Staffing as part of Human Resource Management

Correct answer: A. Organising

The governing concept is delegation within organising. Organising involves identifying activities, grouping related work, assigning duties and establishing reporting relationships. A duty or responsibility cannot be performed effectively unless the employee receives sufficient authority to make decisions and use necessary resources. In this case, the manager divided the work but failed to match responsibility with authority, so the organising function is defective. Option A is therefore correct. Planning would be concerned with objectives and courses of action, staffing with obtaining and developing employees, and directing with guiding, motivating and leading them. Although directing may influence decisions, the specific failure described occurs when duties are assigned without corresponding authority, which is an element of delegation and organising.

Correct answer: A. Staffing

Staffing is the management function concerned with acquiring, developing and retaining the people needed by an organisation. Vacant posts indicate a manpower requirement; finding suitable candidates and selecting them are recruitment and selection activities. Training then improves the knowledge, skills and ability of employees so that they can perform their assigned roles effectively. Since every clue in the case—vacancies, candidates, selection and training—relates to human-resource management, option A, Staffing, is correct. Planning decides future objectives and actions, organising creates roles and relationships, while controlling compares performance with standards; those functions do not directly explain the whole set of clues.