Staffing A to Z

Intro

staff-ing \’staf-ing\ v: the acquisition, development, retention and utilization of human capital
most critical element of organizational profitability and success; became extraordinarily competitive in first half of twenty-first century

Staffing is the most fundamental and critical driver of organizational performance. In the simplest sense, staffing is putting people to work. It begins with workforce design and includes recruiting, assessment, development, workforce planning, and retention. Today, staffing may involve any combination of employees, contingent workers, contractors, consultants, and outsourced operations working around the world. And although it may involve tens of thousands, staffing recognizes the importance of every single person: the individual worker is the ultimate performer.

About Staffing A-Z

Staffing A – Z is a dynamic, encyclopedic staffing resource. It includes a tiered list of professional terminology, links to articles that further expand on the terms, links to resources, and other pertinent information. Continually updated through user feedback, Staffing A – Z is vetted by Staffing.org’s Advisors, and contributed to by professionals across the staffing profession.

Each section will be created and expanded upon as warranted. Each main section has sub-sections, and some sub-sections contain further sub-sections. The level of detail involved in Staffing A – Z allows users quick access to basic explanations to important terms and concepts in staffing. The additional materials — in articles, links, and resource appendices — allow interested users to dig as deep as they desire to become experts themselves.

Assessment and Selection

Selection is the process of examining and choosing the most appropriate applicant for a position. It involves many steps, each of which should be treated carefully.

Selecting the right applicant is an extremely important function of HR. There are several critical processes involved which can help employers make the right decision. Too often, employers do not take the necessary steps to ensure that the selected candidate is the correct choice for the position in question. Depending on whom you ask, poor candidate selection can cost organizations as much as half of their entire payroll.

The first stage in selecting an appropriate candidate involves screening. Employers should assess the candidates’ skills against the predetermined job requirements as well as verifying the accuracy of the information provided in the resume; this stage can include reference checks as well.

Testing and assessments are sometimes used for certain positions. Skills tests are technical in nature and pertain directly with the position in question. Behavioral tests look for specific character strengths or weaknesses that can help determine how the applicant will manage under certain conditions and environments.

Interviewing candidates allows the organization to better understand a candidate. An interview goes well beyond the skills in a resume or the score of a test – it should focus on how the candidate can apply the skills and scores in the work environment. While interviews are subjective, it is imperative to be consistent so that all candidates are screened consistently during the interview. This allows the interviewer to properly compare candidates.

Assessments

The second and final type of screening — assessment — takes place after non-scientific screening. Assessment, or scientific screening, looks at the remaining candidates in the applicant pool and determines which candidates have the best skills, experience, and qualities to fill the open position. This requires predictive indicators that must be sought proactively, often through a questionnaire, including leadership qualities, integrity, motivation, good judgment, and work-life balance. This step in the process may also include background and reference checks.

The future of online assessment will include more interactive features that give the applicant access to feedback, and shorter, more entertaining—even game-based—assessments to make the experience less taxing for the applicant.

Technology allows a great deal of non-scientific and scientific screening to be automated, which saves an organization a great deal of time and money. Sometimes the impersonal nature of automated screening leads to oversights, so a balance between automation and traditional screening methods is ideal.

The ROI for proper assessment can be substantial. Determining the right candidate for a position and the organization will mean better morale, performance, and higher retention rates.

Interviewing

The interviewing process is the best time to truly discover whether or not the person applying for a particular position is right for the job. It’s the only chance to see the person behind the GPA, the years of experience (or lack thereof), and other information provided by a résumé that may have no actual bearing on how this person will perform on the job.

As with most processes, preparation is key. Determining a clear and specific set of skills and qualities that will make for a successful staff member in this particular position is the basis for a good interview. You need to know exactly what you’re looking for before you can start looking for it. Once these skills and qualities have been determined, it’s time to design the questions of the interview in a way that will bring to light how much of each skill and quality the candidate has to offer.

The interview should be structured and purposeful but also conversational and not intimidating. Questions should be specific, detailed, and relevant to the job. The focus should be on gathering information from the candidate, so the interview should be set up to allow the candidate to do the majority of the talking. This is the only opportunity during the selection process to allow the individual to talk about himself, to find out about his personal and professional goals, motivations, limitations, and strengths. This is a glimpse at the reality of what working with this person on a daily basis might be like. It’s important that the candidate isn’t just a good match for the position, but for the organization.

People get nervous in job interviews. There may be a lot at stake for them. People also want to give the interviewer what they want to hear. These human elements should be considered when evaluating a candidate’s responses.

Finally, the results of the interview need to be measured. There might not be right and wrong answers, but there are degrees of acceptability here that can be broken down and rated on a scale. Key points made by the interviewee can be scored positively, and key points overlooked or negated by the interviewee can be scored negatively.

Proper preparation, a structured interview, and sensible metrics can make the interview process the best predictive factor in the selection process.

Screening

Screening has never been a more important part of the selection process. Today fewer jobs, more applicants, and the internet combine to create a deluge of résumés through which to sift. While it would seem to be common sense that the more applicants for a position, the more likely an organization is to find the ideal candidate, this may not always be the case. The volume of unqualified applicants is often staggering. Screening has become a more arduous task, but the technology available has automated many of the processes.

Before screening can begin—in fact, before the job is posted—the employer should evaluate the open position and determine the skills, experience, and qualities necessary to perform the job effectively. Clarity and specificity at this stage of the game saves a lot of time further into the process.

Once all of the applications have been collected (from online job boards, faxes, emails, snail mails, recruitment queries, etc.), the first type of screening, non-scientific screening, can begin. Non-scientific screening eliminates any candidates that do not meet requirements for the job including desired salary, willingness to relocate, experience, education, etc. While this usually eliminates a majority of the applications, it makes no indication of which of the remaining applicants are ideal for the position. This screening sometimes eliminates a possible ideal candidate lacking in one or more of the requirements for the job who would be able to develop the necessary skills and perform at a high level.

The end result is a somewhat narrowed group of candidates with which to begin the next step, assessment (or scientific screening).

Testing

Testing gives an employer a better understanding of a candidate’s skills and qualities than screening and assessment. While not as personal as an interview, it has the advantage of providing data that is much more readily quantified and categorized. Job-specific tests show whether or not the candidate has the knowledge and skills necessary to perform the duties of the position. A personality test reveals a candidate’s integrity, motivation, work-life balance, professional habits, methods of conflict resolution, etc. The personality test must deal only with factors relevant to the job; if the test uncovers mental or emotional instabilities, this violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and can result in legal action from the candidate.

Tests may be developed in-house or the organization may choose to have an outsource agency come in to develop appropriate tests for various open positions. As with each part of the screening process, proper planning and tracking of the testing process will lead to increased new hire quality and lower retention rates, savings that justify upfront costs for this endeavor.

Attract

Every business wants to be successful, and the key to any success story is the people hired to execute the work of the organization. Attracting your candidates of choice involves forethought and hard work. Organizations that successfully create and communicate a brand for themselves have the most desirable candidates applying for open positions. Establishing an organizational brand and message involve the creation of clear requirements for open positions and the targeting of appropriate candidate pools.

Recruitment tools must ride the cutting edge of recruitment practice and methodology. Smart recruitment advertising and recruitment initiatives can make or break an organization’s recruitment goals.

