Staffing Class 12 Notes

Staffing is the process of filling and keeping filled the posts in the organisation's structure, and the chapter takes the definition apart because the two clauses carry the two halves of the idea.

• It is the process of filling the posts, and filling means putting the right person in each post with the qualification and the experience that the post requires.
• It is the process of keeping the posts filled, so it is not only the initial hiring, it is also the replacement when a person leaves, the promotion when a person has grown and the transfer when a person is to be moved.
• The first clause is positive in sense, because the staffing puts a person in a post that he is able to fill, and the second clause is negative in sense, because a person who cannot fill the post is to be removed from it or is not to be put in it.
• Staffing is a pervasive function, because every organisation has its people to be staffed and every manager at every level has a staffing responsibility for the people under him, and the top management staffs the senior posts, the middle management staffs the departmental posts and the lower management staffs the operative posts.
• It puts the human resources into the main stream of the management, because it is the people who carry out the plan, so the staffing decides the quality of the work of every other function.
• It is important because it puts the right person in the right job, because it improves the performance and the productivity, because it develops the people who will occupy the senior posts later, because it reduces the cost of the training and of the wastage, and because it contributes to the satisfaction and to the morale of the employees.

The syllabus places the staffing inside the human resource management, and the relationship is a part-and-whole one, so the difference between the two is a standard question.

• The human resource management deals with the people as a resource of the organisation, and it concerns the acquisition, the development, the compensation and the retention of the people, and it is therefore the wider and the management-level discipline.
• The staffing is the function of putting the right person in each post of the structure, and it is the operational part of the human resource management, so the staffing is narrower and it is a part of it.
• The human resource management is concerned with the people as a whole, and it deals with the performance, the appraisal and the welfare, while the staffing is concerned with the post, the vacancy and the placement.
• The staffing is therefore the part of the human resource management that answers the question of who occupies which post, and the human resource management answers what should be done with the people who occupy them.
• The relationship is also one of the level, because the human resource management is a policy and a direction set by the senior management, while the staffing is the daily execution of that policy at the level of the department and of the section.
• The other specialised duties of the human resource management, the appraisal, the compensation, the welfare and the industrial relations, are what remain after the staffing has filled the posts, and the staffing is the entry point of all of them.

The process is given as a sequence, and it runs from the estimate of the requirement to the training of the person who has been placed.

• The first step is the estimation of the manpower requirement, and it is done by studying the work, the workflow, the workload, the technique and the past experience of the organisation, and it is a decision about the number and about the kind of the people.
• The second step is the recruitment, which produces the pool of the applicants, and the third is the selection, which chooses from that pool.
• The fourth step is the placement of the selected candidate in the post, and the fifth is the training and the development of that person, so that he may perform the work well.
• The steps may be grouped as the negative steps, which are the recruitment and the selection, because both are meant to eliminate the unsuitable, and the positive steps, which are the placement and the training, because they are meant to develop and to use the person who has been chosen.
• The staff manager performs the whole process and the other managers perform the staffing of their own people, so the staffing is not the work of the personnel department alone.
• The process is continuous, because the people leave, the organisation grows and the technology changes, so the estimate has to be made again and again and a vacancy in a post can appear at any time.

Recruitment is the first half of the negative process, and the chapter treats the sources of the recruitment in detail, because a question on the internal and the external sources is a standard three-mark question.

• Recruitment is the process of searching for the prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for the job, and it is concerned with increasing the pool of the candidates.
• Recruitment is a positive and wider process and it is concerned with the number and the sources of the applicants, and the selection is a negative and the narrower process and it is concerned with the qualities of the candidate.
• The merits of the internal recruitment: the employee is already known, so the risk of the wrong selection is less, the recruitment cost is lower because there is no advertising, the employee is motivated because the promotion is a reward, and the chances of the career are better, so the morale of the employees rises.
• The demerits of the internal recruitment: it is limited to the existing employees, so the choice is narrow and the best talent is often left out, the promotions become frequent and the employees may ask for a higher wage than they are worth, and the existing employees must be trained for the new work, and this is a cost.
• The merits of the external recruitment: the pool is large and the best talent can be selected, and the candidate brings the new ideas and the new skills into the organisation, and it is a source of freshness.
• The demerits of the external recruitment: the cost of the recruitment is high, the selection process is lengthy, there is the dissatisfaction and the demotivation of the existing employees because the outsider has been given the higher post, and the new employee takes time to understand the work and the organisation.
• The sources of the external recruitment are the advertisement, the employment exchange, the campus recruitment, the placement agencies, the recommendations of the employees, the direct recruitment on the gate, the labour contractors, the web publishing, and the transfer and the promotion of the employee from the other branch of the same organisation.

