Understanding Recruitment, Staffing, and Outsourcing: Can You Help Clarify the Differences?

Dear all,

Can you please differentiate between recruitment, staffing, and outsourcing?

Hi,

Recruitment means hiring talent for the organization, although once a subset of staffing, it is now seen more as a separate entity.

Staffing has a broader scope, which includes forecasting of manpower, strategizing, manpower planning, and a host of other activities.

Outsourcing involves the directing out of non-core activities of a business to cut costs and focus more on core areas.

Regards,
Dheeraj

Hello....

Outsourcing involves assigning your tasks to another external agency. Recruitment includes sourcing and selecting individuals; it means hiring people to fill any vacant positions in the company. Staffing involves managing your existing manpower, reallocating and relocating your employees as per the company's needs for assignments and projects. I am certain this will be helpful.

Regards,
Sanjeev Sharma
(Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/)

Recruitment and Staffing have the same difference as that of Sales & Marketing. Recruitment is all those steps taken to attract quality candidates to the organization. (Recruitment can be called the sales function of HR). Staffing takes a broad view of things, including manpower planning, deployment, etc. (Staffing can be called the marketing function of HR.)

Regards

Dear,

Recruitment means hiring candidates for the present and/or future vacancies in your organization. Recruitment may be done from various sources via advertisements, job portals like naukri.com, consultants, employee references, etc.

Staffing means fitting the right candidate at the right job. It includes matching the skills and knowledge of the employees with the requirements of the job, i.e., job specification and job description. Staffing is the next step after recruitment and selection and may be based on performance in various tests, interviews, etc.

Outsourcing means getting any type of service in your business from some external source, like getting payrolls prepared for your employees by some chartered accountants (who are not working in your company and are not on your payrolls).

Regards, Ruchi

Recruitment: Making positions/vacancies available to potential candidates can be done internally or externally. Intranet or office notice boards are examples of internal recruiting, while ads in newspapers or positions available on websites such as Naukri.com are examples of external recruiting.

Staffing: It comes after recruitment, involving the selection and placement of the right people in the right job.

Outsourcing: The flourishing BPO and call center industry in India are the byproducts of outsourcing. When companies decide to focus on core competencies and entrust non-core functions to external agencies, it is called outsourcing.

Warm Greetings!

Outsourcing involves "acquiring a product or service rather than producing it yourself," "the contracting out of a company's non-core, non-revenue-producing activities to specialists," and "the transfer or delegation to an external service provider the operation and day-to-day management of a business process."

Staffing involves finding people who may be hired or already working for the company (organization) or may be working for competing companies. On the other hand, recruitment refers to the process of finding potential candidates for a job or function. Nowadays, these activities are being undertaken by staffing agencies because it is very difficult for HR managers to find the right kind of people at the right point in time. Therefore, they provide funding to staffing agencies to carry out the recruitment work on behalf of their clients or organizations.

Warm Regards,
John N

Hi Guru,

To put it in a nutshell:

Recruitment: Taking care of hiring yourself.

Outsourcing: Handing over recruitment and/or all other aspects of HR to an external consultant or consulting company to handle and paying them for these activities carried out on your behalf.

Staffing: Planning for self-recruitment for one's own organization.

All the very best.

Ram Ram

Dear All,

Can you please tell me whether it is necessary to provide PF and ESI to an outsourcing employee, and if there are any legal aspects involved?

Please help.

With best regards,
Laxmi

I believe PF and ESIC are being paid to outsourcing agents as they are not company employees. They are receiving professional fees for the services they provide.