SUMMARY

At the national level, staffing involves a huge number of hiring transactions each year, is a major cost of doing business $($especially for

service$-$providing industries$),$ and can lead to substantial revenue and growth for the organization. Staffing is defined as "the process of

acquiring, deploying, and retaining a workforce of sufficient quantity and quality to create positive impacts on the organization's

effectiveness." The definition emphasizes that both staffing levels and labor quality contribute to an organization's effectiveness, and that a

concerted set of labor acquisition, deployment, and retention actions guides the flow of people into, within, and out of the organization.

Descriptions of three staffing systems help highlight the definition of staffing.

Several models illustrate various elements of staffing. The staffing level model shows how projected labor requirements and availabilities

are compared to derive staffing levels that represent being overstaffed, fully staffed, or understaffed. The next two models illustrate staffing

quality via the person$/$job match and the person$/$organization match. The former indicates there is a need to match $(1)$ the person's

KSAOs to job requirements and $(2)$ the person's motivation to the job's rewards. In the person$/$organization match, the person's

characteristics are matched to additional factors beyond the target job, namely, organizational values, new job duties for the target job,

multiple jobs, and future jobs. Effectively managing the matching process results in positive impacts on HR outcomes such as attraction,

performance, and retention. The core staffing components model shows that there are three basic activities in staffing: recruitment

$($identification and attraction of applicants$),$ selection $($assessment and evaluation of applicants$),$ and employment $($decision making and

final match$).$ The staffing organizations model shows that organization, HR$,$ and staffing strategies are formulated and shape staffing

policies and programs. In turn, these meld into a set of staffing support activities $($legal compliance, planning, and job analysis$),$ as well as

the core activities $($recruitment$,$ selection, and employment$).$ Retention and staffing system management activities cut across both support

and core activities.

Staffing strategy is both an outgrowth of and a contributor to HR and organization strategy. Thirteen important strategic staffing decisions loom for any organization. Some pertain to staffing level choices, and others deal with staffing quality choices. Staffing ethics involves determining moral principles and guidelines for practice. Numerous suggestions were made for ethical conduct in staffing, and many pressure points for sidestepping such conduct are in operation. Appropriate ways of handling such pressures will be discussed in the remainder of the book. The staffing organizations model serves as the structural framework for the book. The first part treats staffing models and strategy. The second part treats the support activities of legal compliance, planning, and job analysis. The next three parts treat the core staffing activities of recruitment, selection, and employment. The last section addresses staffing systems and employee retention management. Each chapter has a section labeled "Legal Issues," as well as discussion questions, ethical issues questions, applications, and endnotes.

$****$DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

What are potential problems with having a staffing process in which vacancies are filled $(1)$ on a lottery basis from among job applicants,

or $(2)$ on a first come$-$first hired basis among job applicants?