This article throws light upon the eight main steps involved in the staffing process of an organisation. The steps are: 1. Manpower Planning 2. Recruitment 3. Selection 4. Induction and Orientation 5. Training and Development 6. Performance Appraisal 7. Transfers 8. Separations.
Step # 1. Manpower Planning:
Manpower planning is the “process of determining human resource needs relative to an organisation’s strategic plan and devising steps necessary to meet those needs.” It plans the organisational requirement of manpower.
It involves “comparing the organisation’s forecasted personnel needs with the number and the skills of its present and anticipated labour supply.” It forecasts the requirement of manpower at various posts so that right persons with right skills can be appointed and placed at the right jobs.
“Manpower planning is the process — including forecasting, developing, implementing and controlling — by which a firm ensures that it has the right number of people and right kind of people, at the right place, at the right time, doing things for which they are economically most suitable.”
Steps in Manpower Planning:
Manpower planning involves the following steps:
1. Ascertain the requirement of manpower:
The demand for manpower is the first step in manpower planning.
The demand can be known by:
(a) Determining the factors that affect the demand for manpower, and
(b) Using forecasting techniques to predict the demand.
(a) Factors affecting the demand for manpower:
The major factors that affect demand for manpower are:
(i) Environment:
The environmental changes like Government policies or customer preferences may require change in the nature of goods and services of the firms and, therefore, change in the manpower requirement to produce new or altered goods/services.
(ii) Organisational requirements:
Changes in plans and policies of the organisation may result in change in the manpower requirement.
(iii) Changes in the internal labour force:
When the existing labour resigns or retires or remains absent from duty, managers have to assess the need for manpower to fill the vacant posts.
(b) Forecasting techniques to predict the demand:
Human resource forecasting means predicting the demand for manpower. It assesses the need for manpower in future so that organisation can effectively accomplish its goals. The future sales, expansion of the product line or deletion of any product from the product line, changes in consumer preferences or technology, labour turnover rate are some of the factors that affect making forecasts about the manpower requirement.
Some of the techniques for forecasting the manpower requirement are as follows:
(a) Judgmental forecasting:
The forecasts are made by managers on the basis of their experience and judgment.
(b) Quantitative forecasting:
Mathematical models through computers are used for forecasting the requirement of manpower.
(c) Qualitative forecasting:
The need for manpower depends upon the changes that will take place in future technology or other environmental factors.
2. Ascertain the present position:
After the manpower requirement is ascertained, the next step is to find out the number of people presently employed with the firm. Managers conduct human resource audit to assess their current work force. A human resource audit ranks individuals in each department according to their competence so that top managers are aware of the skilled workers present in the organisation.
It is an audit of the skills and competence of the existing employees. It enables managers to know the extent to which manpower requirement can be filled through internal sources of labour supply.
Supplying manpower from internal sources can take three forms:
(a) Employees skills inventory:
Managers make inventory of the skills of the present employees; like their age, qualification, experience, special achievements, current performance, potential for future performance and other personal attributes to compare their manpower needs with the existing manpower resource. If possible and advantageous, they promote people from within the organisation rather than recruiting and selecting them from outside.
(b) Replacement chart:
When managerial position is created at the retirement of existing manager, the replacement chart helps to find manager to fill the vacant post. Replacement chart is a “partial organisation chart showing the major managerial positions in an organisation, current incumbents, potential replacements for each position, and the age of each person on the chart.”
The purpose of the chart is to spot the person who can fill the vacant managerial post. It represents the strengths, weaknesses, career plans, promotion potential and personal achievements (papers presented, conferences attended etc.) of the employees to consider them for filling the gaps at the managerial positions.
(c) Succession plans:
These plans develop future middle and top-level managers by identifying people who can succeed their superiors. All such individuals are trained so that organisation has a reservoir of skilled manpower who can be promoted as managers to senior posts.
Succession plans involve the following:
1. The first step involves determining the people whose inventory is to be prepared. This involves selecting people who have the potential for assuming higher positions. These may be people working at managerial or non-managerial positions who are capable of holding future managerial positions.
2. After streamlining people worthy of promotion, information is collected about them. This information may be general such as age, qualification, medical fitness etc. or technical information such as ability to work at present and future positions, experience problem solving abilities, analytical skills etc. A detailed inventory is made to facilitate picking up the right candidate for promotion.
3. The people selected are appraised for their present performance and potential for future performance. Rating is done on the basis of defined criteria which includes positive and negative features of each individual. This helps in determining the need for training programmes for those who are worthy of promotion.
4. The final step involves selecting people on the basis of rating scales who will be considered for promotion. The amount, type and timing of training is determined to equip the selected manpower take over the positions of importance.
3. Identification of manpower gap:
Manpower gap is the difference between the people required and those available at a point of time. After forecasting the quantity and quality of people required and comparing it with those available in the organisation, two outcomes can be possible;
(1) Surplus manpower, or
(2) Shortage of manpower.
Surplus manpower:
It arises when number of people required is less than the number available. Plans are made to deal with surplus manpower through voluntary retirement scheme (VRS), downsizing, less working hours etc.
Shortage of manpower:
If difference between the manpower requirement and present manpower is positive, i.e., number of people required is more than the number of people available, managers follow the recruitment, selection and development procedure to appoint and place people required at the jobs.
4. Development of Personnel:
After selection, managers train the manpower according to job requirement and place them on the jobs where their potential can be fully exploited. Development provides job satisfaction to employees and aims to integrate individual goals with organisational goals.
