Strategic Human Resource Management

Section Six

Staffing

Obviously, a company’s recruiting and selection procedures are
critical to its ability to acquire the human resources needed to
obtain competitive advantage. Further, as indicated in the Tsui
and Gomez-Mejia model in Figure 6-1, human resource
effectiveness is influenced by factors outside the human
resource function. Accordingly, evaluation approaches for
staffing functions must control these other influences before
valid assessments can be obtained. In addition to the
traditional approaches to selection, which attempt to match
applicants with job requirements, some new views of selection
may pose different evaluation challenges. For example, David
Bowen has pointed out that some companies are now placing
primary emphasis in matching applicants with the charac-
teristics or culture of the organization, instead of the job.^38
Thus, future evaluations may need to focus on developing
measures of staff compatibility with organizational
characteristics.

There are a several measures that can be used in the
evaluation of recruiting effectiveness (e.g., cost per hire,
number of résumés received, recruiter activities).^39 In turn, the
effectiveness of recruiting has an impact on the effectiveness of
a company’s staffing. To the extent that a company performs
staffing functions poorly, the impact may be potentially