After reading this article you will learn about the relationship between human resource department and staffing.
As staffing deals with appointment of people according to job requirements and their placement at the job that best suits their capability, it is an important function and responsibility of every manager in every department (production, finance, sales) and not merely that of the personnel or HR manager.
In small-sized organisations, staffing process is carried by managers of the respective departments where there is need to appoint people but in large-sized organisations the process of staffing is conducted by a separate department created for this purpose; the personnel department. The personnel manager conducts the staffing procedure in consultation with line managers where people need to be appointed.
Though HR department is a line department similar to marketing, production and finance departments, it functions as staff with functional authority over other departments with respect to matter related to human resource management.
Line managers are responsible for getting the work done from people of their departments and, therefore, they participate in the staffing process. However, staffing being a specialised function, HR department assists line managers in performing this function. For example, performance appraisal of employees is done by line managers but the method and procedure of appraisal is prescribed by the HR department.
Staffing Procedure Conducted by the Human Resource (HR) Department:
The staffing procedure carried by professional human resource managers rather than operating managers has the following merits for the organisation:
1. All the applications are centralised and selection can be done at a faster rate.
2. Operating managers may not have knowledge and expertise to conduct the selection procedures. Thus, they shall be free from this responsibility and rely upon professionally qualified HR managers to meet their requirements of manpower.
3. Keeping in view the financial constraints, selection costs will be considerably reduced if selection procedure is centralised with HR department. Duplication of efforts by each department in conducting interviews for selection shall be avoided.
4. Government regulations regarding equal employment opportunities have made the selection procedure a specialised area of management which can be professionally managed by a specialised department, the HR department.