Staffing Organizations

Chapter 1:
Staffing Models and Strategy

Copyright 2022 © McGraw Hill LLC. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill LLC.
 The Big Picture
• Organizations are combinations of physical, financial, and
human capital
• Human capital
• Knowledge, skills and abilities of people
• Their motivation to do the job

• Scope of human capital

• An average organization’s employee cost (wages or salaries and
benefits) is over 22% of its total revenue
• Organizations that capitalize on human capital have a strategic
advantage over their competitors

© McGraw Hill LLC

 The Nature of Staffing
• Definition
• “Staffing is the process of acquiring, deploying, and retaining a
workforce of sufficient quantity and quality to create positive impacts
on the organization’s effectiveness.”
• Implications of definition
• Acquire, deploy, retain
• Staffing as a process or system
• Quantity and quality issues
• Organizational effectiveness

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Staffing System Examples
• W.L. Gore and Associates
• Staffing jobs without titles
• Focus on culture in recruiting and selecting

• Marriott
• Social media to enhance discussions of employment brand
• Use of online games to build interest/awareness

• Enterprise Rent-A-Car
• Use a strong internal labor market
• Performance evaluation is used for placement

© McGraw Hill LLC

 MANAGING PEOPLE: A CRITICAL ROLE FOR EVERY
MANAGER
• Organizations are managed and staffed by people. Without
people, organizations cannot exist.
• Managers are responsible for optimizing all of the resources
available to them—material, capital, and human.
• When it comes to managing people, all managers must be
concerned to some degree with the following five activities:
1. Staffing comprises the activities of:
• Identifying work requirements within an organization;
• Determining the numbers of people and the skills mix
necessary to do the work; and
• Recruiting, selecting, and promoting qualified candidates.

© McGraw Hill LLC

 MANAGING PEOPLE: A CRITICAL ROLE FOR EVERY
MANAGER
2. Retention: Rewarding employees for performing their jobs
effectively;
• Ensuring harmonious working relations between employees
and managers;
• And maintaining a safe, healthy work environment.
3. Development: Enhance employees’ competence in their jobs
through: knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics
4. Adjustment comprises activities intended to maintain
compliance with the organization’s HR policies (e.g., through
discipline) and business strategies (e.g., cost leadership).
5. Managing change: Ongoing process whose objective is to
enhance the ability of an organization to anticipate and respond
to developments in its external and internal environments, and
to enable employees at all levels to cope with the changes.
© McGraw Hill LLC
 Exhibit 1.2: Staffing Quantity

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Exhibit 1.3: Person-Job Match

Access the text alternative for slide images.

© McGraw Hill LLC
 Concepts: Person-Job Match Model
• Jobs are characterized by • Matching process involves
their requirements and dual match
rewards • KSAOs to requirements
• Individuals are • Motivation to rewards
characterized via
• Job requirements expressed
qualifications (KSAOS) and
in terms of
motivation
• Tasks involved
• These concepts are not
• KSAOs necessary for
new. This is an enduring
performance of tasks
model of staffing
• Job requirements often
extend beyond task and
KSAO requirements

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Exhibit 1.4: Person-Organization Match

Access the text alternative for slide images.

© McGraw Hill LLC
 Concepts: Person-Organization Match Model
• Organizational culture and values
• Norms of desirable attitudes and behaviors for employees
• New job duties
• Tasks that may be added to target job over time
• “And other duties as assigned . . . “

• Multiple jobs
• Flexibility concerns - Hiring people who could perform multiple jobs
• Future jobs
• Long-term matches during employment relationship

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Exhibit 1.5: Staffing System Components

Access the text alternative for slide images.

