Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter 1 - Staffing Models and Strategies
Chapter 1 - Staffing Models and Strategies
Chapter Objectives:
1. Define staffing and consider how, in the big picture, staffing decisions matter
2. Review the five staffing models presented, and consider the advantages and disadvantages of each
3. Consider the staffing system components and how they fit into the plan for the book
4. Understand the staffing organizations model and how its various components fit into the plan for the book
5. Appreciate the importance of staffing strategy, and review the 13 decisions that staffing strategy requires
Chapter Contents:
1.1 Definition of Staffing
1.2 Staffing Models
1.3 Staffing Strategies
Deployment refers to the placement of new hires on the actual job they will hold, something that may not be
entirely clear at the time of hire, such as the specific work unit or geographic location. Deployment also
encompasses guiding the movement of current employees throughout the organization through internal staffing
systems that handle promotions, transfers, and new project assignments for employees. Internal staffing systems
mimic external staffing systems in many respects, such as planning for promotion and transfer vacancies,
establishing job requirements and job rewards, recruiting employees for promotion or transfer opportunities,
evaluating employees’ qualifications, and making them job offers for the new position.
Retention systems seek to manage the inevitable flow of employees out of the organization. Sometimes these
outflows are involuntary on the part of the employee, such as through layoffs or the sale of a business unit to
another organization. Other outflows are voluntary in that they are initiated by the employee, such as leaving the
organization to take another job (a potentially avoidable turnover by the organization) or leaving the organization
to follow one’s spouse or partner to a new geographic location (a potentially unavoidable turnover by the
organization). Of course, no organization can or should seek to completely eliminate employee outflows, but the
organization should try to minimize the types of turnover in which valued employees leave for “greener pastures”
elsewhere—namely, voluntary avoidable turnover. Such turnover can be very costly to the organization. So, can
turnover due to employee discharges and downsizing. Through various retention strategies and tactics, the
organization can combat these types of turnover, seeking to retain those employees it thinks it cannot afford to
lose.
2. Staffing as a Process or System
Staffing is not an event, such as “we hired two people today.” Rather, staffing is a process that establishes and
governs the flow of people into the organization, within the organization, and out of the organization. There are
multiple interconnected systems that organizations use to manage the people flows. These include planning,
recruitment, selection, decision making, job offer, and retention systems. Occurrences or actions in one system
inevitably affect other systems.
4. Organization Effectiveness
Staffing systems exist, and should be used, to contribute to the attainment of organizational goals such as survival,
profitability, and growth. A macro view of staffing like this is often lost or ignored because most of the day- to-
day operations of staffing systems involve micro activities that are procedural, transactional, and routine in nature.
While these micro activities are essential for staffing systems, they must be viewed within the broader macro
context of the positive impacts staffing can have on organization effectiveness. There are many indications of this
critical role of staffing.
Comments like these raise four important points about the person/job match. First, jobs are characterized by their
requirements (e.g., interpersonal skills, previous budgeting experience) and embedded rewards (e.g., commission
sales plan, challenge and autonomy). Second, individuals are characterized by their level of qualification (e.g.,
few interpersonal skills, extensive budgeting experience) and motivation (e.g., need for pay to depend on
performance, need for challenge and autonomy). Third, in each of the previous examples the issue was the likely
degree of fit or match between the characteristics of the job and the person. Fourth, there are implied consequences
for every match. For example, Clark may not perform very well in his interactions with customers; retention
might quickly become an issue with Jack.
Exhibit 1.4 shows this expanded view of the match. The focal point of staffing is the person/job match, and the
job is like the bull’s-eye of the matching target. Four other matching concerns involving the broader organization,
also arise in staffing. These concerns involve organizational values, new job duties, multiple jobs, and future jobs.
4. Staffing System Components
As noted, staffing encompasses managing the flows of people into and within the organization, as well as retaining
them. The core staffing process has several components that represent steps and activities that occur over the
course of these flows. Exhibit 1.5 shows these components and the general sequence in which they occur.
As shown in the exhibit, staffing begins with a joint interaction between the applicant and the organization. The
applicant seeks the organization and job opportunities within it, and the organization seeks applicants for job
vacancies it has or anticipates having. Both the applicant and the organization are thus involved as “players” in
the staffing process from the very beginning, and they remain joint participants throughout the process.
At times, the organization may be the dominant player, such as in aggressive and targeted recruiting for certain
types of applicants. At other times, the applicant may be the aggressor, such as when the applicant desperately
seeks employment with a particular organization and will go to almost any length to land a job with it. Most of
the time, staffing involves a more balanced and natural interplay between the applicant and the organization,
which occurs over the course of the staffing process.
5. Staffing Organizations
The overall staffing organizations model is shown in Exhibit 1.6. It depicts that the organization’s mission and
goals and objectives drive both organization strategy and HR and staffing strategy, which interact with each other
when they are being formulated. Staffing policies and programs result from such interaction and serve as an
overlay to both support activities and core staffing activities. Employee retention and staffing system management
concerns cut across these support and core staffing activities. Finally, though not shown in the model, it should
be remembered that staffing levels and staffing quality are the key focal points of staffing strategy, policy, and
programs. A more thorough examination of the model follows next.
Underlying these objectives are certain assumptions about the size and types of workforces that will need to be
acquired, trained, managed, rewarded, and retained. HR strategy represents the key decisions about how these
workforce assumptions will be handled. Such HR strategy may not only flow from the organization strategy but
also may actually contribute directly to the formulation of the organization’s strategy.
Staffing strategy is an outgrowth of the interplay between organization strategy and HR strategy, escribed above.
It deals directly with key decisions regarding the acquisition, deployment, and retention of the organization’s
workforces. Such decisions guide the development of recruitment, selection, and employment programs. In the
software development example discussed above, the strategic decision to acquire new employees from the ranks
of experienced people at other organizations may lead the organization to develop very active, personalized, and
secret recruiting activities for luring these people away. It may also lead to the development of special selection
techniques for assessing job experiences and accomplishments. In such ways, strategic staffing decisions shape
the staffing process.
1. Staffing Levels
The flexible workforce is composed of more peripheral workers who are used on an as- needed, just- in-time
basis. They are not viewed (nor do they view themselves) as “regular,” and legally, most of them are not even
employees of the organization. Rather, they are employees of an alternative organization, such as a staffing firm
(temporary help agency) or independent contractor that provides these workers to the organization. Strategically,
the organization must decide whether it wishes to use both core and flexible workforces, what the mixture of core
versus flexible workers will be, and in what jobs and units of the organization these mixtures will be deployed.
Within the software development organization, programmers might be considered as part of its core workforce,
but ancillary workers (e.g., clerical) may be part of the flexible workforce, particularly since the need for them
will depend on the speed and success of new product development.
Since both strategies have costs and benefits associated with them, the organization could conduct an analysis to
determine these and then strive for an optimal mix of hiring and retention. In this way the organization could
control its inflow needs (replacement staffing) by controlling its outflow (retention).
2. Staffing Quality