STAFFING PRACTICES IN SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE BUSINESSES

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Staffing is one of the most important functions of management. It is an aspect of human resource management that includes finding sufficient number of people who will take up employment in the business and selecting from this number those to whom employment will be offered. The staffing function is housed in the human resource or personnel department of most large organizations while in smaller organizations where there is often the absence of a well defined separate personnel department, the process of staffing is conducted by the manager or owner of the business.

          However, whether small, medium or large scale enterprise the purpose of staffing is ensuring that positions within the organization are filled and remain filled with competent workers doing the work of the organization to ensure that goals are met. Most writers have agreed that staffing is composed of the following parts; recruitment, selection, placement, training and development, employee appraisal and separation. From this it can be concluded that staffing involves processes related to balancing the workload with available resources, recruiting, selecting among candidates for open positions, employees leaving the Organization, and transitioning into new positions (Carnegie Mellon University 001:109). Human resource is considered the most valuable yet the volatile and potentially unpredictable resource which an organization utilizes. If an organization fails to place and direct human resources in the right areas of the business, at the right time and at the right cost, serious inefficiencies are likely to arise creating considerable operational difficulties and likely business failure (Bramham 1990: Smith 1971). Acquiring and maintaining an adequate staff is the best asset an organization can have (Clifford: 1989:145).

Finding and keeping good employees is not a matter of luck but rather the result of aggressive recruitment, careful selection, proper training and motivation and thoughtful management. This may include careful manpower planning to reconcile the organization’s need for human resources with the available supply of labour in the local and national labour market.

STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

This research work is going to provide answers to the following questions.

1.       How do small businesses determine their staffing needs? 

2        How do they recruit and select new employees?

3.       How do small-scale companies determine the right training and development programs for their employees?

4.       How do small-scale companies evaluate the job performance of their employees?

5.       How is the entire staffing function carried out in small-scale businesses?

 

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

This study has the following objectives.

1.       To find out the methods adopted to ascertain the staffing needs of their companies.

2.       To ascertain the recruitment methods adopted by the firm.

3.       To find out if the firms understudy organize training and development programmes for their employees from time to time.

4.       To determine how job performance is evaluated.

5.       To ascertain the procedures involved in the entire staffing process of the organizations.

 

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

          This research work focuses on staffing in small and medium scale enterprise. That is, finding out the common trend used by small and medium scale enterprises. But intense study will be done in few organizations in Benin City, Edo State.

 

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

 This work is significant because it will produce data that will be useful to:

·              To entrepreneurs

·              To personnel managers

·              The researcher and student of management on staffing practices of small and medium scale organizations.

 

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

          The case study research design has limitations because staffing is to be studied in only few companies. This will make it difficult to generalize the findings to other companies.

          The questionnaire method of data collection is limited to verbalized responses to predetermined answer to questions. The structured and standardized format of the questionnaire may force the respondents to give answers that they do not fully endorse. The limitations are due to time and money constraint.

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