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What Is the Definition of Staffing?

An effective staffing process helps you find and retain strong candidates who are a good fit for your organization. More specifically, you can keep refining your staffing. Successful programs establish a continuous system of evaluating and developing your relationship with employees and selecting for qualities that are most effective. Ideally, the process of staffing can help you find great employees and maintain strong relationships with them.

Learn more about what staffing is, the duties and activities regularly involved in staffing and what the process looks like.

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What is staffing?

The definition of staffing is to find employees who understand your goals. The staffing process involves locating, selecting, hiring and maintaining a professional relationship with potential and current workers. Human resources staff members are usually in charge of creating and implementing a company’s staffing protocols to find quality candidates who will match its office culture and provide valuable work.

A good staffing plan makes the process of recruiting, hiring and training into something effective and efficient for your company and its new employees. You can choose to cover your company’s staffing in-house, or you can hire outside professionals to handle it based on your criteria.

Your responsibilities as a business owner or manager

Before you can begin staffing effectively, you need to clearly understand your own role and needs as a business owner or manager. This means knowing what is staffing going to enhance, what would best serve your business and clearly defining necessary roles for the company hierarchy. If you can achieve this, you will hire new staff with confidence and create more free time for higher-level business growth.

Things you might want to consider when you embark on your staffing plan include:

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses: This means understanding what you or your existing staff can handle effectively and which areas may require help from new employees.

Knowing when delegation is your best strategy: This factor is about understanding where your existing level of management could use the presence of additional staff to give you time for more important tasks.

Understanding how to interact effectively with candidates: Even if you find the right candidate, your efforts to ease them into working for your company might fail if you can’t effectively communicate what you need and why you want them to join your team. Successful staffing depends on social and communication skills.

Duties and activities involved in staffing

Many procedures are involved when developing a successful employee staffing process. These can vary depending on your company’s size, culture and needs, but they often include:

  • Collaborating with department managers and other leaders to determine which roles are open and what they look for in an ideal candidate
  • Establishing specific performance standards and candidate qualifications
  • Creating an accurate and clear job description
  • Getting the job description approved by department members and leaders
  • Posting the job description on social media outlets and job posting sites
  • Recruiting and contacting candidates who seem like a strong fit for the role
  • Scanning applications for relevant skills and experience
  • Screening and interviewing candidates and sending recommendations to department managers
  • Building an onboarding and training process for new hires
  • Evaluating the performance of newly hired staff members and refining the training process if needed
  • Measuring the success of the staffing process and regularly applying updates

Overview of the staffing process

When finding the best candidates for your company, you should build an effective, standardized staffing plan and follow it each time that you fill an open position. By standardizing this process, you can create replicable staffing success patterns and metrics. The following steps are typically included in an effective staffing process.

Related: Staffing Plans: What Every Manager Should Know

1. Determine your company’s staffing needs and goals

Before you start recruiting and hiring candidates, meet with managers and company leaders to define your staffing needs. Discuss which departments or employees are overwhelmed by too much work, what tasks or projects still need to be completed and why different members of your company’s management believe a new hire could improve their efficiency.

2. Build a budget and timeline

Make a list or spreadsheet of departments and positions that need to be filled, the number of new employees the company should hire and open roles. Then, work to clearly define the sets of responsibilities and qualifications needed for each role. Determine which opening you plan to hire for immediately and the salary each should offer.

These steps help you establish a clear budget for hiring and onboarding new employees. If the budget only allows you to hire a few full-time employees, consider options like hiring temporary team members. You can later shift these part-time employees to a full-time position once your budget allows it.

3. Sort through the list of candidates, and find quality talent

Publish the job description on social media outlets and job listing sites. Your job description should clearly list the qualities that you need in an ideal candidate. It should also clearly explain the job responsibilities. Find candidates whose resumes list skills and experience that match the requirements in your job description.

Conduct screenings and interviews in which you ask candidates relevant questions about the role to help determine whether they will be a great fit for the position. Narrow it down to around three to five candidates, and have the department manager interview them.

Handling the recruitment process and providing relevant and qualified candidates to the department manager streamlines this process and lets managers handle their other responsibilities while still having enough time and authority to hire staff.

4. Create an effective onboarding program

Once employees are hired, begin the onboarding and training process. Develop an orientation system for new hires that involves teaching them how the company operates. This includes introducing them to employees and instructing them on company policies or brand guidelines.

Training and onboarding materials help employees feel more confident about easing comfortably into their roles. This also builds a relationship with new hires and makes them feel more relaxed about coming to the HR team with any questions or concerns about the position.

5. Track and update the program regularly

Measure your staffing plan, and find ways to refine or expand it as needed. Track both the recruitment and onboarding process to determine where to make changes. Send out surveys to department managers asking how well new hires are performing. Ask employees and managers how they believe you can improve your staffing process. Keep a written record of any findings, and document recommendations that others offer.

You can also survey your current staff to request their opinions on the onboarding and training process and ask if there are any improvements that they believe you should make. It’s important to take these suggestions into consideration as you regularly return to your staffing process and update it accordingly.

Definition of staffing FAQs

How can I calculate the benefits of hiring new staff members?

Time is your single most valuable asset as a business owner or manager. Because of this, calculate the opportunity or wage cost of handling a certain set of tasks by yourself or with your existing staff to decide if hiring someone else to do it for a certain wage will let you be more productive elsewhere.

What other costs should I consider when hiring new employees?

If you’re hiring internal staff instead of contractors, your staffing expenses should factor in their wages or salary costs, federal payroll and unemployment taxes, workers’ compensation insurance fees and any employee benefits you offer. You might also include Medicare taxes and any local payroll taxes or insurance costs.

Should I develop an employee handbook for new staff members?

For management or executive roles, an employee handbook might not be necessary or appropriate, but if you’re hiring entry-level employees, a written set of guidelines can be useful. This might include information on communication policies, pay schedules, promotion rules, dress codes, break policies and benefits among other topics.

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