State and explain the different nature and importance of staffing.

 STAFFING

Organizational goals cannot be achieved without personnel fit for each job to accomplish. This means the assurance of the right person for the right job can make the organization successful. Thus, planning and acquiring the best employees, motivating them for their best effort to the job, and retaining them is another important organizing function of management. It helps to fulfill various positions created by the organizational structure. This process of getting people right for a job position is called staffing.

Staffing, the management function involves appointing appropriate personnel, developing them to meet organizational needs, and ensuring that they are a satisfied and happy workforce. It is defined as a managerial function of filling and keeping filled positions in the organizational structure. In modern organizations, staffing function is done by acquiring employees on a permanent basis, daily basis, for consultancy purposes, and with contract employees. Thus, staffing functions include the following major activities:

1. Identifying workforce needs and planning for getting the right person at the right job.

2. Recruitment and selection of appropriate personnel for the vacant positions.

3. Planning training for development and work for succession planning. 

4. Conducting performance appraisal and determining compensation.

NATURE OF STAFFING FUNCTION

1. Human-centric: The staffing function plans and executes the plan for searching for appropriate employees for vacant positions. It deals with planning for the efficient utilization of human resources in an organization. It works for developing their skills and plans for satisfying employees and motivating them for their optimal efficiency and productivity.

2. Development of employees: The staffing function is concerned with developing the potential of employees in the organization. It develops their personality, interests, and skills. It enables employees to get maximum satisfaction from their work. It assists employees to realize their full potential. It provides opportunities to employees for their career advancement.

3. Pervasive function: The staffing function is universally applicable as it is essential in every organization. It is a major sub-system in the total management system that can be applied to both profit-making and non-profit making organizations. It is also essential at all levels of the organization for all types of employees.

4. Continuous function: Staffing is a continuous function that starts even before the establishment of the organization up to the winding up of the organization. Human resource planning, monitoring, performance appraisal, motivation, and maintaining employee relations are functions on a continuous basis.

5. Interdisciplinary nature: Staffing is an interdisciplinary function as uses concepts, ideas, principles, and rules drawn from various disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, and management. It is the behavioral sciences. 

6. Integral part of general management: Staffing is an integral part of general management. It is a part of every line manager's responsibility. Every manager, supervisor, and other in the management group must be an effective personnel administrator to supervise, appraise their performance and motivate them.

7. Indispensable part of management: Staffing is essential and indispensable part of the overall management of the organization. Human resource planning, recruitment, selection, development, utilization, and maintenance of human resources have no exceptions for organizational success.

8. Environmental influence: The performance of staffing is affected by the internal and external environment of the enterprise. The internal environment of the enterprise includes policies connected with the employees like the promotion policy, demotion policy, transfer policy, etc. The external environment affecting the enterprise includes government policies and the educational environment. It can be the policy of the government that in a particular enterprise employees should be recruited only through employment exchange.

IMPORTANCE OF STAFFING FUNCTION

Staffing is the only way to fulfill the organizational structure by searching and appointing the right people for the right job. It is the management function for employee development, motivation, and maintenance. The importance of staffing function can be justified in the following points. 

1. Searching for competent personnel: Staffing identifies the requirement of the workforce to fill in the positions in the organizational structure and selects the right people for the right job. It ensures the appointment of people with adequate competencies depending upon the job description.

2. Higher performance: The staffing function ensures the higher performance of employees and hence their department and overall organization. It helps to By deploying the right people for the right job helps business enterprises to use physical resources in the most optimum manner leading to higher productivity, better efficiency, and improved performance.

3. Optimum utilization of resources: Staffing identifies the workforce requirements and plans the appointment of people accordingly. This ensures that there is adequate personnel available to avoid education allowance, and so on. Non-financial compensation includes promotion, membership benefits, participation in the decision-making process, leadership opportunities, and organizational image. Staffing determines the compensation needs of employees, conducts compensation surveys to determine levels and types of compensation, and formulates short-term and long-term plans and policies.

4. Maintenance function: Maintenance function is the effort to encourage the employees to continue the job for long years. This is obvious that higher-level job termination is a sign of organizational failure. To prepare a fresh candidate for an expert, an organization has to invest money, time, and psychological efforts to a great extent. So, staffing pays keen interest in the retention or continuity of employees in the organization. Staffing works for providing a friendly environment with full assurance of job security. For this, staffing maintains employee discipline, maintains good labor relations, and provides employee welfare programs.

• Employee discipline: It is the set of codes of conduct to be followed by individual employees, and entire people in the organization. Staffing ensures the accepted set of the behavior of each individual within and outside the organization.

• Labor relation: Labor relation is the relationship between management and trade union in the organization. Harmonious labor relation enhances employees' morale and also ensures organizational effectiveness. Staffing for this ensures good workplace relationships through mutual respect, coordination, and cooperation.

• Employee welfare programs: Organizations must ensure job security, physical security, and financial security. Staffing formulates different kinds of welfare programs for the employees to be implemented currently and at the future. Job guarantee, use of safety tools, medical insurance, recreation, gratuity, pension plan, etc.