Chapter 5- Staffing
The Need to Staff
If incapable people are hired and directed by an equally incapable manager it is most certain that the organization will not be able to achieve the objectives it has set to accomplish.
Keeping the jobs filled with the right people, therefore, is a critical task that must be expertly performed by the manager at every level.
Staffing Defined
Staffing refers to the task of filling positions in the organization with most qualified people available.
The Staffing Process
The staffing process has the following steps:
A. Personnel Acquisition
1. Human Resource Forecasting
2. Preparation of Job Descriptions
3. Recruitment of Applicants for the Job
4. Selection of the Best Qualified among the Applicants
5. Orientation of the New Personnel
B. Personnel Retention
6. Appraisal of Performance
7. Transfer and Promotion
8. Human Resource Development
Human Resource Forecasting
Management must determine how many people it will need to manage operations over the next six to twelve months, how many it has presently (if it is already operating) and how any gap will be handled. This forecast is influenced by both external and internal considerations.
External considerations include legal and economic constraints such as equal opportunity legislation, political stability, and the upturn and downturn in the economy. Such events affect the number of people that a firm may hire, lay off or fire.
Internal considerations include the number and qualifications of employees the firm presently has.
Preparation of Job Descriptions
A job description must include:
· a brief statement of the responsibilities of the job
· a listing of the various duties to be performed
· a statement of what constitutes satisfactory and unsatisfactory standards of performance for each duty
A job description need not list all the duties and responsibilities entailed, rather, it must focus on current objectives, major duties, and responsibilities.
No one job description will be applicable to all organizations and sometimes it would not apply to all branches of the same organization. Each manager, therefore, should tailor the job description to his own organization within the limits allowed by his organization’s policy.
Recruitment of Applicants for the Job
Recruitment means attracting or bringing in a few applicants for a single position or hundreds for a major expansion. In most organizations, it is a continuing function since vacancies often occur as employees are dismissed, transferred, promoted, retired or laid to rest.
The responsibility for recruiting in an organization falls on every manager at every level. Usually, the manager sends a job requisition to the personnel department stating the job content and description, educational qualifications and experience requirements of the position to be filled. The personnel only does the preliminary screening of applicants and identify those considered best qualified for the position. The candidates prospective superior make the final decision in the selection of a person for a new position since he is held accountable for the performance of the selected candidate.
Possible sources of personnel include applications on file, newspaper advertisements, radio and TV announcements, employment agencies, colleges, universities, and special schools.
Most organizations fill in jobs by promoting people from within as this often promotes morale and a positive attitude among employees. But, possible fresh ideas and new visions may be infused into the organization from without.
The person doing the recruiting must be fully informed regarding legal constraints on recruitment. For example, the Labor Code of the Philippines forbids discrimination in employment on account of sex, race or creed. This code applies to recruiting, selecting, hiring, promoting, demoting, transferring, training, and retaining the member of the labor force.
Selection of the Best Qualified
Several aids are available to improve the selection process. These are examination of biographical data, psychological test, interviews, physical examination, and performances in actual tryouts.
Biographical Data showing personal data, educational qualifications and past experiences give some kind of track record which an applicant’s competence can be assessed.
For some jobs, it is possible to test an applicant’s skill in the work by observing his performance in actual tryouts. But, these tryouts are of limited value in jobs that embody several skills if the simulations conducted test only a few of these skills.
It is important that managers understand what tests to do and what their limitations are. There are various kinds of tests:
· Intelligence Tests – designed to measure a person’s mental capacity, to test his memory, ability to see relationships in problematic situations.
· Aptitude Tests – designed to discover interests, existing skills, and the candidates’ potential for acquiring skills.
· Trade Tests – constructed to show the extent to which a candidate is experienced in a skilled trade.
· Personality Tests – devised to reveal a candidate’s personal qualities and the way they may affect others.
· “In-Basket Test” (for management candidates)-designed as a test of judgment. The participants are given a letter, memoranda, reports, etc., things that a manager might find his in-basket, and are asked to state what action they would take in each case.
Two Measures of Value of a Test
1. Validity – A test is valid insofar as it measures what it purports to measure.
2. Reliability – A test is reliable insofar as it gives consistent results.
The interview is really the most crucial part of the selection process and often carries the most weight. It is also here where the manager can make the greatest contribution to better staffing. To an alert manager, the answers to his questions will provide clues to the applicant’s manner of expression, intelligence, aims, interests, values and attitude toward work and life. More importantly, the interview can serve to provide an insight into how well the applicant and the manager can work together in achieving the organization's objectives.
Another important aid that must not be overlooked in the selection process is the physical capability of the applicant to the job. A thorough physical examination often reveals ailments and disabilities which might militate against his performance.
Experience has shown that utilizing all the selection aids for a particular job will still not predict performance. The most these aid can do is to help eliminate those who are totally unfit for the job.
This is not to say that any part of the selection process must be eliminated, only that there should be zeroing in on the most important qualification for the job – the ability to get results. “Does he have what it takes?”
