
An employment test is a mechanism (either a paper and
pencil test or an exercise) that attempts to measure certain
characteristics of individuals. These characteristics range
from aptitudes, such as manual dexterity, to intelligence to
personality
Important Tests Used for Selection of Employees:
a) Intelligence Tests:
This is one of the important psychological tests used to
measure the level of intelligence quotient of an individual. It
is an indicator of a person’s learning ability or the ability to
make decisions and judgments.
(b) Aptitude Test:
It is a measure of individuals potential for learning new skills.
It indicates the person’s capacity to develop.
Such tests are good indices of a person’s future success
score.
(c) Personality Tests:
Personality tests provide clues to a person’s emotions, her
reactions, maturity and value system etc. These tests probe
the overall personality. Hence, these are difficult to design
and implement.
(d) Trade Test:
These tests measure the existing skills of the individual. They
measure the level of knowledge and proficiency in the area
of professions or technical training. The difference between
aptitude test and trade test is that the former measures the
potential to acquire skills and the later the actual skills
possessed.
(e) Interest Tests:
Every individual has fascination for some job than the other.
Interest tests are used to know the pattern of interests or
involvement of a person.
(iii) Employment Interview:
Interview is a formal, in-depth conversation conducted to
evaluate the applicant’s suitability for the job. The role of the
interviewer is to seek information and that of the
interviewee is to provide the same. Though, in present times,
the interviewee also seeks information from interviewer.
(iv) Reference and Background Checks:
Many employers request names, addresses, and telephone
numbers of references for the purpose of verifying
information and, gaining additional information on an
applicant. Previous employers, known persons, teachers and
university professors can act as references.
v) Selection Decision:
The final decision has to be made from among the
candidates who pass the tests, interviews and reference
checks. The views of the concerned manager will be
generally considered in the final selection because it is
he/she who is responsible for the performance of the new
employee.
vi) Medical Examination:
After the selection decision and before the job offer is made,
the candidate is required to undergo a medical fitness test.
The job offer is given to the candidate being declared fit after
the medical examination.
(vii) Job Offer: The next step in the selection process is job
offer to those applicants who have passed all the
previous hurdles. Job offer is made through a letter of
appointment/confirm his acceptance. Such a letter
generally contains a date by which the appointee must
report on duty. The appointee must be given
reasonable time for reporting.
(viii) Contract of Employment:
After the job offer has been made and candidate accepts the
offer, certain documents need to be executed by the
employer and the candidate.
One such document is the attestation form. This form
contains certain vital details about the candidate, which are
authenticated and attested by him or her. Attestation form
will be a valid record for future reference. There is also a
need for preparing a contract of employment.
Basic information that should be included in a written
contract of employment will vary according to the level of
the job, but the following checklists sets out the typical
headings: Job Title, Duties, Responsibilities, Date when
continuous employment starts and the basis for calculating
service, rates of pay, allowances, hours of work, leave rules,
sickness, grievance procedure, disciplinary procedure, work
rules, termination of employment.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Someone has rightly said: “If you wish to plan for a year,
sow seeds, If you wish to plan for 10 years, plant trees, If
you wish to plan for a lifetime, develop people.”
Training and Development is an attempt to improve the
current or future employee performance by increasing an
employee’s ability to perform through learning, usually by
changing the employee’s attitude or increasing his or her
skills and knowledge.
IMPORTANCE OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
Benefits to the organisation
(i) Training is a systematic learning, always better than hit
and trial methods which lead to wastage of efforts and
money.
(ii) It enhances employee productivity both in terms of
quantity and quality, leading to higher profits.
(iii) Training equips the future manager who can take over
in case of emergency.
(iv) Training increases employee morale and reduces
absenteeism and employee turnover.
(iv) It helps in obtaining effective response to fast changing
environment – technological and economic.
Benefits to the Employee
(i) Improved skills and knowledge due to training lead
to better career of the individual.
(ii) Increased performance by the individual help him to
earn more.
(iii) Training makes the employee more efficient to
handle machines. Thus, less prone to accidents.
(iv) Training increases the satisfaction and morale of
employees.

Training, Development and Education

The term training is --- the process by which attitudes,
skills and abilities of employees to perform specific jobs
are increased.
But the term development means growth of individual in
all respects.
Training is short term process but development is an on
going process.
Also, development includes training.
Training is any process by which the aptitudes, skills and
abilities of employees to perform specific jobs are
increased.
It is a process of learning new skills and application of
knowledge.
It attempts to improve their performance on the current
job or prepare them for any intended job.
Education is the process of increasing the knowledge and
understanding of employees.
It is the understanding and interpretation of knowledge. It
does not provide definite answers, but rather develops a
logical and rational mind that can determine relationships
among pertinent variables and thereby understand a
phenomenon.
Education imparts qualities of mind and character and
understanding of the basic principles and develop the
capacities of analysis, synthesis and objectivity.
Education is broader in scope than training. Training is tied
to the goals of organisations more than to the goals of the
individual.
Development refers to the learning opportunities
designed to help employees grow.
It covers not only those activities which improve job
performance but also those which bring about growth of
the personality, help individuals in the progress towards
maturity and actualisation of their potential capacities so
that they become not only good employees but better
men and women.
TRAINING METHODS
These are broadly categorised into two groups:
On-the-Job and Off-the Job methods.
On-the-Job methods refer to the methods that are
applied to the workplace, while the employee is actually
working. --- means learning while doing
Off-the-Job methods are used away from the work
place--- learning before doing
ON THE JOB METHODS
(i) Apprenticeship Programmes:
Apprenticeship programmes put the trainee under the
guidance of a master worker. These are designed to
acquire a higher level of skill.
People seeking to enter skilled jobs, to become, for
example, plumbers, electricians or iron-workers, are often
required to undergo apprenticeship training.
These apprentices are trainees who spend a prescribed
amount of time working with an experienced guide, or
trainer.
A uniform period of training is offered to trainees, in
which both fast and slow learn here, are placed together.
Slow learners may require additional training.
Ii) Internship Training: It is a joint programme of training
in which educational institutions and business firms
cooperate. Selected candidates carry on regular studies
for the prescribed period. They also work in some factory
or office to acquire practical knowledge and skills.
OFF THE JOB METHOD
 I) Vestibule Training:
Employees learn their jobs on the equipment they will be using, but
the training is conducted away from the actual work floor.
Actual work environments are created in a class room and employees
use the same materials, files and equipment. This is usually done
when employees are required to handle sophisticated machinery and
equipment.