IT Project Management Staffing: The Human Resource Management

In the discipline of project management philosophy, human resource management is considered as the crux element and its significance unique. Project management staffing solutions must incorporate proper inside thinking to produce strong firm results.

Human resource management is the process of managing people of the project with the human approach, which means employing and deploying people, developing and utilizing their skills, maintaining and compensating their deliveries, and directing their forces towards a project goal.

In a project, the human workforce remains the nucleus energy, thrusting the project brim to the maximum extent for object fulfillment.

Philosophy of Staffing

Staffing includes practice from recruiting, selecting, and establishing workforces for a project, and even firing them when they are no longer needed. Project planning identifies the staffing need for the project and once the needs are determined then the process is set to meet them.

Recruiting is the process of identifying the sources of potential employees and encouraging them to apply for the jobs. The goal is to recruit enough qualified candidates so that the desired people are selected; in short, the recruiting process is discovering potential candidates with the ability and attitude for actual or anticipated project vacancies.

As in today's highly complex and competitive scenarios, the choice of choosing the right person for the right task has far-reaching implications; therefore, it is the process of attracting more candidates to the project, in order to select the most suitable candidate who can help and serve the project to achieve its objectives.

Selection is an immediate process that starts after recruitment, where the qualified personnel can be chosen from applications; in short, it is the process of choosing the most likely candidate from those individuals who can perform the project task successfully.

Placement is an establishing process of the ideal candidates to their respective positions and determining their part in the project for which accepted.

Socialization is an adjusting process for the new employees; making them familiar with the project's unfamiliar environments, surroundings, coworkers and new job responsibilities. Socialization strongly influences employee performance for project stability.

Motivating Human Resources

Project human resource management is the effective use of human resources in order to enhance project performance and motivate all involved towards project goals; this is a primary action that should be followed. The term motivation has been derived form the word motive, which means the urge to do or not to do something. It is an internal force that directs workforces to act in a particular way to satisfy a particular need. Motivation is goal directed behavior, and the goal is to accomplish the project objectives. However, concept of motivation is mainly a psychological factor and relates to those forces operating within the individual employee; which impel him to act or not act in certain ways.

In project management staffing solutions there are many theories that have been derived by experts and among them three excellent theories evolved:

1. Maslow's Hierarchy of Need Theory - Abraham Maslow

2. Herzberg's Motivation-Hygine Theory of Motivation - Frederick Herzberg

3. McGregor's Theory of X and Y - McGregor

These outstanding theories are scientifically proven and are considered prime human resource gauging tools.

Motivation is an important force behind the performance of employees in the project and is directly associated with the project performance.

Performance Appraisal and Reward Management

Project goals can be achieved when people or workforces put in their best efforts; how to ascertain their performances on a given job?

The answer to this is Performance Appraisal.

Performance Appraisal is the process of systematic evaluation of the individual or the group with respect to their performance to the job and their potential for development.

Reward Management is designing, implementing, and maintaining a pay system which helps to improve project performance within project cost constrains. However, a reward is to motivate people for what they are doing and what they can do, in and for the project. The most obvious rewards staff may get from the work is his pay; however rewards also include promotions, desirable work assignments, reorganization, and a host for there less obvious payoffs.

In brief, project staffing involves the productive utilization of people in achieving an assigned project endeavor.

Humans are the workforce, the workforce that activates other resources into existence of any project. Human workforces are neither a commodity nor a resource like mechanical tools; neither their potency can be defined nor it can be accurately measured by any material apparatus. The potency of human workforces must be treasured as the capital, and its creativity should be highly privileged. A successful project inevitably requires proper human resource management and project management staffing solutions.

About the author :

Author: Bharat Bista
Copy Editor: Bruce Cullen
Resources: Project Management - IT Project Management Staffing