Finally, the ways in which organizations treat candidates for open positions says a lot about how they treat their employees. Measuring, tracking, and continually improving care of potential employees will draw in those looking for their ideal work environment.

Branding
With regards to attracting staff, branding refers to organizational development and embodiment of a specific image to attract certain types of employees. Branding is not about trying to invent an attractive image to lure in as many prospective hires as possible. It's about accurately representing an organization to candidates to attract individuals that match the organization’s culture and priorities. This requires an in-depth evaluation of the organization’s real identity.

Every organization has a brand whether or not it knows it. The memory employees and candidates have of your organization exists whether you want it to or not. It is what an organization projects to its employees and candidates. Honesty in branding not only strengthens an organization’s image, but also becomes crucial to staff retention down the line. If an employee accepted a job with an organization because it claimed to foster creativity, but found the job creatively stifling, he or she will not have any loyalty to that organization and will seek employment elsewhere. While accurate branding may exclude certain prospects from considering an organization (for instance, someone looking for rapid advancement in the workplace, which may not be the case for a particular organization), those that are attracted to the organization will match the culture and be more likely to have their expectations met.

Candidate Care
While an organization evaluates a candidate for a position, the candidate also evaluates the organization. Courtesy and respect to the candidate during the recruitment/application/interview process will form a positive first impression of the entire organization in the candidate’s eyes. Inversely, automated responses, vague correspondences, and inattention to detail will give the candidate a negative first impression. Employers should treat candidates the way they say they do–the way they want to be treated.

The ideal candidate for a given position will certainly have talent, skill, and experience. For such a prospective hire, there will often be many different employment opportunities at any given time. During the application process, all that a candidate knows of an organization beyond their branding is the interaction he or she has with the person(s) doing the hiring. The ideal candidate may pass on a job offer from an organization based on an unsatisfactory hiring experience.

During the recruitment process, proper candidate care includes:
Specific and accurate descriptions of the position and the skills/experience necessary for that position
An organized system of receiving and cataloguing queries and applications from prospective hires
During the hiring process, proper candidate care includes:
Personal contact with the candidate (a phone call instead of an automated email response)
Timely response to correspondences from the candidate
Requesting feedback from candidates on their treatment during the recruitment and hiring processes.
Reviewing and addressing candidate feedback on the recruitment/hiring process is one of the most effective ways to ensure a positive experience for future applicants.

Contingent Staffing
Contingent staff (temps) work on a temporary basis either to cover the work of an absent employee or to fill positions in an organization that has seasonal or cyclical work patterns that require varying amounts of staff. Contingent workers are usually hired through a staffing service, and do not receive health benefits from the organization for which they are working. Using contingent staff is cost-effective because it eliminates hiring costs and benefit costs (and avoids paying overtime to full time staff in the case of covering for an employee’s absence), and offers a good source of immediate workforce assistance.

Contingent staffing is an important part of the modern workforce. Human resources should keep track of all contingent staff, and a regulated structure should be created for the procurement, maintenance, and (when necessary) termination of these staff members. The larger the organization, the more contingent staffing can be a vital part of the workforce model. Some Fortune 500 companies have thousands of contingent staff members working for them.

There is an increasing trend toward temp-to-hire employment, where contingent staff becomes full time employees of the organization for which they’ve been working. Contingent staff is often a valuable hiring resource since the workers have shown their ability to perform and are already familiar with office culture, management directives, and organization structure.

Consultants and Contractors
Consultants and contractors have become a staple of modern industry. As such, HR needs to have an organized plan for hiring and utilizing these types of staff members. Consultants and contractors should be looked at as an extended part of the workforce, not as outsiders or temporary help. The shape of the workforce is evolving and the team is made up of more than just full time employees. Everyone on the team needs to know the organization’s core values, policies, and goals.

Contractors usually work on a project basis, or for a set period of time—such as providing surge support during an organization’s busiest times. Many organizations prefer hiring contractors for busy periods rather than hiring full time employees that will have to be laid off when things slow down.

Consultants provide expertise to an organization for specialized areas of knowledge ranging from public affairs to engineering. Consultants may work independently or through a consulting agency, and have a variety of clients at any given time.

Like contingent staff, consultants and contractors do not receive health benefits from the organization for which they are working. Using these types of staff can be cost-effective and provide more immediate help for the organization.

Outsourcing
Outsourcing is delegating non-core business operations that had been handled in-house to an external group or organization. Control and oversight of this operation is given to the outsourcing entity. The main organization hands over the process to the outsource group, explaining the results it desires and allowing the outsource group to deliver according to its own strategy and practices (if the main organization were to maintain control of the process, this would be considered a vendor relationship and not outsourcing). Despite the acquiescence of control, the main organization’s HR should keep track of the outsourcing entity’s performance.

The two main reasons for outsourcing are:
Cutting baseline costs (the money saved on employee benefits, office space, technology and supplies, etc.)
The operation being outsourced requires expertise that the main organization is unable to provide and therefore must seek a group specializing in this operation.
Outsourcing labor overseas to countries with significantly lower labor costs, or offshoring, is a common practice that sometimes carries with it a negative stigma since many people feel that organizations are giving away jobs that its citizens need and because some claim that the overseas services may be substandard. Overall, however, outsourcing has become an accepted business practice.

Measurement
Everything can be measured. In business, everything should be measured, in order to sort out the best ways of increasing productivity and thus the bottom line. Organizations that do not measure lack direction. Without measurement, it is impossible to know the strengths and weaknesses of your organization. And without this knowledge, one cannot make the necessary adjustments. Metrics, appropriately applied, allow for quantifiable measurement of performance even in the most esoteric of positions. The benchmarks provided by these metrics allow employees and employers alike to provide the best performance each is capable of delivering to the organization. Measurement includes quantifying critical staffing outcomes or results as well as the key activity indicators associated with each outcome or result.

Top Ten Reasons HR Should Measure:
What you don’t measure doesn’t count
What you don’t measure well you can’t improve
To make the best possible decisions
It is a top CEO priority
"It isn’t going away"
You won’t ever have to struggle for answers again
To enhance your career
So you can control your work—instead of it controlling you
Measuring—just measuring—improves performance
The Number One Reason HR Should Measure:

The inability to document HR and human capital performance is the main reason for terminating HR professionals.

Development Metrics
Development metrics are a collection of quantitative data regarding the experience, skills and training of an organization’s current staff. The focus is on ensuring that staff members have been developed to their fullest capacity for optimal performance within the organization.

Examples of common Development Metrics include:
Quality of Employee
Capacity of Employee to Meet Potential Needs
Customer (meaning management) satisfaction
Formal Investment per Employee (dollar amount)
Workforce Development Contribution (the results from the money spent on development)
Keeping accurate and updated development metrics allows an organization to make informed decisions about whether or not a vacancy in the organization can/should be filled internally or externally, which can save time, money, and resources.

Recruitment Metrics
Recruitment can be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor, and understanding the value of the results means knowing whether or not the time and money are being used effectively. Using metrics to track the costs, the quality of the new hires, and the hiring manager satisfaction makes it easier to determine the ROI.

