Review of Staffing function

     The various functions of management includes planning, organizing, staffing, leading and control.  An organization to be run in an effective manner requires efficient and competent human beings.  This requirement is fulfilled by the Staffing function.
     Staffing is therefore defined as the process of 'recruiting and retaining the most competent people'.  Staffing includes a variety of activities from recruitment, selection, placement, training, performance appraisal and motivation of employees.
     Recruitment is the process of looking for the potential candidates either within the organization (internal) or outside the organization (external).  Selection is the process of differentiating between applicants and conduct a series of tests before taking him into the organization.  The various tests that scan be conduct include Intelligence tests, Aptitude tests, Personality tests etc.  Then comes the Placement i.e placing the employee in the correct place that would maximize his productivityy.  In the performance appraisal the employees are evaluated on a regular basis.  This is done mainly to find whether an employee needs further training and also for promotion or firing process.  The most important activity of staffing is to retain the employees.  Employees must be motivated on a daily basis.  The Equity theory, Expectancy therory and the reinforcement therory needs to be well understood by the human resource personnel in motivating the employees.
     The success of any organization depends on the people working there.  Therefore the function of Staffing is the most significant and vital in an organization.

Six hats review

             Six thinking hats is a method where Edward de Bono focuses on ‘Parallel thinking’.  He introduced this method mainly to avoid the difficulties that are faced during meetings in a company.  Earlier, a meeting or a discussion takes a lot of time to arrive at a conclusion.  People in a meeting don’t know how to go about, so when one presents a thought the others started arguing about it and this took a lot of time.  With the introduction of this thinking hat process, every meeting or a discussion ended in just one – fourth of the time that it would normally take.

            Parallel thinking is a concept where everyone is made to look from a same point of view at one point of time.  This enabled people to come out with a variety of ideas.  If people were made to concentrate on a particular thing it increases their efficiency because arguments are reduced and if arguments are reduced people don’t have to respond to it and so their thinking will not be distracted.  Moreover, if everyone thinks in different directions in a meeting it creates confusion.  It is not that people are made to focus on one view alone.  At one point of time he thinks in one angle, and when all the ideas are collected, they are made to think in another angle.  This helps to clear his mind of other thoughts and focus on a particular view.

            Six thinking hats gives clear cut ideas to persons whether to focus on facts, emotions, strengths, weaknesses, creativity or control at one point of time.  This helped in synergy of thoughts, save a lot of time and reduces confusion.