1. Staffing in the 21st Century :New
Challenges and Strategic
Opportunities

2. STAFFING
 Many challenges for staffing in the 21st
century eg. knowledge based work
places greater demands on employee
competencies
 Organizational decision makers
recognize staffing as a key strategic
opportunity for enhancing competitive
advantage

3. RECRUITMENT
 Meta analysis conducted by
Chapman, Uggerslev, Carroll. Piasentin
and Jones (2005)
 Following are the findings
 Perceptions of person –organization fit
and job/organizational attributes were
the strongest predictors of the various
recruiting outcomes
 They were followed by perceptions of the
recruitment process , recruiter
competencies and hiring expectencies

4. Person –Environment Fit
 Kristof-Brown, Jansen and Colbert(2002) found
support for a three level conceptualization of fit-
person-job, person-group and person –
organization
 Cable and DeRue(2002) argued for three types
of subjective subjective fit perceptions
 Person-organization
 Person-job
 Needs-supplies
Cable and Edwards(2004)examined the
similarities and differences between
complimentary fit and supplementary fit

5. Employer Brand Image
 Cable and Turban (2003) showed that
applicants use the firm’s reputation as
a signal about the job attributes and
as a source of pride from being a
member
 Collins and Stevens(2002) argued that
in the early stages of recruitment,
organizations can use publicity,
sponsorship of universities and
schools, word of mouth and
advertising to create a positive brand
image

6. Employer Brand Image
 Lievens and Highhouse(2003)
introduced the instrumental-symbolic
framework to recruiting
 It was found symbolic attributes
provided incremental explanation of
organizational attractiveness beyond
that provided by instrumental
attributes

7. Applicant Reactions
 Stereotype threat
 Threat of confirming that negative
stereotype interferes with a person’s
performance
 The lack of stereotype threat effect
was found in a high-stakes field study
by M.J.Cullen, Hardison and
Sackett(2004)

8. Attitudinal perceptions and
reactions
 Meta analysis by Hausknecht, Day and
thomas(2004)
 Selection procedures- consistent, job
related/face valid
 Interviews and work samples are
perceived most favourably followed by
cognitive tests

9. Internet recruiting
 Cober, Brown, Keeping and
Levy(2004) presented a model
describing how organizational
websites influence applicant attraction
 Façade
 Questions remain unanswered

10. PERSONNEL SELECTION BEST
PRACTICES
NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN SELECTION PRACTICES
COGNITIVE ABILITY
•Employers must recognize that the sole use of
cognitive ability may impair their ability to hire a
diverse workforce
•As long as the best selection methods negatively
affect diversity , organizations will be tempted to
avoid using them
•In Sackett, Schmitt, Ellingson and Kabin and
Hough(2001), Oswald and
Ployhart(2001), numerous strategies have been
discussed that may reduce subgroup
differences, such as supplementing cognitive tests
with noncognitive tests

11. NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN SELECTION
PRACTICES(cont..)
PERSONALITY
•The now classic meta analysis by Barrick and
Mount (1991) found personality traits (as
measured on the Five Factor Model)
demonstrated criterion-related validity for
various criteria(whose magnitude was low if not
zero)
•The uncorrected validities have not changed
much since Guion and Gottier(1965), which
concluded there was not much support for
personality validity.
•Most Human Resource managers remain
skeptical

12. NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN SELECTION
PRACTICES(cont..)
SITUATIONAL JUDGEMENT TESTS
 Tend to be received favourably by
applicants and HR Personnel
 What they measure and why they are
effective remain unclear
 Concern whether they can be
implemented cross culturally

13. NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN SELECTION
PRACTICES(cont..)
ASSESSMENT CENTRES
 Have been plagued by apparent lack of
construct validity
 Lievens’s research(2002) suggests that
construct validity may be most determined
by applicant behaviour , applicants must
demonstrate high consistency across
exercises and also high variability across
dimensions
 Convergent validity will be enhanced when
trained assessors like psychologists
conduct the test

14. NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN SELECTION
PRACTICES(cont..)
WORK SAMPLES
 It is believed that they provide one of the
best ways to provide one of the best
ways to simultaneously achieve validity
and diversity
 However meta –analysis by Roth, Bobko
and McFarland(2005) found work
samples show a corrected criterion
related validity of .33 , much smaller than
the often cited .54 in the classic Hunter

15. NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN SELECTION
PRACTICES(cont..)
INTERVIEWS
 Structured interviews/Unstructured
interviews
 Meta Analysis by Huffcutt, Conway, Roth
and Stone(2001)identified seven latent
dimensions
 Most common dimensions assessed were
social skills and personality
SELECTION USING INTERNET
 Proctored v/s unproctored testing
 Variety of legal issues surrounding Internet
testing

16. PRACTICAL RECOMMENDATIONS AND
IMPLICATIONS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL
EFFECTIVENESS
 Use selection methods such as
assessment centres, work samples or
SJTs
 An approach that enhances validity is to
include a battery of cognitive ability and
personality predictors
 Despite all the attention focused on
selection practices , there are still many
questions that need additional research
 Eg. What barriers exist to organizations
adopting different predictors?

17. Multi-Level staffing
Linking Individual staffing to Organizational Effectiveness
 Individual Differences – Knowledge, skills, abilities, and other
characteristics, generally referred to as KSAO or Human
Capital
 Micro Level Research - Analysis of how individual differences
contribute towards individual performance and assume that
individual differences contribute to organizational value.
 Macro Level Research - Examines how HR practices contribute
to organizational performance but assumes that these practices
have an effect because of their influence on employee
individual differences.
 organizations having well-developed staffing practices have
better performance (Huselid,1995),but the focus is on the
practice itself and not the specific human capital affected by the
practice
 Each discipline rarely considers processes, constructs and

18. Need for Multi Level theory
 Cross Level Fallacy - Inferences and assumption
beyond respective levels and occurs when researchers
inappropriately generalize their within-level findings to
higher or lower levels of analysis (Rousseau,1985)
 staffing research needs to connect micro and macro
levels
 Inability to show unit level value (Schneider 2000)
 Organizations are inherently nested and hierarchical

19. Multi Level Theory
 Contextual effects -are “top-down” effects from higher to
lower levels e.g., changing an organization’s HR practices changes
the behavior of individual employees.
 Emergent effects - are “bottom-up” effects from lower to
higher levels
 Kozlowski and Klein (2000) - A phenomenon is emergent
when it originates in the cognition, affect behaviors, or other
characteristics of individuals, is amplified by their interactions, and
manifests as a higher-level, collective phenomenon.
 composition models of emergence theorize that there is
such high similarity (homogeneity)among lower level observations
(employees) that the within-unit scores create a distinct aggregate-
level construct.
 compilation models of emergence theorize that variability
(heterogeneity)among lower level observations (employees)
represents a unique higher level construct.

21. Practical Recommendations and
Implications for Organizational
Effectiveness
 Multi-level staffing models do not negate the importance
of single-level recruitment and selection research
 the model offers a way to demonstrate the value of
staffing by examining the relationships between
individual differences/human capital with individual
outcomes/unit-level outcomes.
 Multi-level staffing also offers the opportunity to
advance staffing theory, some of them described in next
slide
 Human capital, the aggregate individual differences
linked to unit effectiveness, is rare, inimitable and can
provide competitive advantage. That’s why low level
jobs and competencies should considered strategic
since it is very difficult for competitor to develop such
human capital.
 Strategic human management researchers should start
measuring human capital directly i.e. through
emergence.

22. Implications of the model for future
research suggested by Ployhart

23. Neglected Questions
 why do managers so often fail to believe
in our technology and science?
 how does staffing contribute to
reinforcing/changing/articulating
organizational
culture, climate, values, personality, and
vision?
 what are the consequences of
outsourcing staffing?
 are findings based on civil service
organizations generalized to private
sector organizations?