Need (Importance) for Manpower Planning:
Manpower planning is important for the following reasons:
1. It helps in optimum utilisation of the manpower. It becomes the basis for recruitment and development of people.
2. It helps to know the future quantity and quality of manpower to run the organisation.
3. It helps to know the extent to which the manpower requirement can be met through the internal sources. Managers can find the number of employees they have to appoint from outside sources.
4. It maintains balance between the people needed and people available and, thus, avoids the situations of overstaffing and understaffing.
5. It helps the organisation adjust to environmental changes. Changes in government policies and consumer preferences may require changes in goods produced by the organisation. New or altered goods may require changes in the existing manpower.
6. It helps organisation appoint more people when they are growing and diversifying their operations.
7. It helps in developing managers to hold middle and top-level managerial positions from within the organisation.
8. It helps to deal with situations of high labour turnover and absenteeism.
9. It creates satisfaction amongst employees.
10. It plans equal employment opportunities. Equal employment opportunities means appointment of all individuals purely on the basis of skills and qualification and not gender, nationality, colour, caste, creed etc. “Equal employment opportunity consists of the right of all employees and job applications to be considered for employment, promotion, compensation, termination and other conditions of work only on the basis of job-related qualifications or performance.”
Jobs have become knowledge based and, thus, organisations are competing for skilled manpower. This manpower is costly and, therefore, organisations pay premium to their knowledge to cope with the fast changing technology. Manpower planning helps in appreciating the value of human resource and maintains balance between their cost and contribution to organisational effectiveness.
Step # 2. Recruitment:
After determining the need for manpower, if the present manpower is unable to fill this requirement, managers hire people from outside. Applications are invited for the required posts. The process of inviting applications is known as recruitment.
Step # 3. Selection:
After receiving job applications, the next step is to select the person most appropriate for the job. Selection means appointment of a person at the particular post. “It is the process of filling the organisational position.”
Selection process consists of a series of steps. These include job specification, application form, preliminary interview, tests, cross checking, formal interview, medical examination, employment decisions and job offer.
While selection is the process of appointing people at various job positions, placement means placing the person at the job which best suits his ability. It means putting the right person at the right job. Selection is “the process of determining which job candidates best suit organisational needs” and placement is the “process of deciding which of several jobs is best suited to an individual who has been selected and hired.”
When a person is hired for a specific job, it is selection and when a person is hired, trained and placed at the job which best suits his specifications, it is placement. Placement matches job description (requirements of a job) with job specification (skills and competence of people performing the job) so that right person is placed at the right job.
Step # 4. Induction and Orientation:
After accepting the job offer, it is important that individual’s expectations from the organisation and organisation’s expectations from the individual match each other. On joining, employees want to know their superiors, co-workers, organisation structure, basis of departmentation, framework of authority-responsibility structure etc. Induction and orientation programmes enable trainees know about the organisation. They introduce the trainees to the organisation and help them carry out their work effectively.
Orientation programmes serve the following purposes:
1. They give general information to trainees, like, company’s goals, products, services, structure and the basis of departmentation.
2. Information about the activities of different departments is communicated to the trainees.
3. Detailed policies, programmes, procedures, schedules etc. are explained to them.
Though organisation manuals and brochures can be helpful, orientation is useful because face-to-face interaction amongst trainees, their immediate bosses and the personnel manager can clear doubts that brochures cannot. It also develops belongingness amongst employees for the organisation.
Orientation programmes help to know the organisation structure. Trainees know their position in the organisation, interact with the peer groups, share the innovative abilities with the management, become part of the informal groups and above all, work towards organisational goals.
Step # 5. Training and Development:
The employees may not be able to fully satisfy the job requirements. Their performance may be short of planned performance. Training increases the skills and competence of employees to improve their performance.
Job related skills (to improve current and potential performance) can be increased in two ways:
(i) Training and
(ii) Development
Training increases employees’ job-related skills and performance on the current job. Development improves their performance on future jobs. It develops their ability to assume jobs of higher skill, competence and responsibility.
Step # 6. Performance Appraisal:
It measures actual performance with standard performance. Performance appraisal means appraising the performance of employees on a continuous or intermittent basis and providing them the feedback. It ranks employees in the order of merit and finds candidates suitable for promotion to higher positions.
Benefits of Performance Appraisal:
Performance appraisal has the following benefits:
1. It helps in finding candidates suitable for promotions, demotions or transfer.
2. It identifies candidates who need to be trained and motivated to achieve the desired standards.
3. It allows subordinates to assess their performance, analyse the strengths and weaknesses, promote their strengths and overcome the weaknesses.
Step # 7. Transfers:
After employees are ranked according to performance, they are transferred to higher, lower or different positions at the same level.
Transfers can take the following forms:
1. Promotions:
Employees whose performance is good are promoted to higher positions.
2. Demotions:
Employees whose performance is poor and below standards are denoted to lower positions. This practice is generally not followed as it negatively affects morale and motivation to work.
3. Transfer at the same level:
When employees do not perform well at their jobs, they are transferred to other departments where job activities are more suitable to their skills and interest.
Step # 8. Separations:
When employees are not able to cope with the environment in the organisation and training programmes remain ineffective to improve their skills, it is in the interest of the organisation and the individuals that employees separate themselves from this enterprise and join another organisation where their job potential can be better exploited.