Selection is the stage at which the applicants are screened, and the process is longer than the recruitment and the method used to screen changes as the process proceeds.

• The selection process begins with the preliminary screening, in which the applications that do not meet the basic requirements are rejected on the basis of the application form and the scrutiny of the application.
• The next step is the selection tests, and there are four kinds, the intelligence test, the aptitude test, the personality test and the trade test, and the intelligence test measures the mental ability, the aptitude test measures the specific skill for the job, the personality test measures the character and the temperament, and the trade test measures the professional skill.
• The next step is the employment interview, and it is the crucial step, and the interview is taken to find out the truth about the candidate, and the person who is to conduct the interview must know the job and the objective of the interview and the candidate.
• The next step is the reference and the background check, in which the past record of the candidate is verified, and it is the process of obtaining the information about the candidate from the previous employer, from the educational institution and from the other sources.
• The next step is the selection of the candidates and the job offer, in which the letter of appointment is issued to the selected candidate and the other candidates are informed that the position has been filled.
• The merits of the selection: it ensures that the most competent and the most suitable candidate is chosen, it reduces the turnover because a well chosen person stays, and it reduces the training cost, and the demerit is that it is a costly and a time-consuming process and the delay may cause the firm to lose the best candidate to a competitor.

Once the person is placed, the process has not ended, and the last stage is what makes the person effective in the post and ready for the next one.

• Training is the process of increasing the knowledge and the skills of an employee for doing a particular job, and it is concerned with the present job, so it is a short term and a narrow process that prepares a person for the work he is doing now.
• Development is the process of increasing the knowledge and the skill of an employee for the overall growth of the individual and of the organisation, and it is concerned with the future roles, so it is a long term and a wider process.
• The difference: the training is job specific and the development is career specific, the training is for the present and the development for the future, the training is narrow and the development is wide, and the training is generally given to the lower level and the development to the higher.
• The importance of the training to the organisation is that it improves the quality of the work, it reduces the wastage and the cost of the supervision, it keeps the person in step with the change in the technology, and it develops the successors for the senior posts.
• The importance of the training to the employee is that it raises the earning capacity, it gives the confidence and the satisfaction, it removes the fear of the new work, and it opens the path to the promotion.
• The importance of the development is that the organisation cannot be run by the people it already has for ever, so the development is the insurance of the future and it is the way the second line of the leadership is created.

The methods are the most examinable part of the training, because the division into the on the job and the off the job is the standard comparison and the three named off the job methods are the standard list.

• The on the job training is given at the place of the work while the person is doing the job, so the learning is immediate and the cost is the wages of the person for the time, and the methods are the job rotation, the coaching or the training under the experienced worker, the apprenticeship, the refresher training for the old employees against the new methods, and the training with a view to the promotion.
• The off the job training is given away from the work, so the person is not doing the job while he is being trained, and the methods are the simulation, the classroom training, the programmed learning, the on the job and the off the job combination, and the three that the chapter names in detail.
• The vestibule training is given in a separate and a simulated work environment, either on the premises of the firm or outside, and the person learns the work on the equipment of the firm without disturbing the actual production, and it is used for the new employees who must be made job-ready before they are put on the live work.
• The apprenticeship training is the training given to the person who is learning a trade, and the person is engaged in the work as a helper with a small wage, so that the learning is by doing and the cost to the firm is low because the work is done by the apprentice.
• The internship training is the training given to a student or to a fresh graduate who is attached to a firm for a fixed period, and the firm uses the person in the work of a real department and the person gets the practical exposure that the college cannot give, and it is the usual route by which the campus recruitment is prepared.
• The choice between them turns on one question, which is whether the work can be disturbed by the learning. The on the job training suits the work that can be done under the supervision of a senior at the actual machine, and the off the job training suits the new technology, the management knowledge and the theory, where a class is cheaper and faster than a production line.