CHAPTER 8:

STAFFING

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 Staffing

• Staffing
– Process of recruiting & selecting prospective
employees
– Has significant impact on organization’s bottom line
• Requires staffing process to become strategically
focused
– Recruitment & selection activities offer organization
numerous choices to find & select new employees
– Staffing decisions need to ensure employees fit
organization’s culture
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 Recruiting

• Temporary versus permanent employees

– Increase headcount temporarily or permanently
should be strategically-driven
– Basis for decisions is HR forecast
– Temporary employees less costly
– Temporary headcount increases can be obtained
from specialized agencies
– Headcount increases can be avoided by
subcontracting work

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 Exhibit 8-1
Advantages & Disadvantages of Internal &
External Recruiting

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 Recruiting

• When & how extensively to recruit

– When do recruiting efforts need to begin?
– How large an applicant pool needed?
– Data from past recruiting efforts utilized
• To answer questions where feasible
• Adjust for changed conditions
• Yield ratios
– Offer information on how many applicants eliminated/remain
at each step in recruitment process
– Can determine proper or necessary size of applicant pool

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 Exhibit 8-2
Recruiting Pyramid

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 Exhibit 8-3
Recruiting Timeline

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 Methods of Recruiting

• Informally or formally
• Internally or externally
• Targeted advertising in selected media
• Recruiting on Internet
• Outsourcing to staffing agencies
• Private Industry Councils (PICs)
• Executive search firms
• On-campus recruiting
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 Recruiting on Internet

• One of fastest-growing recruitment methods

• More cost-effective than newspaper advertising
• Low cost, speed, & ability to target applicants
with technical skills
• Allows applicants to assess interests & needs with
employer’s offerings
• Global exposure to potential applicants
• Can cut search process time by as much as 75%

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 Recruiting on Internet

• Some potential challenges

– Ensuring security
– Viruses
– Access to unauthorized areas
– Disparate impact against certain protected
classes
– Can complicate reporting of data related to
compliance with federal & state laws

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 Selection Process Issues

• Reliability
– Consistency of measurement
– Screening criteria should elicit same results
in repeated trials across time & evaluators
– Reliability influenced by criterion deficiency &
contamination errors
– Reliability is prerequisite for validity

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 Selection Process Issues

• Validity
– Degree to which what is assessed is related to actual
performance
– Ability to establish job-related validity is crucial to employers
in defending themselves in discrimination allegations
– Content validity illustrates that measure or criterion is
representative of actual job content or knowledge
– Criterion (empirical) validity demonstrated by relationship
between screening criteria & job performance

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 Interviewing Process Issues

• Who should be involved?

– Prospective supervisors, peers, subordinates
• Which interview format?
– Individual or group interviews
• Common interviewer errors
– Similarity errors
– Contrast errors
– First impression
– Halo errors
– Personal biases

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 Behavioral Interviewing

• Used with experienced & inexperienced

applicants
• Asks about situations candidate is likely to
face on job
• Candidates can present real-life situations
they were involved in & how they handled
them

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 Testing
• Work sample tests
– Ask applicant to complete representative sample of
actual work
• Trainability tests
– Measure
• Aptitude in certain areas
• Ability to understand critical job components that
firm will teach new hires

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 Testing
• Realistic job previews
– Make applicants aware of both positive & negative
aspects of job
– Decrease likelihood new employee will become
dissatisfied
– Increase likelihood of candidate’s self-selecting out
of position
• Personality testing is useful in anticipating
how applicants are likely to behave

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 Exhibit 8-4
The Big Five Personality Dimensions
Characteristics of Person Scoring
Personality Dimension Positively on Dimension

1) Extraversion Outgoing, talkative, social, assertive

2) Agreeableness Trusting, good-natured, cooperative,

soft-hearted
3) Conscientiousness Dependable, responsible,
achievement-oriented, persistent
4) Emotional stability Relaxed, secure, unworried