© McGraw Hill LLC
 Components of Staffing Organizations Model 1
• Organizational strategy
• Mission and vision
• Goals and objectives

• HR strategy
• Involves key decisions about size and type of workforce to be acquired,
trained, managed, rewarded, and retained
• Flows from organizational strategy
• Directly influences formulation of organization strategy

• Staffing strategy
• An outgrowth of the interplay between organization and HR strategy
• Involves key decisions regarding acquisition, deployment, and retention of
organization’s workforce
• Guide development of recruitment, selection, and employment programs
© McGraw Hill LLC
 Components of Staffing Organizations Model 2
• Support activities
• Addressing the social and legal environment
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Planning
• Job analysis
• Serve as foundation for conduct of core staffing activities

• Core staffing activities

• Recruitment
• Selection
• Employment

• Staffing and retention system management

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Strategic Staffing Decisions: Staffing Levels 1
• Acquire or develop talent
• Acquire: employees who are ready to “hit the ground running”
• Develop: employees who need development to perform their jobs

• Hire yourself or outsource:

• Hire yourself: Use in-house staffing function
• Outsource: Hire an external vendor for hiring

• External or internal hiring

• External hiring: Focus on using an external labor market for job
openings
• Internal hiring: Promotion and transfer from within

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Strategic Staffing Decisions: Staffing Levels 2
• Core or flexible workforce
• Core workforce: regular workers attached to the company for long
periods
• Flexible workforce: temporary employees or independent contractors

• Hire or retain
• Hire: accept turnover rates and hire frequently
• Retain: extra efforts to increase employee retention

• National or global
• National: keeping all organizational functions in the home country
• Global: locating services and production in multiple areas

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Strategic Staffing Decisions: Staffing Levels 3
• Attract or relocate
• Attract: transfer or relocate employees to existing locations
• Relocate: locate facilities where potential applicants are

• Overstaff or understaff
• Overstaff: have slightly more staff than needed as a buffer
• Understaff: have slightly fewer staff than needed to save costs

• Short- or long-term focus

• Short-term: address and focus on immediate needs
• Long-term: focus on future needs

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Strategic Staffing Decisions: Staffing Quality
• Person/Job or Person/Organization match
• Person-job: selection focused on one job’s task requirements
• Person-organization: focus on broader competencies and values

• Specific or general KSAOs

• Specific: fine-tuned KSAOs that address task-oriented skills
• General: broad KSAOs that relate to many broad skills

• Exceptional or acceptable workforce quality

• Exceptional: hire the best possible candidates at high cost
• Acceptable: reduce costs with willingness to hire less qualified candidates

• Active or passive diversity

• Active: policies go beyond eliminating discrimination, and include specialized
recruiting, training, and development to address diversity
• Passive: eliminate discrimination, and then let diversity happen naturally
© McGraw Hill LLC
 FEATURES OF THE COMPETITIVE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

A. Globalization is the ability of any individual or company to

compete, connect, exchange, or collaborate globally.
 Markets in every country have become fierce battlegrounds
where both domestic and foreign competitors fight for
market share.
 For example, Coca-Cola earns more than 75% of its
revenues from outside the U.S.
 The world’s 500 largest companies in 2019 generated
$32.7 trillion in revenues and $2.15 trillion in profits.
 Together, they employ 69.3 million people worldwide
and are represented by 34 countries.
© McGraw Hill LLC
 FEATURES OF THE COMPETITIVE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

A. Implications of Globalization for HRM

• Globalization is a fact of organizational life, as countries,
companies, and workers are interconnected as never before.
• Coronavirus outbreak in China in 2020 affected global
business and markets.
• It affected industries as diverse as airlines, automobiles,
and consumer electronics—affecting supply chains
around the world.

• Another feature of globalization is that cheap labor and

plentiful resources, combined with ease of travel and
communication, have created global labor markets.
© McGraw Hill LLC
 FEATURES OF THE COMPETITIVE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

A. Implications of Globalization for HRM

• Increasing workforce flux as more roles are automated or
outsourced and more workers are contract-based, are
mobile, or work flexible hours.
• Expect more diversity as workers come from a greater range
of backgrounds.
• Enhance technical skills.