A few common recruitment metrics:
New Hire Quality: Three to six months after hire, the hiring manager should complete an evaluation of the new employee that compares expectations prior to recruiting with the actual performance of the employee. Facets of quality to be evaluated include knowledge and skills, performance, experience, motivation, multitasking abilities, learning curve, customer compatibility, and organization compatibility.
Recruiting Cost Ratio: The RCR is used to determine average HR spending on recruiting activities in relation to the starting compensation of new hires (positions filled) that result from staffing activities. This metric calculates the Total Recruiting Costs (both internal and external) and divides it by the Total Compensation Recruited (the sum of the base annual compensation of the positions filled through recruitment).
Recruiting Efficiency: Closely related to RCR is the metric for Recruiting Efficiency. Recruiting Efficiency gives a percentage in relation to complete efficiency, which is considered to be 100%. Prior to this change, people complained that the former scale (lower RER percentage = better) was counter-intuitive. By subtracting the RCR from 1, the new number yields a higher percentage that is easier to convey. Now, as with most numbers in life, the higher the Recruiting Efficiency, the more efficient the recruiting function is. The metric formula for Recruiting Efficiency is: Efficiency = 1 – RCR.

Retention Metrics
Retention is not just about cutting down on turnover. It’s about retaining employees you want to retain. The value of an employee can be somewhat abstract, but metrics allow an organization to quantify this value; to attach a dollar amount to it. Not only does this help to clarify the examination of retention, it also helps reveal how retention effects the bottom line. Beyond dollars and cents, retention metrics help employers recognize patterns in turnover by keeping detailed records of who is leaving and why. If the majority of employees leaving an organization are from the same department, same age group, gender, etc., there may be an issue that needs to be examined and rectified. A few common retention metrics:
Turnover Index: Keeping track of each person who leaves an organization, why she left, the quality of her performance, her potential for advancement in the organization, and the difficulty of replacing her.
New Employee Loss Rate: The loss of new employees can be extremely costly due to the amount of time and resources expended to recruit and hire staff. Therefore, it’s necessary to keep track of employees who leave within the first three years of employment.
Competency Opportunity Cost: When a more experienced employee leaves an organization and is replaced with a less experienced employee, what is the cost to the company? The less experienced employee will likely make less money than his more experienced predecessor, but the amount of resources expended to acquire the new employee, as well as the loss of the competence and efficiency of the experienced employee (which can effect productivity) must also be taken into account.

New Staff Processing
The new hire processes start after an offer has been accepted; it generally starts with a background check and drug testing and ends three to six months have new hire orientation. Budgeting for these processes, both in terms of time and money, are critical to reducing the time-to-start metric – a measurement consistently rated by hiring managers as one of the most important factors in determining the success of the HR department.

Background Checks
Background checks occur near the end of new hire processing, when a specific candidate is being chosen for a position. This is mostly a verification of the candidate as a viable staff member. Depending on the level of the job and the sensitivity of the materials handled in the work environment, a background check may be as simple as verifying a prospective hire’s Social Security Number and driver’s license, or may be very in-depth, examining driving records, military records, credit records, criminal records, property ownership, medical records, etc. Background checks are required by federal and state law for certain jobs; for instance, criminal background checks are required in most states for anyone working with children, the disabled, or the elderly.

Utilizing background checks to screen out an undesirable hire can be invaluable. The cost to the organization incurred by a staff member who engages in theft or other illegal behaviors makes background checks a worthwhile measure.

Drug Testing
Drug testing usually occurs after a candidate has been offered a position and is seriously considering/planning to accept. Drug testing can be a costly endeavor; however, since substance abuse leads to lower productivity, absenteeism, health problems, and increased accidents in the workplace, the cost is justified. Other staff members forced to compensate for substance abusers who are late/absent/let go face added stress, which can also effect productivity and morale.

Drug testing is often a condition of employment. Most organizations utilize urine testing in what’s known as a "Five-Screen," testing for cannabinoids, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines, and phencyclidine, although some organizations now use a "Ten-Screen," and some have recently begun testing hair.

New Hire Care
A great deal of time, energy, and money is spent on recruitment and hiring, trying to find the right person for the job. But if the new hire is not helped, taught, motivated, and respected, then the entire hiring process will have yielded little more than an unhappy new employee. After the welcome wagon, the first-day lunch with the supervisor, orientation, and the first few weeks of training, there is still a lot of effort needed to help the new hire become a good employee. Depending on the type of position, it may take anywhere from a few weeks to a year or more for a new staff member to learn everything the job entails. Checking in periodically to make sure the new hire is comfortable with her responsibilities three months, six months, nine months into the job is crucial. A new employee should feel comfortable to ask questions, discuss conflicts, and discuss working conditions with her supervisor.

The more time spent training and assisting new hires, the better the ROI for all of the resources that went into acquiring them. New employees need to know that they are part of a team. Recognizing and addressing any issue she may be having with the duties of the position will reduce anxiety, boost morale, and foster productivity and creativity.

Orientation
Employment is a relationship, and orientation helps to set the tone for that relationship. Sticking a new hire in an office or cubicle and handing him the employee handbook is a surefire way to make him feel unimportant and anxious. New hires need to acclimate to the people they are now working with, not just the procedures and culture of the organization. Make sure new hires the relevant supplies and technology (computer, telephone, email and voicemail, and ID card if necessary) set up before they arrive, as this will help make them feel settled and at home in this new environment.

Formal orientation may be handled by human resources, and most of the informal orientation is guided by supervisors and co-workers. The focus should be on helping the new hire to do his job with the knowledge of his function in the department and the organization as a whole, to understand what is expected of him, the broad rules of the office culture, and the practical information about the organization and work facilities that he’ll need to begin doing his jobs properly.

A useful and practical orientation is integral to new hire retention. Getting feedback from the new employees about their orientation experience six to eight weeks later is a helpful way to sculpt the orientation process into an effective and enjoyable one.

Reference Checks
A reference check is simply contacting a prospective hire’s past employers or other references to verify what you’ve already concluded about an applicant you intend to hire. Reference checking is a final confirmation step in the hiring process. This may simply involve verifying that the person in question actually held the position listed on the résumé, and what his or her starting and ending salaries were. Sometimes further investigation is necessary, asking the reference if the job applicant displayed leadership qualities, worked well with others, made any significant contribution to the prior organization, etc. Lateness, absence, conflicts with other staff, and reaction to stress may also be discussed.

Relocation
Facets of relocation may include helping the new hire and her family sell their current residence and find a new one, moving expenses, temporary housing (when necessary), helping the spouse find new employment, and finding appropriate schools for the new hire’s children. This process can be handled in-house, but is often outsourced or co-sourced with a relocation agency. Larger organizations may even have a relocation department, helping new hires with information on cost of living, real estate costs, regional lifestyle characteristics, etc. International relocation adds work permits, immigration laws, and language teachers to the equation. Formalized protocols for relocation help to make the process run smoothly. The faster the new hire can get settled into the new location and begin work, the lower the costs for the organization.

Recruit
Recruiting is one of the most important investments for any organization, an investment of finances, time, and resources. If your organization were a car, the recruitment process would be like selecting the best engine components, shocks, wheels, safety features, etc. to produce optimal performance.

