An area that is often overlooked in management training is that of staff planning or, as our North American cousins would refer to it, workforce planning.

Even during a recession when HR seems to be more concerned with downsizing, it is vital to look ahead to the eventual upturn. Equally, one should consider whether the economic turmoil presents opportunities and have plans in place for expansion.

This means not only consideration of staff numbers, but also ensuring that the right experience and skills reside within the business. Even when recruitment has stopped, development and retention of staff is still an essential, not a luxury. Often unavoidable skills gaps can be filled by training staff so that they have wider skills sets.

It is important to build a coaching culture where staff can learn from each other, not only between the different levels within departments but also between the departments. Indeed, it can often be worthwhile to have peer reviews from other parts of the organisation.

Giving staff a large part of the responsibility for their own personal development and ensuring a meaningful system for assessing performance are both crucial.

Recession also presents an excellent opportunity to consider cost neutral and non-pay related benefits such as more flexible working.

Recruitment can be difficult at the best of times. It’s a subject that comes up on many management training courses, as it’s typically not something a new manager has had to take care of in the past. But before you go down the road of preparing yourself to be an excellent selector of human resource, you need to find a prospective employee.

There are many different ways in which you can find staff, including:

Local and National Press Advertising –
You can place an advert locally or nationally to try and get people to apply. This is a process which means you will have to put time and effort into deciding your advert content and layout, and put time and effort into sifting through the applications as they come in.

Employment Agencies –
These organisations will pro-actively search and preselect on your behalf but they are likely to charge at least a flat finders fee, and possibly a commission of first year salary.

Business Networks –
Utilise your professional business contacts as a source for information and recommendations over suitable staff. Also, since they are the type of people you associate with, they’ll have access to the type of people you want.

Industry/Professional Associations –
Many industries have professional associations which are a rich resource for suitable employees, who are members. If you can identify a professional body or association which is linked directly or indirectly to your industry, you’re likely to find well qualified people.

When fledgling companies are looking to recruit, deciding what kind of remuneration to offer in order to attract good prospective employees is always a challenge. Some people believe in the old adage ‘you get what you pay for’, while others believe that salary is only a smart part of an overall package which motivates an employee.

Here’s a quick re-cap of some of the factors you can consider when looking to recruit new staff:

- Consider what the base salaries are for similar positions in your industry and especially in your location, as the two can be markedly different.

- Consider whether to establish structured salary pay scales across your company as a whole, or whether to pay on an individual case by case basis based on the skills and experience of the applicant.

- Consider what non salary financial benefits you are able to offer. This may take the form of bonuses, commissions, share options or similar.

- Consider what benefits you can offer, this maybe in the form of perks, holiday entitlement, or even training. Some companies offer graduates the opportunity to undertake management training courses such as an MBA fully paid for.

So, you’ve invested in a great management training course, and you’ve come back to the office brimming with ideas on how to move your company forward. Sometimes, there’s a resource problem.

Here are a few reasons why you might want to consider outsourcing:

1. Specialism
A particular task that you might have in mind might be a new area for your or your staff. You could spend time researching it, and training your people to carry it out, but why not hand the task over to a specialist company that do that job day in and day out. Results are likely to come quicker, and you can focus on what you’re best at.

2. Cost Savings
Implementing a new strategy or employing specific staff may involve an increase in overheads. By utilising the skills and resources of an outsourcing company, you can reduce your fixed overheads, and remain flexible in terms of your commitment to spend.

3. Flexibility
Let’s say you have a number of different projects which involve telephoning a number of your existing customers, or potential new ones. Outsourcing to a telemarketing company can give you the flexibility to scale up and down in terms of the demands of the particular project.

Remember, getting a balance between the outsourced and internal workforce is vital.

In today’s economic environment, companies are under great pressure to cut back on costs. Often, salary represents one of the biggest overheads a company faces. Sometimes there is a pressure to make staff redundant, and/or halt new recruitment. However, this is sometimes counter balanced by a need to outsource job requirements.

Here are three reasons not to outsource:

1. Expense
It’s expensive in the long term, companies offering outsourced facilities aren’t cheap, especially not the good ones. It may save you money in the short term, but that money is better spent on the personal development training and skills training of your existing staff.

2. Company Moral
If you’ve had to make redundancies, and then ship in a barrel of temporary workers, think of the psychological effects this will have on your existing workforce. People might feel disgruntled that their ex-colleagues have been replaced by more inexperienced staff.

3. They’re not you
Outsourcing companies haven’t got the time to spend getting to know your company, its ethics, its culture or its style of communication. They are ultimately representing your company, and you might be stating your reputation on the skills of people you hardly even now. Think of the damage of outsourcing call centre work overseas has done for some companies.

Most small enterprises have a simple method of recruitment. This is a three step model which typically entails reviewing a standard application form, taking up references, and then of course, conducting an interview.

The fact is, there is so much more a manager can do carefully select the perfect person for the job. Some examples may be skills tests, psychological analysis tests, group exercises and work sample challenges, to name a few.

However, many managers typically see themselves as ‘smart’ when it comes to choosing people. Often they conduct an unstructured interview, which relies on their gut instinct and interpersonal rapport between themselves and the candidate.

A wise manager recognises the potential of moving away from the traditional the three step model and investing in their own personal development to become a more astute recruiter.

To improve their success in recruitment, managers are relying less on the ‘gut’ interview as the sole means of selection, and are moving towards a structure which has a specific sequence and logic which covers key areas that directly relate to the job function.

If you can identify the most important elements of high performance in a particular role, you can structure careful indirect questions designed to elicit the key behavioural traits the candidate needs to possess.

You can then progress to ask a series of questions based on the hypothesis principle. By placing the candidate in a hypothetical situation they may face, and asking them directly how they would behave in such a situation, you’ll get a much stronger idea of their strengths and weakness.

In all cases a candidate’s responses should be rated on a qualitative or quantitative scale, which can be later used for comparison.

The typical manager’s role encompasses a huge range of responsibilities. In today’s economic climate, the pressure to achieve consistent results with the minimum resources is ever increasing. Thanks to the credit crunch, organisations are looking for efficiency savings, which may involve, at worst job losses.

However, such is the cyclical nature of these things, growth will begin again and companies can lick their wounds and set about re-building themselves. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that selecting the right people for the job in an investment which will pay future dividends.

Yet, anecdotal evidence suggests that managers spend little time thinking about their recruitment and selection process. Recruitment and selection is a topic that should be focused on, and managers who can objectively recognise their conscious incompetence ought to invest in a management training course.

Most managers see the selection system being a three part strategy; the application form, reference checking, and the interview. However, this traditional method is outdated, and managers ought to make themselves are that there are many more tools in the bag that will help them pick the absolute best people for the job.

Short lists and candidates put forward by recruitment companies represent only the beginning of what ought to be a well considered selection process.