Concept of US Staffing

The IT staffing process is one of the key HR functions in major IT companies. It involves the process of scouting and hiring and managing eligible candidates for different job positions within the company. So, let us check out what the IT staffing process is and what the different steps of staffing processes are.

What is the staffing process?

The IT staffing process is referred to as a systematic implementation process of the human resources plan, which involves finding or attracting candidates, evaluation, selection, recruitment, and appraisal. The primary objective of the IT staffing process is to find competent candidates to fill the different job roles in the IT company. The staffing goals can be achieved with the help of your in-house HR team, or by outsourcing your requirements to an IT staffing services provider like OLX People.

The employee life cycle

There are six stages to an employee lifecycle. Let us understand it better with the help of a flowchart:

As shown in the flowchart, the six stages of an employee lifecycle include the following:

  • Attraction
  • Recruitment or hiring
  • Onboarding
  • Training and development
  • Retention
  • Exit or separation

Employers follow these steps to understand the current stage of their employees and what kind of steps can be taken to improve or enhance the performance and engagement of employees to ensure growth and retention.

Steps in the staffing process

This employee lifecycle helps us to determine the steps needed to ensure an effective IT staffing process. A proper staffing process allows us to identify the current and future requirements of the company. Further, it helps us create and execute a plan as per the derived requirements to hire the most suitable candidates. The different steps in the staffing process include:

  1. Workforce planning
  2. Recruitment and selection
  3. Placement
  4. Onboarding
  5. Training and development
  6. Performance appraisal
  7. Retention
  8. Exit or separation

Here’s explaining the IT staffing process steps in detail.

1. Workforce planning

The first step in the staffing process is to estimate and plan your workforce requirements. This process includes analysing the qualitative and quantitative aspects of recruiting. The two key features that help to determine workforce requirements are—the type of workforce and the number of resources.

These features will help you plan out an elaborate recruitment and selection strategy, which will attract and hire the right candidates for the job. Additional aspects that need to be taken into consideration while planning include desired qualification, job requirements, desired skills, and employee relationship with the previous employment.

2. Recruitment and selection

Recruitment involves the sourcing and searching for prospective candidates and encouraging them to apply for available job positions. This process involves identifying your target market or prospects and then pursuing and encouraging them to join your company.

Selection involves the process of evaluating and selecting the best candidate for the job out of the list of prospective applicants. During selection, it is crucial to ensure that the candidate’s ability matches with the job role. In simple terms, the selection is all about hiring the right candidate for the right job. This will yield better efficiency and performance from employees.

3. Placement and induction

Placement involves hiring and placing the right person for the right role. Placement involves the right posting of the selected candidate as per their qualification, skills and expertise. For instance, it makes sense to place a candidate with sales experience with the sales team rather than shift them to the marketing team, merely to fill in the posts. This will lead to a waste of human resources and will result in an unsatisfied employee.

Orientation or induction is the process of introducing the different aspects of the organisation, its policies, rules, regulations and job roles to the new hires. It is aimed at giving new employees an overview of the organisation and their specific job roles.

4. Onboarding

Many employers link onboarding with orientation and consider both to be the same. However, both are vastly different from each other in concept and in practice. Orientation or induction is a one-time process of welcoming new hires to our company. On the other hand, onboarding is a broad concept, which includes induction and a series of activities to ensure that the new hire is ready for the work floor. Further, onboarding includes the process of acquiring new knowledge or skills specific to their department or team, and understanding their performance parameters and goals effectively to ensure a quick and smooth transition into their new departments or teams.

5. Training and development

Training involves the process of imparting systematic knowledge and training onto the new hires to make them ready for the job. Training is sometimes included in the broader concept of onboarding, or it is sometimes addressed individually. Training is vital to improve the preparedness of employees to handle their current jobs.

Development is the process of providing adequate opportunities for professional growth and development of their employees. It involves encouraging employees to take up higher responsibilities and providing them with ample internal promotion opportunities. Growth and development opportunities are essential for an employee to prosper and flourish in an organisation. Lack of such t opportunities can result in dissatisfied and frustrated employees.

6. Performance appraisal

Performance appraisal involves the process of evaluating the employee’s performance based on your key performance indicators (KPIs) and rewarding the employee according to their performance. This helps the employers to gauge the performance of employees in a given month, quarter or a year. If the employees fail to meet the performance appraisal targets, then the company can provide further training to improve the knowledge, skills and performance of the employees.

7. Retention

Retention is one of the key processes in maintaining employee satisfaction. This involves focusing on retaining the best employees within the organisation and ensuring that they are happy and satisfied with the opportunities within the organisation, and would not look for better employment opportunities elsewhere.

Retention involves creating a positive work environment and a cohesive company culture that identifies, appreciates and nurtures talent among employees. It involves creating a transparent and inclusive work environment where the words and views of the employees are heard, acknowledged and acted upon. Such a process will ensure a successful staffing cycle for the company.

8. Exit or separation

The last stage of the staffing process is the separation or exit. The process is implemented when an employee has to leave an organisation due to personal or family reasons, retirement or new employment opportunity. The exit process must be as specific and strategic as the recruitment and onboarding possess.

When an employee leaves the company, the activity can affect the other employees in the team. Therefore, HR professionals or managers should ensure that the existing employee leaves in such a manner that their exit does not unsettle the team’s day-to-day activities or the morale of the employees.

Also, a proper exit process helps you evaluate the employee’s reasons for leaving the company, which can help you provide better services to existing employees to avoid them from leaving the company.

A successful staffing process determines the overall success of the organisation. Therefore, a company should focus on creating and implementing a comprehensive staffing process to ensure holistic growth and development of employees and the organisation.