5) Openness to experience Intellectual, imaginative, curious,

broad-minded

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 Other Testing Methods

• Personality testing
– Useful to anticipate how applicants likely to behave
– Few, if any, jobs require specific personality type
– Have been successfully challenged in court
• Physical testing
– Restricted under ADA to testing only for specific
critical job-related physical performance
requirements

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 Other Testing Methods

• Honesty testing
– Declined since passage of Polygraph Protection
Act in 1988
• Drug testing
– Challenged in courts as invasion of privacy
• References
– Little information available due to former employer
fears of liability for libel, slander & defamation

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 Selection for International Assignments

• Reasons for failure on international

assignments
– Interpersonal & acculturation abilities
– Rarely technical skills
• Test employees’ adaptability, open-
mindedness, ability to tolerate uncertainty
& ambiguity & independence
• Interview & screen family members who
would accompany employee
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 Exhibit 8-4
Strategic Issues in Staffing

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 Reading 8.1
Hiring for Organization, Not Job
• New model of selection geared toward hiring
“whole” person who fits into organization’s
culture
• “Strong situation”
– Intensity of situation suppresses variation in behavior
attributable to person
• “Weak situation”
– Allows range of employee responses to work requirements
• In organizations that are “weak situations”
– More important to do good job of hiring right people

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 Reading 8.1
Hiring Process for Person-Organization Fit
• Assess overall work environment
– Job analysis
– Organizational analysis
• Infer type of person required
– Technical knowledge, skills & abilities
– Social skills
– Personal needs, values & interests
– Personality traits

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 Reading 8.1
Hiring Process for Person-Organization Fit
• Design “rites of passage” for organization entry
that allow both organization and applicant to
assess their fit
– Tests of cognitive, motor & interpersonal abilities
– Interviews by potential coworkers & others
– Personality tests
– Realistic job previews, including work samples
• Reinforce person-organization fit at work
– Reinforce skills & knowledge through task design & training
– Reinforce personal orientation through organization design

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 Reading 8.1
Potential Benefits & Problems with Hiring
for Person-Organization Fit
• Potential benefits
– More favorable employee attitudes
– More desirable individual behaviors
– Reinforcement of organizational design
• Potential problems
– Greater investment of resources in hiring process
– Relatively undeveloped & unproven supporting selection
technology
– May be difficult to use full model where payoffs are greatest
– Lack of organizational adaptation
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 Reading 8.2
Reasons for Expatriate Early Departure
• Not performing job effectively 48.4%
• Received other, more rewarding offer (other co.) 43.7%
• Expatriate or family not adjusting 36.6%
• Expatriate or family missing home 31.0%
• Received more rewarding offer (current co.) 17.2%
• Unable to adjust to deprived living standards 10.3%
• Concerned with problems of safety & health 10.3%
• Believed children’s education was suffering 7.1%
• Feared assignment would slow career advance 7.1%
• Spouse wanted career 6.1%
• Compensation package inadequate 0.0%
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 Reading 8.3
Frequently Mentioned Obstacles to Global
Staffing System
• Legal requirements across • Level of HR experience varies
countries/regions across regions
• Education system across • Role of HR in hiring varies
countries/regions across regions
• Economic conditions across • Familiarity with a tool or
countries/regions practice varies
• Ability to acquire & use • Misperceptions that something
technology is a cultural difference
• Labor market variations • Limited local resources for
• Value differences across implementation
cultures • Beliefs about whether a global
• Availability of off-the-shelf system is US-centric or
translated tools imposed

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 Reading 8.3
Frequently Mentioned Benefits to Global Staffing
System
• Global database of qualified • Global succession planning is
talent enabled
• Quick identification of • Global HR personnel have
candidates to meet needs of access to the latest versions of
specific location products/tools
• Provision of consistent message • Shared vision of HR globally
about company to candidates • Comparisons of staffing results
worldwide across locations
• Quality of all hires is ensured • Global database as internal
• Better understanding of benchmark of achievement in
country/regional needs by all different parts of world
HR

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