Within the context of strategic human resource management, staffing encompasses human resource planning, acquisition, and development aimed at providing the talent necessary for organizational success. Four key staffing activities necessarily linked to organizational strategy and structure are: (1) human resource planning, (2) selection, (3) perform ance appraisal, and (4) training. A systems approach to human resource planning will help management devise staffing strategies for future hu man resource needs. As the organization's gatekeeper for vital human resources, employee selection should be more than a haphazard process of looking around for people to fill vacancies. There are relative advantages to promoting an insider as opposed to transferring in or hiring an outsider. Federal Equal Employment Opportunity laws require managers to make hiring and other personnel decisions on the basis of ability to perform rather than personal prejudice. Because interviews are the most popular employee screening device, experts recommend structured rather than traditional, informal interviews. A structured interview may be defined as a series of job-related questions with predetermined answers that are constantly applied across all interviews for a particular job.

Legally defensible performance appraisals (the process of evaluating individual job performance) enable managers to make objective personnel decisions. Of the three general approaches to performance appraisal - trait, behavior, and outcome - the behavior-oriented approach is the most strongly recommended. The rationale is that behavior, not personal traits or abilities, is ultimately responsible for job success or failure. Listed in declining order of popularity, six common performance appraisal techniques are goal setting, written essays, critical incidents (specific instances of inferior and superior performance are documented by the supervisor when they occur), graphic rating scales, weighted checklists (evaluators check appropriate adjectives or behavioral descriptions that have predetermined weight), and ranking/comparisons. Managers are challenged both to evaluate performance and to develop human potential during the performance appraisal process. This dilemma can be partially resolved by encouraging subordinates to engage in self-evaluation before offering constructive feedback on performance.

I. Reading Exercises:

Exercise 1. Read and memorize using a dictionary:

Exercise 2. Answer the questions:

1) Why do student have strong concerns about their future organ izational life?

2) What does staffing encompass?

3) What are key staffing activities?

4) What is the most popular employee screening device?

Exercise 3. Match the left part with the right:

Exercise 4. Open brackets choosing the right words:

Federal Equal Employment Opportunity laws (require/offer) managers to make hiring and other personnel decisions on the basis of ability to (transform/perform) rather than personal prejudice.

The speaking module

II. Speaking Exercises:

Exercise 1. Describe staffing, incongruency thesis, structured interview, performance appraisals, behavior-oriented approach, critical incidents using the suggested words and expressions as in example:

Exercise 2. Ask questions to the given answers:

1) Question:

Answer: There are relative advantages to promoting an insider as opposed to transferring in or hiring an outsider.

2) Question:

Answer: Apart from the formal employment contract, an informal and often unspoken psychological contract exists between employee and employer.

3) Question:

Answer: A systems approach to human resource planning will help management devise staffing strategies for future hu man resource needs.

The writing module

III. Writing exercises:

Exercise 1. Complete the sentences with the suggested words: resolved, feedback, subordinates, both, during

Managers are challenged _____ to evaluate performance and to develop human potential _____ the performance appraisal process. This dilemma can be partially ________ by encouraging _____ to engage in self-evaluation before offering constructive ________ on performance.

Exercise 2. Compose a story on one of the topics (up to 100 words):

“Staffing”

“Performance appraisals”

“Human Resource Management”

Lesson 8 The reading module

Read the text: Communicating

Observational research indicates that managers at all levels spend the majority of their workday communicating. Communication is a social process involving the transfer of information and understanding. Links in the communication process include sender, encode, medium, decode, receiver, and feedback. Noise is not an integral part of the chainlike communication process, but it may influence the process at any or all points. As the term is used here, noise is any interference with the normal flow of understanding from one person to another.

Perception is important to communication because it helps senders and receivers give meanings to environmental stimuli, including messages. Three perceptual subprocesses are selectivity, organization, and inter pretation. Perceptual defense enables one to screen out irrelevant stimuli, and perceptual set does the opposite. Grouping, figure-ground, and closure help people perceptually organize otherwise meaningless stimuli. Specialists often interpret situations differently because of their restricted perspectives.

Four dynamics of organizational communication are structural consid erations, the grapevine, nonverbal communication, and upward communication. Research suggests a trend toward greater centralization of the overall communication function. The unofficial and informal communication system that sometimes complements and sometimes disrupts the formal communication system has been labeled the grapevine. A sample of managers surveyed had predominantly negative feelings toward it. Recognizing that the grapevine cannot be extinguished, managers are advised to monitor it constructively. Nonverbal communication, including facial, gestural, and postural body language, accounts for most of the impact of face-to-face communication. Managers can become more effective communicators by doing a better job of receiving and giving nonverbal communication. Upward communication refers to a process of systematically encouraging subordinates to share with management their feelings and ideas. It can be stimulated by using formal grievance procedures, employee attitude and opinion surveys, suggestion boxes, an open-door policy, informal gripe session, task forces, and exit interviews.

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