There are many decisions to be made for both the overall recruitment schema and for special cases where the dominant strategy is not the best fit.
Where is the best place to seek prospective hires for your organization? Online job boards? Job fairs? Special recruiting events? Networking?
Should the organization try to attract experienced professionals from competitors? In-house staff? Graduating college students? Interns and contingent staff? International candidates?
How much of the recruitment operations should be handled in-house and how much should be outsourced? Which recruiters will be the best fit for the organization’s core values?
What should the recruitment budget be? How much should be spent on advertising? How does the organization determine internal and external costs?
How does HR measure the performance of the recruitment process? What is the Recruiting Efficiency? How about Time-to-Start? How much time after a new hire has been with the organization is necessary to determine his or her performance and determine the true result of recruitment?
Effective recruitment requires proper planning, patience, continued evaluation and reassessment, and a unified vision for the outcome.

Online Job Boards
An online job board is a website that allows employers to post job openings (usually for a fee) and allows job seekers to search for job postings using a refined search to narrow down the results (usually free of charge). Many job boards also function as job-aggregators, searching their own site (and sometimes the web) for specific key words or job requirements that job seekers have entered into their profile, and emailing seekers a list of matches. Recently, online job boards have been created with a new recruitment model based on referrals and networking.

The positive aspect of online job boards is the ease of information transfer that can reduce the time-to-hire and save an organization money. Drawbacks include an abundance of unqualified applicants, an overwhelming number of applicants in general, and reliance on the resume as the primary predictive tool for recruitment. Online job boards are trying to combat these drawbacks with refined searches and resumes built through the site itself with a series of dropdown menus aimed at pinpointing specific skills and experience necessary for particular positions.

Employers' clarity and specificity about whom and what they need to fill positions and applicants' attention to detail in their resume and profile can help make online job boards a more useful recruiting tool.

Recruiting — External
External recruiting includes all of the recruitment strategies and costs necessary to attract candidates of choice from outside the organization. Online job boards, traditional media advertising, job fairs, networking, campus recruiting, recruiting experienced staff members (including opportunistic recruitment), and international recruitment are included in this operation. The process begins when a position opens up or is created that requires an outside hire. Recruitment may be handled in-house or may be outsourced or co-sourced with a recruitment agency. After the application process opens, the candidate pool is narrowed based on skill sets, salary requirements, geographic location, experience, etc. External recruiting costs (or sourcing costs) include any initiative used to identify or attract candidates, including employer branding.

The metrics employed by HR to track the success of recruitment—including Hiring Manager Satisfaction, Recruiting Cost Ratio, Time-to-Start, and New Hire Retention—are an absolute requirement in evaluating and adjusting the external recruitment operation to achieve the desired goals. Recruitment has become increasingly competitive, and an organization needs the best strategies and technology to be able to attract the most valuable prospective hires.

College
Many organizations consider the college campus to be a crucial location for recruiting new hires. An organization’s presence on a college campus, and the representatives' interaction with the student body, creates a type of focused branding in the students' minds.

In the past few years, there’s been a boom in campus recruiting that has made the process much more competitive. Organizations are finding creative ways to reach out to their youthful prospects. Job fairs and recruiters sitting at a table with brochures have become somewhat ineffective for the short attention spans of the current generation. Recruiters are hosting game nights, offering prize money for essays, sponsoring student activities, establishing relationships with professors in fields of interest, and using other innovative methods. Some organizations are hosting webinars to reach specialized groups of students throughout the country.

In fields where many students are offered jobs before graduation, such as engineering, many recruiters are targeting the freshmen and sophomores and establishing a relationship then before another organization snatches them up. Internships and co-ops are still an effective way to find new hires.

Statistically, students who take a position with an organization right after college have high retention rates. The key to retention is honesty on the part of the recruiter; the students should have a realistic concept of what working for a particular organization will be like.

Experienced
Many key positions in an organization, especially leadership positions, require a high degree of experience and expertise. Recruiting experienced staff members can be done through regular channels: online job boards, traditional media advertising, networking, etc. Some organizations actively recruit key performers from other organizations, known as opportunistic recruitment. While sometimes frowned upon (even considered "espionage"), opportunistic recruitment is a pervasive practice that is considered quite effective at adding value to an organization. Recruiters research the professional and personal lives of vital performers from other organizations so that they'll be able to offer a customized package to the individual that will be tailored to what he or she needs or is lacking. A growing trend in business is hiring professionals that are over 50 years old. With baby boomers aging, it’s estimated that more than 20 % of the workforce a decade from now will be composed of 50-plus workers. In the past, older workers were devalued for their health issues, lack of energy, and lack of longevity. Today, these same workers are being recognized for making fewer mistakes, having experience and understanding of the workplace, and for better retention rates (since the typical 20- to 30-year-old changes jobs on an average of every three years, while the 50-plus workers change jobs on an average of every 15 years). Many organizations are now developing flexible retirement plans to retain valued employees.

International
The global marketplace and modern technological advancements have stripped away the boundaries that once made international recruitment implausible. For the most part, international recruitment is still in its infancy. Only around 10 % of U.S.-based recruiters look to international candidates to fill positions in the U.S. That figure continues to grow. International recruitment allows for the chance to find the best and the brightest candidates for upper level positions.

Worldwide recruitment is a requirement for international companies. Sending an American to manage a plant in Thailand would make little sense when a qualified candidate from Thailand can be found who already knows the language, the culture, and the management style best suited to interact with Thai workers.

Recruiting — Internal
When attempting to fill an open position within an organization, sometimes the best strategy is to search for a candidate internally. In this case, research whether there are current staff members who have the skills and experience necessary to fill the open position, and whether or not the organization is willing or able to fill the new vacancy created when an internal hiring occurs.

Internal recruitment saves a lot of energy and money as far as advertising and recruitment agencies are concerned. It also significantly shrinks the timeline of the hiring process. Depending on the level of the open position, this may be a chance to develop internal staff and create advancement for one or more members of the organization. However, consistently recruiting internally can sometimes be limiting and does not allow new staff members with fresh ideas and abilities to enter the organization.

Researching Employee Pools
Evaluating the candidate pool is a process of narrowing the field from a large number of candidates to the select few ideal people for an open position. Sometimes the best strategy may be to search for a candidate internally. The organization may wish to limit the pool to applicants referred by members of the organization itself or from other industry sources. It may be necessary to take steps to recruit passive candidates through various media if the candidate pool is unsatisfactory.

When dealing with a large external applicant pool gathered from résumé submissions, recruiters, college recruitment programs, and online job boards, the field is narrowed initially by eliminating candidates who do not meet the educational requirements, have incompatible salary requirements, and (when relocation costs are not an option) are not local. The pool is further thinned through pinpointing performance qualities specific to the open position. The end result should be a select group of individuals with which to begin the screening, testing, and interviewing process.

Traditional Media
Traditional media are the sources used to reach potential candidates including newspaper, radio and television ads, professional and trade journals, and recruitment agencies. The proliferation of internet sources (online job boards, company websites, professional blogs, etc.) has for the most part overshadowed traditional media because web-based recruitment tools are usually much more cost-effective, can reach more people more quickly, and offer a certain amount of interaction that job seekers seem to prefer. However, traditional sources are still a viable means to attract prospective hires utilized by many organizations.

Research and Planning
For individual positions, research and planning are integral to finding the best candidate for the job. The recruiter must work with the hiring manager to create an accurate job requirement description and negotiate a realistic time-to-start. A search of existing candidate databases should yield some potential candidates, but in addition to this are preparing and scheduling a listing of the position description on pertinent job boards, with existing employees, and via other appropriate media.

With sufficient and correct research and planning, the recruiting process will very nearly run itself to successful completion and an excellent hire.

