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

TLDR

Modern organizations face staffing challenges from knowledge work, labor shortages, applicant competition, and workforce diversity, yet staffing research is often neglected or misunderstood. The study calls for staffing scholars to broaden their focus from individual-level recruitment and selection to multilevel research that demonstrates business unit and organizational‑level impact. The review selectively and critically analyzes staffing best practices from about 2000 to the present. The review identifies several research‑practice gaps.

Abstract

Modern organizations struggle with staffing challenges stemming from increased knowledge work, labor shortages, competition for applicants, and workforce diversity. Yet, despite such critical needs for effective staffing practice, staffing research continues to be neglected or misunderstood by many organizational decision makers. Solving these challenges requires staffing scholars to expand their focus from individual-level recruitment and selection research to multilevel research demonstrating the business unit/organizational- level impact of staffing. Toward this end, this review provides a selective and critical analysis of staffing best practices covering literature from roughly 2000 to the present. Several research-practice gaps are also identified.