Staffing
Scope and process
Staffing means filling and keeping filled the positions in the organisation structure. It is the human side of management and part of human resource management. The process runs: estimating manpower requirements → recruitment → selection → placement and orientation → training and development → performance appraisal → promotion and career advancement → compensation → retirement and separation.
Recruitment sources
Internal: promotion and transfer (cheaper, motivating, but limits fresh talent). External: direct recruitment, casual callers, advertisement, employment exchanges, placement agencies, campus recruitment, recommendations, web publishing, factory gate.
Selection
Preliminary screening → selection tests (aptitude, trade, personality, interest, intelligence) → employment interview → reference checks → selection decision → medical examination → job offer → contract of employment. Recruitment is positive, attracting candidates; selection is negative, filtering them out.
Training methods
On the job: apprenticeship, coaching, internship, vestibule training. Off the job: classroom lectures, films, case study, conference, computer modelling.
Worked example
An airline trains cabin crew in a mock aircraft cabin on its own premises. This is vestibule training - a simulated setting, classified as an off-the-job method even though it happens inside the plant. Candidates lose the mark by calling it apprenticeship, which is learning beside a skilled worker on real work.
Traps that cost marks
- Merging recruitment and selection into one stage.
- Describing training as a cost rather than an investment.
- Placing vestibule training on the job because of its location.
- Forgetting the contract of employment as the last selection step.