Retention
Retention is not the inverse of turnover but rather retaining the staff you want to retain. Retaining the best performing employees is critical to the ongoing success of any organization. Rarely is retention achieved through salary-based incentives alone. Most employees actively seek advancement, professional development, and a genuine work-life balance in addition to incentives and bonuses. Successful retention is best achieved by a proactive HR department that actively seeks out what employees want most, and also by discovering the reasons behind the departure of former staff the organization has failed to keep, but wishes it had.

Advancement
Advancement, or the lack thereof, is often a key factor in employee turnover. If an employee’s current position seems to be a professional dead-end, he will seek a job with another organization. Beyond monetary need, staff members derive satisfaction in their positions from a sense of accomplishment. Accomplishment comes from rising to a challenge. A staff member stuck in the same position for years may lose motivation without new challenges and responsibilities.

Advancement means new challenges, new responsibilities, a sense of pride, and monetary gain. The highest performing employees, the hard workers and the natural leaders, are the most likely to crave challenge and growth. These employees yearn to rise to the occasion, and proper advancement gives them the means to shine.

Incentives and Bonuses
While not one of the top listed factors in failing to retain key staff members, incentives and bonuses can be an effective tool in staff retention, especially when the bonus or incentive rewards the best performers in an organization. Retention means keeping the staff you value, and rewarding these key players for their performance shows them that you do value them. Company-wide annual bonuses are mostly ineffectual for retention; an individualized performance-based bonus works best because it provides motivation and direction for work, and a sense of accomplishment when the bonus is earned.

Incentives and bonuses range from monetary awards and stock options, to trips, trophies, and extra vacation time. The goals required to earn a bonus should be clearly defined, quantifiable, and include a few different performance metrics. The less subjective and more fairly measured the goals, the less likely a staff member who does not receive a bonus will feel cheated.

Some incentives are not tied to monetary awards, and are not quantifiable at all. For example, in some organizations, ambition and innovation may be looked on quite favorably, and the incentive is building a bright reputation within the organization in the hopes of advancement somewhere down the line. These cultural incentives, while subliminal, are quite powerful in shaping the performance of an organization’s staff.

Professional Development
Professional development is one of the top factors in staff retention. While it may include learning skills specific to the position a staff member holds in an organization (such as learning how to operate new technology directly involved in the job), it goes beyond that into developing skills required to make a staff member into a better professional overall. Leadership and management skills, stress reduction, creativity enhancement, conflict resolution, and team communication are among the many life skills taught and coached that fall under the umbrella of professional development. Continuing education is another facet.

Professional development must be an individualized process. Supervisors or HR managers should meet with each staff member annually or semi-annually to discuss and measure development. Each person has different strengths and weaknesses, different skill sets and experience, and professional development should help improve what is lacking and erase blind spots in overall performance.

The ROI for professional development is substantial and often more immediate than other initiatives. It will not only improve performance, but also boost morale. Some organizations fear they are training employees to find a better position with another organization. While this is possible, the loyalty that professional development often instills in employees, as well as the immediate benefits, make it a worthwhile investment with only moderate risk involved.

The best performers in an organization become the best because they are properly motivated. They want to achieve their goals and expand their knowledge base. This is why professional development is crucial to retaining the key players in your organization.

Work-Life Balance
Work-life balance involves consistently achieving work goals while simultaneously enjoying family, friends, and life outside of work.

Work-life balance is something each staff member needs to address individually. Different social factors (e.g. married or single, children or no children, employment level, closeness to retirement age) will effect that staff member’s definition of work-life balance. This is a fluid concept; there will be times when work must come first, and times when personal issues take absolute precedence.

Organizations can help provide this through initiatives like flex-time, onsite childcare, family leave policies, fitness facilities or fitness membership reimbursement, mental health programs, etc. An employer’s sensitivity to the personal needs of staff can be the key to reaching work-life balance. A person who feels balanced will be less affected by stress and therefore more productive. Work-life balance means high morale and leads to less instances of sickness, absenteeism, and burn-out. It’s an integral part of staff retention.

Staff Development
Organization driven development of staff contributes to secession planning, improved performance, and employee retention. It may include education reimbursement, special skills training and workshops, certification programs, and any other educational development initiatives that should increase employer productivity and performance.

Staffing Operations
Definition
The actual work of staffing.
In the broadest terms, Staffing Operations can be defined as the goals, structure, policies, practices and resources of an organization’s staffing function. It deals more specifically with nearly every aspect of an organization’s recruiting function. Involved in this are:
Strategy
Design and Structure
Use of Technology
Processes
Management
Training
Diversity
College Recruitment Program
Contingent Staffing Program
Consultant and Contractor Program
International Recruiting Program
Resource Selection and Management
Outsourced Recruiting Program

College Recruiting
Many organizations consider the colleges and universities to be a crucial source for recruiting new hires. Depending on the industry, HR must determine how aggressive college recruiting should be, how much of an investment of funds and resources are necessary, which universities should be focused on, and what the recruitment strategy will be.

Some organizations establish a target percent of new hires each year that they want to be college recruits. These hires are perceived as being highly trainable and include graduates that have been employed for less that one year immediately subsequent to graduation, been un- or under-employed for less than two years, complete an internship, residency, fellowship, or discharged as junior military officers within a year.

In the past few years, a boom in campus recruiting has made the process more competitive. Organizations are finding creative ways to reach out to prospects. Once an appropriate focus has been determined, recruiters will have to rely on a customized selection process in determining on which students to focus their energy. Internships and co-ops are a very useful approach in determining whether a student and an organization are the right match for one another.

New hires that are recruited directly after graduation will require extra attention in the orientation process, since they will not only be acclimating to a new job, but to the workplace in general. HR may want to consider providing extra information for these new hires to help them understand not just the organization’s particular office culture, but the basic do’s and don’ts of the workplace, concepts other new hires may take for granted, having learned from experience.

Consultants and Contractors
Contractors usually work on a project basis, or for a set, contracted, period of time. They differ from contingent workers in that because they are project- or time-defined by a written agreement, they are almost more of an outsourced provider than an employee. Contingent workers, by contrast, are hired for specific needs, which are not necessarily defined by either time or project.

Traditionally, contractors and consultants have been a staple of the health care, information technology, telecommunications, and financial services industries. Today, they've also become a regular presence among scientists, engineers, physicians, and other highly specialized skill-based fields.

Recruiting the right individuals for contract and consultant work is an important component in the organization’s overall success. Many experienced professionals decide to become free agents since they have the credentials necessary to be successful on their own, so ignoring this pool of potential expertise may mean missing out on some of the top performers in a particular field.

Contingent Staffing
Contingent staff (temps) works on a temporary basis either to cover the work of an absent employee or to fill positions in an organization that has seasonal or cyclical work patterns that require varying amounts of staff. Contingent workers are usually hired through a staffing service, and do not receive health benefits from the organization for which they are working. Using contingent staff is cost-effective because it eliminates hiring costs and benefit costs (and avoids paying overtime to full-time staff in the case of covering for an employee’s absence), and offers a good source of immediate workforce assistance.

Hiring contingent staff has often been part of the procurement function. As organizations move toward more project-based business strategies, it becomes incumbent upon HR to become an active part of this process. While HR may not have much experience dealing with vendors, they do have knowledge about what the organization’s core competencies are, which jobs require full-time employees, and which require contingent staffing, as well as the necessary skill set and knowledge-base for these positions are. Organizations now recognize that their contingent staff is often as important as their full time staff, and that HR needs to pay special attention to recruiting the right people for the job and to finding ways to retain key contingent staff performers.

