Staffing
Staffing is a term used in the sphere of employment. It has been applied to more than one aspect of the working environment.
Staffing has been defined as follows by Heneman and Judge in Staffing Organization (5th Edn 2005):[1]
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.
According to this model: Acquisition comprises the recruitment processes leading to the employment of staff. It includes human resource planning to identify what the organization requires in terms of the numbers of employees needed and their attributes (knowledge, skills and abilities) in order to effectively meet job requirements. In addition the selection techniques and methods of assessment to identify the most suitable candidates for a particular job.
Deployment involves decisions about how those recruited will be allocated to specific roles according to business demands. It also concerns the subsequent appointment to more advanced jobs through internal recruitment, promotion or reorganization.
Retention deals with the management of the outflow of employees from an organization. This includes both managing voluntary activities such as resignation, and controlling involuntary measures whereby employees are managed out of the organization through redundancy programs or other types of dismissal. The overriding objective is to minimize the loss from the organization of valued employees through strategic and tactical measures whilst enabling the organization to reduce employment costs where circumstances dictate.
Staffing is also used in a specific sense to refer to the management of employee schedules.