Strategic Staffing: Assessment, Efficacy, and Utility

Introduction: The Case for Strategic Staffing

The professional landscape of the 21st century requires flexibility and innovation with regard to human resources. New methods such as strategic staffing, when aligned with organizational strategy, demonstrate clear efficacy and utility. The issue of strategic staffing is an amalgamation of several concerns: the frequent failure of organizations to align staffing strategy with organizational strategy, the obstacles and tools for managing a flexible workforce, and the need to reconsider careers and industries in the 21st century along with the implications for staffing strategies.

The world has changed considerably over the past two decades, and companies that want to keep up and lead must adopt business practices attuned to the times and the markets. Strategic staffing is a tool available to all organizations, but used by relatively few. Even rarer are successful implementations and approaches to it.

A core issue within strategic staffing is the attitudes people hold toward it. Those who must conduct research and preparation for strategic staffing are often not properly trained in the methodology. Managers tasked with strategic staffing preparation may not directly see the utility of the exercise; they may view it as impossible or as a waste of time. Executive managers do not often apply the information gathered through strategic staffing to its best use, if they apply it at all. In the relatively few instances where strategic staffing has been implemented, the approaches and attitudes toward implementation directly inhibit the success of the organizational or staffing change.

The perspective of this paper is that strategic staffing is a tool that does not get used very often or very well, but when it is, it proves invaluable and is directly related to measurable achievements within the organization in question. Misconceptions and a lack of adequate education in strategic staffing keep it from widespread use and keep businesses from greater prosperity.

Misconceptions and Barriers to Effective Strategic Staffing

A significant problem with strategic staffing is that many managers are ill-equipped to perform what is necessary to complete it. Others are inadequately prepared to utilize the information gathered through the strategic staffing process. Furthermore, many organizations do not see the utility in undertaking strategic staffing at all because they do not understand what it is or how it benefits them. Ployhart articulates these misconceptions and the unfulfilled potential of strategic staffing:

"These challenges [of the 21st century] might lead one to think that organizational decision makers recognize staffing as a key strategic opportunity for enhancing competitive advantage. Because talent is rare, valuable, difficult to imitate, and hard to substitute, organizations that better attract, select, and retain this talent should outperform those that do not… although staffing should be one of the most important strategic mechanisms for achieving competitive advantage, organizational decision makers do not understand staffing or use it optimally. Given that the war for talent is very real and relevant to organizations around the globe, it is critical that organizations and organizational scholars recognize the value of staffing." (Ployhart, 2006, p. 870)

Organizations do not perceive the value or utility of strategic staffing, while the minority that do are often industry leaders or at least provide a formidable, respected presence within their field. This is an area that has not yet been fully maximized for the purposes of productivity, efficiency, cohesion, stability, and profit in a great many organizations (Ployhart, 2006). In the 21st century, organizations should engage every department and every aspect within reach to unify under a commitment to the organization's success. The widespread neglect of strategic staffing is evidence that not every department is fully utilized in service to the company.

Highly effective strategic staffing requires interaction with other facets of the human resources department and existing management. The Department of Employee Relations offers insight into the effective use and integration of strategic staffing:

"The proper alignment of participant roles and responsibilities is significant to the model's success. A shared responsibility between line supervisors, managers, and HR professionals is important in identifying the critical human resource issues in strategic and operational plans. In addition, line managers must lead the development and implementation of staffing plans while human resource staff provides consulting and technical support for data collection, analysis, measurement, and staffing activities. The effectiveness and efficiency of the Strategic Staffing model cannot stand alone; it must be integrated with other human resource processes…" (DOER, 1999, pp. 6–7)

This presents yet another challenge to the effective use of strategic staffing in business. There is little practical knowledge of it in most organizations. General attitudes toward it are that it is useless. Traditional perspectives hold that it is best used as a reaction to a situation and that its use is an isolated concern of the human resources department only. In reality, strategic staffing is a formidable weapon in the battle to stay ahead in nearly every existing industry in the 21st century. The misconceptions and disadvantageous attitudes toward it leave it like the sharpest knife in the drawer that never has the chance to cut.

Defining Strategic Staffing and Workforce Planning

Before engaging in a close examination, clarification of key terms is essential. Who should care about staffing? Is staffing isolated to one field or industry? Staffing is relevant to any organization with more than one employee working on its behalf. Ployhart explains the universality of staffing succinctly:

"Staffing is broadly defined as the process of attracting, selecting, and retaining competent individuals to achieve organizational goals. Every organization uses some form of a staffing procedure, and staffing is the primary way an organization influences its diversity and human capital." (Ployhart, 2006, p. 869)

Strategic staffing is a relatively new term in the human resources and management lexicons. It is sometimes used interchangeably with "workforce planning," though the terms are distinctive. Both involve conceptual and strategic approaches to human resource management, but they differ in emphasis and scope.

Strategic staffing occurs at various stages within a business or organization. It is most effective when a change in the business or organization is in the preparatory stages—whether that change is organizational, cultural, structural, or philosophical. Strategic staffing serves as a tool to smooth the facilitation and solidification of organizational transitions of many kinds. Bechet, a leader in the field of strategic planning, defines and distinguishes it as follows:

"I define 'strategic staffing' as the process of identifying and addressing the staffing implications of business plans and strategies, or better still, as the process of identifying and addressing the staffing implications of change. The impact on staffing should be defined (or at least discussed) whenever changes to business plans are being considered (whether near-term or longer-term)… Others call the process 'strategic workforce planning,' but to me, 'strategic staffing' emphasizes the longer-term, business orientation of the process." (Bechet, n.d., p. 1)

Therefore, the use of strategic staffing acknowledges and prepares for coming change. It requires leaders to consider the array of effects an organizational change may have and to plan accordingly. Bechet further refers to strategic staffing as a long-term business strategy — not a tool for the shortsighted or for a temporary business venture, but rather one that reflects a plan of longevity.

Strategic staffing is a tool for longevity in business. It requires managers to evaluate their organizations in the present, and even historically, and then make projections. It asks managers for foresight into their industries and their organizations. There are numerous industries that do not change very much over time, and there are those whose changes come gradually or at a manageable pace. There are other industries, such as information technology and computer science, which continue to evolve and revolutionize themselves in cycles of just a few months. The question naturally arises: how can management in such fields implement strategic staffing in a meaningful way?

References

Bechet, T. P. (n.d.). Developing staffing strategies that work: Implementing pragmatic, nontraditional approaches. The Walker Group: Tempe, AZ.

Bechet, T. P. (2002). Strategic staffing: A practical toolkit for workforce planning. AMACOM: New York, NY.

Corporate Executive Board Company. (2011). Building next-generation strategic staffing capabilities. Corporate Leadership Council — Recruiting: University of California.

Minnesota Department of Employee Relations (DOER). (1999). The strategic staffing guidebook. DOER: Saint Paul, MN.

Morfield, C. (2002). Workforce planning: The strategy behind "strategic staffing."

Phillips, J., & Gully, S. (2009). Strategic staffing: Chapter 1 — Strategic staffing. Prentice Hall.

Phillips, J., & Gully, S. (2009). Strategic staffing: Chapter 2 — Business and staffing strategies. Prentice Hall.

Ployhart, R. (2006). Staffing in the 21st century: New challenges and strategic opportunities. Journal of Management, 32(6), 868–897.