Design and Structure
When problems are determined in staffing operations, the tendency is to fix things piecemeal. This is usually good for a quick fix. Everything in the staffing process is connected, and therefore a holistic approach to the design and structure of the staffing operation is necessary to ensure success.

Examine the roles and responsibilities of each member of the team from the start of the process to its completion. Are there any redundancies in responsibilities that can be eliminated? Are there serious blind spots in the process due to lack of communication? Is the solution to the problem going to be a complete overhaul of the staffing structure, or are just a few tweaks required to get things running smoothly?

Get the whole team together and map out the entire process in as detailed a fashion as possible. Let the team talk to each other and see if misinformation abounds or if one hand really knows what the other is doing. Team members should be encouraged to express their needs and what they think could be done to improve the process as a whole or just from their vantage point. When a new or revised model is created, it should be put through simulations to determine flaws before the plan becomes reality. Once the new/revised staffing structure is in place for six months to a year, get the team together again for an evaluation and problem-solving session. The staffing structure is important enough to warrant thorough evaluation at least bi-annually.

Diversity
It would probably be enough to say diversity in the workplace should be a priority for every organization because it’s the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do, but there are reasons beyond common sense. It makes for good business. Here are a few positives for business that are improved through diversity:

It’s a good part of organization branding. Having a reputation for embracing diversity will attract a wider group of candidates and increase the chances of finding the ideal person for any opening in the organization.

It bolsters morale within the organization. People want to work somewhere that will accept them regardless of race, religion, political affiliations, sexual orientation, lifestyle choices, etc. Better morale means better performance. Staff members feeling valued will lead to higher retention rates.
It helps with problem-solving. Employing people from different backgrounds with different values and experiences makes for plethora fresh perspectives and chances for innovation.

It can expand your customer base. Just as the candidate pool is diverse, so is the customer base. Customers embrace organizations that reflect values they respect.

Diversity must be a value that is completely pervasive throughout an organization. Having bylaws and mission statements is not the true test of diversity. The true test is how staff treats each other and how they treat customers. Recently, a debate has begun about how wide the scope of diversity should be. Beyond race and gender, it has moved to sexual orientation and political views. Now some wish to expand it to introvert vs. extrovert, a worker with a military background vs. a bohemian creative type, etc. One side of the debate argues that the wider the net, the closer we get to trivializing the issue. The other side says there should be no limit to understanding. Time will tell.

International Recruiting
The globalization of the marketplace has added plethora complications to the recruitment and staffing function. Government regulations may restrict the number of expatriates that your organization can employ in a country, or have a quota of local nationals that must hold positions in the organization. India, for example, has an initiative in place that requires an organization with offices in their country to hire a certain quota of lower caste staff members.

Hiring an international recruit for a US-based position means a unique onboarding process. In addition to regular orientation, there will be citizenship and/or work visa issues, possible language and cultural training, travel and housing arrangements, etc. A new hire from another country should be paired with a mentor from the organization who can show him the lay of the land - literally and figuratively. Approximately 10% of US-based recruiters look to international candidates to fill positions in the US; but that figure is growing. International recruitment allows for the chance to find the best and the brightest candidates for upper level positions.

International recruitment presents a variety of difficulties as far as measuring performance and analyzing results. Despite this fact, HR has a responsibility to track and evaluate the international recruitment processes at work in their organization. When using an international recruitment agency, a clear definition of what constitutes a desirable candidate must be expressed clearly, but a certain level of trust should be given to the outsourced agency to understand the workforce and cultural climate in the country or countries in question. Performance and manager satisfaction metrics should still be employed. Some governments are now insisting that HR managers in international offices located in their country must be local nationals (often in the hope that these local HR managers will hire more local workers), which will make the tracking and assessment of international offices even more challenging.

Mission and Objectives
Without a staff, an organization cannot truly exist. Thus, staffing is more than the hiring and removing of employees or their respective positions; rather, staffing is the building and maintaining of an organization. The mission and objectives of a staffing operative define why and perhaps how, who, and when the establishment will find, hire, train, use, and keep staff (which could include salary employees, volunteers, contractors, or a variety of other types of workers). Not only does a comprehensive mission and objectives statement help hirers look for the right things in the right people and adequately access and educate their staffs; but it also aids the unity of the various staffing members that may work in operations by reducing the effects of personal differences in opinion in regards to how the staffing process is implemented. The staffing mission and objectives provide clear guidelines that assist all involved in a cohesive effort.

While it has often in the past been the practice of those hiring a staff to look for certain characteristics or qualities that appear to advocate an individual’s ability to perform the job well, recent years have seen a great growth of understanding in the area of staffing operations. Human Resources and other similar departments are beginning to understand the power that clearly defined mission and objectives in their staffing operations can have.

The mission and objectives of a staffing operation should include statements of purpose (verbal or written; however, written is conclusively stronger) that focus the organization’s goals for its staff in matters such as recruiting and retaining them, accessing and developing their skills, providing conditions and practices that promote the right kind of working environment, and facilitating their professional development and growth. The scope of the mission and objectives may cover anything and everything from designing an appropriate set of qualifications for prospective employees and ensuring physical safety in the workplace to building a sense of community among the staff and hosting seminars that may precipitate a higher level of quality in the work.

Outsourced Recruiting
The decision to outsource a substantial portion of any recruiting operation should begin with a evaluation of the current recruiting performance and projected requirements.

The right initial answer to whether or not to outsource and where to base operations should be, "It depends" and it should depend on the answer to series of questions such as these:
What doesn’t it tell us—what doesn’t it do?
What problems have been encountered previously?
How do you know that? Is there any documentation?
Can I see the calculations?
How do you know that?
What other factors are or may be involved?
What are the possible implications—now and long term?
How do you define __________?
What are the other alternatives?
What are the costs after implementation?
What does it encourage—what does it discourage?
What is behind the endorsements or recommendations?
Are there any other considerations?
Before you make a decision whether it is design and structure or outsource or not, ascertain what you are getting for your dollars now. Then examine the drivers of your current performance. A single factor, like superior leadership can compensate for a host of weaknesses—but only for a time.

Another important decision is which functions within recruiting need to be kept in-house. Some recruiting services will perform an end-to-end process, while others will work with your existing processes and staff members in a combined effort.

Once an outsource recruitment vendor has been chosen, communication and measurement are the keys to success. While the outsourcing vendor should be allowed to use its own style and processes, it’s up to your organization to clearly define the desired results, track the progress of the operation, and make adjustments as necessary.

Resource Selection and Management
There is virtually no aspect of staffing today that cannot be augmented with technology and/or outsourcing. The number of products and services continues to grow. While many of these tools will save an organization time and money, a lot of research must be done to determine the right tools for a specific situation. Gathering as much information as possible is the only way to make the correct decision. There is an abundance of vendors in the marketplace, so the selection process should be as structured and clear as possible.

Starting with all possible products and services, narrow down the field based on the strengths, weaknesses, and desired results determined from evaluating the staffing operation from top to bottom. Determining the right mix of technology, outsourcing, and in-house operations requires an awareness of the organization’s structure, culture, budgetary parameters, core processes, and core values.