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Technology

• Technology is changing the manner in which businesses create

and capture value, how and where people work, and how they
interact and communicate.
• Five technologies that are transforming the very foundations of
global business and the organizations that drive it:
– Cloud and mobile computing
– Big data and machine learning
– Sensors and intelligent manufacturing
– Advanced robotics and drones
– Clean-energy technologies
• These technologies are not just helping people to do things
better and faster but also enabling profound changes in the
ways that work is done in organizations.
© McGraw Hill LLC
 • Impact of New Technology on HRM

• Technology is changing the nature of competition, work, and

employment in profound ways, requiring active management
• For example, Levi Strauss & Co. is introducing robotic
software to its finance function while “upskilling”
employees to spend more time on analysis.
• According the McKinsey Global Institute, by 2030 as many as
30-40 percent of workers in developed countries may need
to move into new occupations or upgrade their skill sets
significantly.
• Skilled workers in short supply will become even
scarcer.
• Amazon pledged $700 million to train 100,000
© McGraw Hill LLC
 Sustainability: Ability to meet the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their needs.
• Sustainability is more than simply meeting responsibilities to
society
• Indeed, responsible approaches to social and environmental
issues are likely to pay off in a number of tangible ways.
– PepsiCo focuses on three broad themes:
– Human sustainability – promote healthy food and drinks
– By 2025 it plans to reduce added sugar and fat in its products
– Talent sustainability – attract top talent for a diverse culture

• Environmental sustainability; By 2025 it plans to make 100

percent of its packaging recyclable and reduce waste by 50
percent.
© McGraw Hill LLC
 Implications of Sustainability for HRM
• From a people-management perspective, the challenge is to
hire and develop managers who can deal with present as well
as future sustainability issues facing their organizations.
• One way to encourage that is to tie executive compensation to
sustainability goals and results.
• Make a public commitment,
• The CEO should lead by example,
• Help employees understand the link between sustainable
products and processes and strategic business goals, and

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Demographic Changes and Increasing Cultural Diversity

• The number as well as the mix of people available to work

are changing rapidly.
– By 2040, the non-Hispanic white population is projected to drop
below 50 percent in the U.S., with Hispanics making up more than a
quarter of the population.
– The United Nations estimates that by 2060, for every 100 people of
working age, there will be 30 people who are 65 or older – more than
double the ratio today.
– Immigration is projected to account for 88 percent of U.S. population
growth over the next 50 years, such that by 2055 there will be no
majority racial or ethnic group.

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Implications for HRM
• These trends have two key implications for managers:
– The reduced supply of workers (at least in some fields) will make
finding and keeping employees a top priority.
– The task of managing a culturally diverse workforce, of harnessing
the motivation and efforts of a wide variety of workers, will present a
continuing challenge to management.
• The organizations that thrive will be the ones that embrace
the new demographic trends instead of fighting them.
– That will mean more women and minorities in the workforce—and
the boardrooms.
– Workforce diversity is not just a competitive advantage; today it is a
competitive necessity.

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Exhibit 1.8: Suggestions for Ethical Staffing Practice
• Represent the organization’s interests.
• Beware of conflicts of interest.
• Remember the job applicant.
• Follow staffing policies and procedures.
• Know and follow the law.
• Consult professional codes of conduct.
• Shape effective practice with research results.
• Seek ethics advice.
• Be aware of an organization’s ethical climate/culture

© McGraw Hill LLC

 Ethical Issues in Staffing
• Issue 1
• As a staffing professional in the human resources department or as
the hiring manager of a work unit, explain why it is so important to
represent the organization’s interests, and what are some possible
consequences of not doing so?
• Issue 2
• One of the strategic staffing choices is whether to pursue workforce
diversity actively or passively. First suggest some ethical reasons for
the active pursuit of diversity, and then suggest some ethical reasons
for a more passive approach.

© McGraw Hill LLC