Orientation of the New Personnel
The first few days of the new personnel are critical. For these new faces, the first few days are days of anxiety and uncertainty. Often they do not know how the organization functions; they do not know its rules and regulations; they do not know the people they are to work with. To eliminate these unnerving initial experiences and costly labor turnover, a formal orientation must be instituted.
Orientation refers to the introduction of the new personnel into the organization. This involves giving them an overview of what the company does, what its objectives are, how it is organized, what benefit it offers, what its general policies and practices are. If there is a company handbook, it will be helpful if the manager gives the new recruit a copy for his perusal.
The responsibility for the orientation rests with the immediate supervisor under whom the new personnel will work. The superior can call on a member of the personnel department to help him in this regard.
Orientation also includes the introduction of the new personnel to the other people in the organization.
Appraisal of Performance
An appraisal is a must in every organization. Both the manager and the subordinates want to know the quality of their performance. The problem though is most of the appraisal methods available leave much to be desired.
Three major areas noted on many types of appraisal:
1. Production Records. These are applicable to work that is repetitive such jeans sewers and typists. Figures on the actual production rate are combined with other factors such as punctuality, industry, and observation.
2. Graphic Rating Scale. This method lists a number “service element” such as accuracy, reliability, neatness, cooperation, industry, judgment, initiative, leadership, and others. On a linear scale, there is a provision for checking the individual’s rating on these traits from maximum to minimum attainment.
3. Performance against Verifiable Objectives Plan. In this scheme, a manager or a subordinate is related to the extent that he receives the objectives of his position. This method is favored over the two previous methods because it does not ignore the fact that what an organization wants from its personnel is verifiable results.
The process of appraising consists of two steps:
· First, the subordinate is rated to the extent that he achieves the objectives of his position.
Under his, rating a subordinate is difficult because it requires utmost objectivity. When evaluating performance, the manager should measure output and not input. The subordinate may be perpetually busy but this does not guarantee that meaningful results are being achieved.
It is also necessary to caution the evaluator against the “halo effect”. This is the tendency of a manager to assume that if a subordinate turns in a good or bad performance in some areas, he is equally good or bad in all others.
Moreover, the manager must take into account whether intervening factors beyond one’s control unduly hindered or helped in achieving objectives.
· Second, the manager and the subordinate met to discuss the appraisal.
If the subordinate achieves his objectives, the manager praises him and tells him how he feels about it, and he encourages the subordinate to do more of the same.
If the subordinate fails to achieve his objectives, the manager reprimands him and tells him in very specific terms what he did wrong and how honestly he feels about it. The manager should remind him how he values him and that he thinks well of him, but not his performance in this particular situation.
Regardless of whether the subordinate performs well or not, management authorities suggest that the manager ends the meeting by shaking hands or touching the subordinate in a way that makes it clear that he supports his success in the organization and that he is honestly on his side.
There is disagreement as to how performance appraisal should be conducted. The most common suggestions are quarterly, twice a year, or once a year.
In this regard, some management authorities point out that the real factor is the time span necessary to determine whether a goal is still valid and whether satisfactory progress is being made.
Promotion and Transfer
Promotion is an upward movement while a transfer is a horizontal one, both within the organizational hierarchy.
Promotion may amount to filling a vacancy or maybe an appointment to a new position. It involves a change of duties, more difficult work, and an increase in pay.
Filling a vacancy or a higher position can be filled by promotion from within or recruitment from without.
A reasonable policy would be that merit should be the primary consideration, yet when capable managers are available and merit is equal, the promotion should probably go to the most senior employee in point of service.
Promotion should be done with extreme care as studies have shown that people tend to be promoted till they reach a level beyond their competence.
The transfer involves no change of class but a change in the organizational unit – a change from the jurisdiction of one manage to the other. This sort of change may be brought by any of the following:
1. The employee requests for a change because there may be better prospects of doing something different.
2. Personality differences within a department which result in the nonattainment of goals.
3. The employee is transferred to give him wider experience preparatory to a promotion.
4. The employee is transferred to solve management succession problems.
Both promotion and transfer processes should be controlled centrally. The personnel department is the proper agency.
But the manager of the operating department should have much to say about it. He should have considerable freedom of choice. In fact, the ultimate responsibility rests with him, he being the employee’s immediate superior and the one accountable for results in his department.
Human Resource Department
Human resource development refers to the updating of the personnel’s knowledge and attitudes with the end in view of improving their skills and performance to achieve organizational objectives.
A properly trained workforce at all levels is important in any organization for its continued success and survival.
Human resource development is one of the best investments that can possibly be made within the organization.
A human resource development program should consider the following steps:
1. Analyzing the training needs.
2. Formulate training objectives.
3. Plan the training program to achieve objectives.
4. Implement the training program.
5. Review and evaluate the results of training program and methods of training.
6. Modify the training program and the methods of training in the light of the evaluation.
There are numerous media used for the rank-and-file development as well as managerial development program.
The responsibility for the training and development of personnel rests primarily on the personnel’s immediate manager. However, this should be in coordination with the personnel department.
No comments:
Post a Comment