Once the technology or outsourced resource has been implemented, performance metrics should be used to track the results of the tools being utilized. Continue research into advancements in technology and vendor services to keep processes up-to-date. While budgetary limits are necessary, the vital importance of building an effective staff makes the upfront time and expense worthwhile.

Staffing has changed because the workplace has changed. The growth of international and contingent staffing and the complexity of employment law are just a few of the factors that add to the list of HR responsibilities. As the responsibilities expand, so must the processes; technology, outsourcing, and consultant services have become necessary to attempt to stay ahead of the game.

Strategy
Once your staffing mission and objectives have been determined, a strategy must be planned to achieve your staffing goals. Examine your current processes to determine what works and what doesn’t. If possible, study the structure and processes of another organization in your industry (this can be especially helpful for a new organization trying to build from the ground up). Also, make an inventory of your core and non-core processes and competencies, budgetary parameters, projected annual income, etc.

All of the following questions should be addressed in the creation of your staffing strategy:
How can we best reflect our core values to prospective hires? What role will branding play in recruitment? How can we build a workforce of diverse performers?
What avenues of recruitment should we pursue? Traditional media advertising? Online job boards? Job fairs? Campus recruiting? International recruiting? Networking? Referrals?
Which recruitment functions should be kept in-house? Which should be outsourced? What technology can augment the recruiting process?
What will our workforce consist of? Mostly full-time employees? Will there be a large base of contingent staff? Consultants? Telecommuters?
What will our onboarding process consist of? How long should orientation last? Should we use mentors for new staff members?
What training programs should we offer our staff? Would these programs be extended to contingent staff and consultants? Should we offer tuition reimbursement?
What will our management style be? Performance-based? Result-based? How hands-on do we want our management to be?
How will we retain our best performers? Bonuses? Salary increases? Advancement? How can we aid our staff in reaching work-life balance? Flex-time? Daycare programs? Fitness reimbursement?
There are many more facets of staffing to be discussed at this stage. Insight, foresight, and realism will lead to an effective strategy that takes into account different barriers and setbacks that are an inevitable part of day-to-day operations.

Technology
Technology has been changing the face of every single business in the world. Human resources management is no different. As a special segment of Workforce Management notes, "HR technologies continue to make processes faster, easier, and more efficient. But with the economy in slow mode and budgets down, companies are refocusing their technology investments." Given the constraints of the market, important questions must be asked of any technology. And the primary question that must be asked regarding technology in the human resources arena is: given the vast strides that have been made in the information technology sector, how can these advances be used to optimize the performance of people and work? This technology has been greatly improving in the past few years. These technological advances have enabled managers to use human resources’ metrics in ways that just a few years ago would not have been possible.

The scope of technology in the human resources field reaches the most basic aspects of hiring and firing, which includes tracking tenure, retirement and health benefits, service dates and tax records and extends to the furthest reaches of talent management, a growing sector in the field. Historically, technology has been used to perform the former functions, and has only more recently moved into talent management which uses metrics to better deploy a firm’s human resources. What differentiates most of the products on the market is the extent to which they are integrated and comprehensive. HR technological solutions, however, aren’t the answer to problems if HR managers and staff don’t have the proper training. Samuel Greengard quotes Jim Holincheck, a research director at Gartner, as saying "one of the biggest mistakes is unleashing human resources staff and recruiters on a system without adequate training." 1

With all of these technological solutions two major issues arise:
To what extent are human resources technologies a one size fits all solution and to what extent must they be developed organically in-house? If they need to be, as Samuel Greengard believes "built from the ground up" 2 then the entire human resources technology market needs to shift its focus.
To what extent is the utilization of human resources technologies merely the result of good management techniques? The smaller the influence of management the more we should be spending on technology and the larger the role of good management the more we should be focusing on good management techniques. These two questions will run throughout the discussion of technology practices in the human resources sector.

Training
Training can mean the difference between a well-informed and motivated staff member moving towards advancement and possibly a leadership role in an organization or a staff member who feels uncertain, uninformed, and undervalued. Lack of training is always one of the top factors listed for high employee turnover. Encouraging staff members to grow as part of the organization, and as professionals in general, boosts morale and confidence, which leads to employee satisfaction, which leads to customer satisfaction and increased profits. Training topics include instruction of management on how to effectively recruit and select new hires, leadership skills, time management, career management, presentation skills, communication styles, etc.

One of the major decisions to be made about training is what, if anything, to outsource. Over the years, more and more training has been outsourced, and it’s not uncommon for an organization to outsource everything but the strategic decisions of training. This can be a cost-effective plan because training may span a variety of areas and consolidating the number of vendors through one outsourcing entity will usually lower the overall price of the endeavor. Another reason why outsourcing training is cost-effective is because it allows the organization to increase or decrease the amount of training to meet the ebb and flow of some cyclical industries. Some organizations, however, feel that outsourcing training is a sign that a) the organization is in financial trouble, or b) that the organization does not place a high value on training. This sentiment is not widespread, and outsourcing is overall a good strategy for getting the best value in training and allowing the organization to focus on core operations.

Another trend, connected to outsourcing, is the use of e-learning techniques over instructor-led models. While not appropriate for all training, it’s another effective way to cut costs when it suits the skill to be learned.

Workforce Planning and Development
Workforce planning is simply determining what human resources you need where and when, and then creating a plan to make it so. It includes developing staff into stellar performers to meet the future needs of the organization. This is an ongoing task requiring constant attention to ongoing training, motivation, management, and reward. Doing this will allow organizations to successfully meet the world’s increasing demands for high performance, constant improvement, modernization, and high efficiency.

Workforce planning entails identification of the current and future skill sets and number of employees needed to deliver new and improved services to organizational customers. One must analyze the present workforce’s characteristics in relation to these needs, comparing the present workforce and the desired future workforce so as to highlight shortages, surpluses and competency gaps. The planning process lays out a three- to five-year plan to recruit, develop, support, and retain the employees it needs for the future. The plan should proactively plan for developing needs of both the organization and employees.

Cooperative Education
A type of work integrated learning, cooperative education (co-op) is a method of learning in which academic study combines with workforce experience. This type of program occurs during secondary and post-secondary education. Typically, students either alternate between a semester of classroom coursework and an equal length of time of paid employment, or spend half the day in the classroom and the other half in the workplace. The emphasis is on combining academic knowledge with on-the-job experience.

Co-op students can be an invaluable resource for an organization since they have experience-based knowledge of the workplace. Upon graduating, co-op students may become a consistently reliable talent pool of entry-level workers.

Design and Structure Process
The design and structure process for workforce planning and development requires a strong investment of time and attention to detail. It involves understanding the needs of organizational customers, and arranging the management, training, and technology of an organization to optimize proficiency in meeting its goals. The main goal is the ongoing process of tailoring an organization’s human resources schema to most effectively meet the needs of the marketplace. Marketplace demands evolve over time, requiring a continuous adjustment in workforce development. The members of the organization need the proper tools to perform their respective roles proficiently; these tools include proper training, updated technology, effective motivation and compensation, and clear management directives. Accomplishing these goals may include outsourcing and talent acquisition.

Workforce planning should integrate long-term and short-term goals and be adaptable to the changing climate of the global workplace; on average, this workforce structure will be in place for three to five years. Successful implementation of workforce planning and development results from thorough research to form a strategy.

The model for an organization’s workforce must address every major decision regarding staff members. How many staff members are needed? What are the competitive salary ranges for each position? What will the makeup of the staff be in terms of full-time employees, contingent staff, consultants, and outsourcing? What kind of workspace does each staff member need? What supplies and technology will they need to accomplish the tasks of their job? What will be included in the healthcare benefits package? Will the organization offer a 401(k), and if so, will it match some percentage of employee contributions? How often will performance reviews take place? This barely scratches the surface of the questions to be answered. This process will answer every aspect of workforce planning.

Branding
Branding may seem like an afterthought, but it should be thought about ahead of time when formulating the design and structure of the organization’s workforce planning and development. If the organization’s goal is innovation in its industry, then one of its top priorities will be creativity. Knowing that creativity is king beforehand, determines how the organization’s workforce should be structured. If your branding indicates that the organization fosters creativity, it will attract the top creative performers in the industry. If the organization’s goal is to embody dependence and stability, then the design and structure of the organization’s workforce should create job security and focus on retention. Customers and potential hires are sensitive to how an organization works and whether or not their setup is at odds with the mission and objectives the organization claims to pursue. If a company claims its goal is to serve clients for their entire lives, but the turnover rates within the organization are extremely high, and the organization is constantly changing regimes, that sends a message to the public. Sometimes the incongruity between branding and reality is a people problem. But sometimes it’s a fundamental flaw in the design and structure of the organization.

Design and Structure
Just as the strategy should be derived organically from the mission and objectives, so should the design and structure develop organically from the strategy. Knowing what you want to achieve, and how you plan to go about achieving it, you determine the shape of the team that will do the work. Determine the core processes and competencies of your organization, and determine what percentage of manpower and resources will be distributed to each department. Larger organizations will have the option of keeping many functions, such as payroll, in-house, while a smaller organization may have to outsource certain non-core processes. Projections of what the customer will need and what is necessary to compete against other organizations in the marketplace help to determine whether or not, for example, you'll need a customer service department of five staff members or fifty, or whether you'll need one at all. The structure of the organization will determine how decisions are made (from the top to the bottom or more unilaterally), and who will bear which responsibilities. There may be a board of directors or shareholders, or all directives may flow directly from the CEO.

Industries evolve and fluctuate based on numerous factors, from new technology to economic shifts to the emergence of a new dominant customer demographic. These types of industry changes may have an effect on the organization’s mission and objectives, which may affect the strategy and, in turn, the design and structure. Periodic review of the design and structure is necessary to know when it’s time to update, innovate, or possibly even return to an older version of the way things were shaped.

Mission and Objectives
An organization’s mission and objectives absolutely must be the first thing finalized when the organization is being formed. Without a clear goal, an effective plan for the development of the workforce is impossible. The entire staff should be built around the mission and objectives, acquiring performers who understand and can aid the organization in continually achieving its mission and objectives. When the marketplace demands a change, and the mission and objectives are revised or completely rethought, this requires a complete re-evaluation of the design and structure process of workforce planning and development from top to bottom. The changes may be gradual, but they must be made. Sometimes new or revised mission and objectives means changing methods, and sometimes it means acquiring new team members and replacing others. Frequent reminders of the mission and objectives to all members of the organization will keep workers at every level aware of when the organization is losing sight of its goal. This type of awareness is an important factor in an organization’s survival.

Developing Requirements
Before determining the appropriate plan of action for achieving the organization’s core objective, it is imperative to define the parameters for the organization’s needs. What the organization needs is what the staff needs. This is about knowing what one’s entire workforce (full time and part time, contract and contingent, temporary and outsourced) needs to get the job done effectively. From upper management to interns, everyone must be factored into the overall success equation.

Concise articulation of the requirements for success will lead to a more focused strategy. People are able to fulfill their roles more fully when they have a clear understanding of what their role entails. Staff members knowing very specifically what is expected of them will lead to better performance.

Employee Development
Employee development involves learning skills specific to the position a staff member holds in an organization and developing skills required to make a staff member into a better professional overall. This includes continuing education as well as seminars and training sessions that provide guidance for conflict resolution, leadership skills, communication, stress management, creativity enhancement, etc.

Employee development should be planned for as soon as the hiring process is completed. Instead of waiting until the annual review to assess a staff member and determine what skills and qualities need improvement, a set of goals and a plan for reaching those goals should be formulated at the outset. Employee development may account for three percent or more of the total payroll budget, so it requires the same planning that any financial investment deserves.

Employee development must be an individualized process. Supervisors or HR managers should meet with each staff member annually or semi-annually to discuss and measure development. Through manager feedback, performance metrics, and self-assessment, staff members can understand their role in the organization and whether or not they are fulfilling that role to the best of their ability.

Succession Planning
Succession planning is ensuring that the key roles in an organization are filled by qualified and capable individuals. Specifically, this can refer to the transition after a CEO or other leader in an organization has retired or passed away. Generally, it refers to training and mentoring current staff members to fulfill the most important duties in the organization and to be ready for advancement, as well as hiring new recruits that are highly qualified for the positions that need to be filled. The emphasis is on preparing staff to be able to step up and fill a key role in the organization when there is a vacancy. For the present, it means ensuring that members of an organization have the knowledge and skills necessary to perform their duties. For the future, it means ensuring that a member of an organization will be ready for advancement when the time comes.

Succession planning requires awareness of organization goals and the needs of the marketplace; only by grasping what is crucial to the success of an organization can one recognize the key players.

Succession planning greatly helps maintain staff retention. Staff members recognize and appreciate being groomed for advancement, and this fosters loyalty for the organization.

Telecommuting
Telecommuting refers to an employee working some of the time or full time from home or another offsite location. This can be an effective way for some employees to achieve work-life balance (for instance, new parents or employees with an elderly parent who needs at-home care), and can help retain key staff members. The organization saves money on overhead, office space and technology costs. The telecommuting employee saves money on gas or other commuting expenses, and gains extra time that used to be occupied with the commute to and from work. Some drawbacks to the telecommuter may include a sense of social isolation, a lack of managerial guidance, less opportunity for advancement, and household distractions. Managers can feel they are unable to accurately measure a telecommuter’s performance.

Phones, email, faxes, home computers, and the internet are critical in the success of telecommuting. A proper home office where telecommuters can accomplish their work without distraction, and where any sensitive materials associated with the organization will be kept secure and private is absolutely necessary. Efficient and timely communication between supervisors and employees will make or break this type of arrangement. The telecommuting employee must be kept in the loop and maintain his or her status as an active and productive team member in the organization.

Determining what technology and supplies will be provided or reimbursed by the organization is usually handled on an individual basis. In the United States, an organization is not legally responsible for creating a safe home work environment, but in other countries it is a requirement.

Work Integrated Learning
Work integrated learning is an umbrella term used to describe an education curriculum that combines academic learning with workplace implementation of that knowledge. Work integrated learning includes, but is not limited to, cooperative education. Mentored employment programs, undergraduate university/industry research projects, supervised work experience (e.g., internships), and accredited workplace learning all fall into the category of work integrated learning.

Work integrated learning should occur in three phases: preparation, work placement, and post-placement evaluation and review.

As with co-op students, students who’ve successfully completed work integrated learning can be an invaluable resource for an employer since they have experience-based knowledge of the workplace.

2008 Recruiting Metrics & Performance Benchmark Report