Approaches to staffing — Edexcel A-Level Business
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Approaches to staffing explained
Behind the two phrases sit two ways of managing people.
Read the full explanation
Viewing employees as an expense to be minimised means driving labour cost per unit down through temporary contracts, tight supervision and a workforce hired and released as demand moves, which is Taylor's view of the worker and suits low margin, standardised production. Viewing them as a resource to be developed means spending on training, security and involvement in the expectation that output per worker rises and leaving rates fall, which is closer to Herzberg and Mayo and to the John Lewis Partnership model. The measures settle the argument, namely output per worker per period, leavers divided by the average number employed shown as a percentage, absence rates and the cost of recruitment.
b) Flexible workforce: multi-skilling; part-time and temporary; flexible hours and home working; outsourcing
Every method here serves one purpose, matching the hours a firm pays for to the demand it actually has, and keeping capacity utilisation, which is actual output as a percentage of maximum possible output, near the profitable range without carrying idle people. Training staff across several tasks lets a line keep running when someone is absent and supports rotation and enrichment in Herzberg's terms, though it takes time to fund and can trigger pay claims. Hiring for peaks, as retailers do each December, turns a fixed cost into a variable one. Letting people choose hours or work from home cuts premises cost and widens the recruitment pool. Buying in a function such as payroll or delivery frees management time but surrenders control of quality.
c) Distinction between dismissal and redundancy
Two very different reasons for ending a contract sit behind these words, and the marker wants the reason, not the label. One ends the contract because of the person, for misconduct, poor capability or a breach of contract, and needs warnings and a fair procedure. The other ends it because the role itself has gone, after a closure, a relocation or automation, and it carries statutory pay plus consultation. In a case study the choice drives cost and risk: statutory pay of roughly a week of wages for each year of service for most adult staff, tribunal exposure if the procedure slips, and a blow to the commitment of the people who remain. Tie it to hard and soft human resource strategy, because a firm that treats labour as a cost cuts heads first and rebuilds skills later, usually at a higher price.
d) Employer/employee relationships: individual approach; collective bargaining
A firm can settle pay and conditions one contract at a time or once for a whole group, and the choice changes cost, speed and risk. Settling person by person lets a business reward high performers, flex hours to demand and move quickly, but it swallows management time, invites claims of unfairness and lets pay drift upward wherever the skill is scarce. Negotiating with a recognised union settles thousands of contracts in one room, which is cheap for each employee covered and predictable for the budget, yet it hands the workforce real power: Royal Mail has repeatedly lost delivery days to national disputes with the Communication Workers Union. Union membership in the United Kingdom now covers around a fifth of employees and far more in the public sector, so the sensible answer turns on sector, size and how easily staff could be replaced.
Your focus
- a) Staff as an asset; staff as a cost
- b) Flexible workforce: multi-skilling; part-time and temporary; flexible hours and home working; outsourcing
- c) Distinction between dismissal and redundancy
Show all 4 objectives
- d) Employer/employee relationships: individual approach; collective bargaining
Approaches to staffing exam tips
Marking Points
- Set out both approaches and attach a concrete practice to each, such as zero hours contracts on one side and a funded apprenticeship programme on the other.
- Quantify wherever the case allows, using labour productivity as output per worker per period and labour turnover as leavers divided by the average number employed, expressed as a percentage.
- Link each approach to a theorist, with Taylor and payment by results for the cost view and Herzberg, Maslow or Mayo for the development view.
- Argue from the business context, since a high skill, high margin firm loses far more from a departure than a seasonal employer does.
- Explain each method as a way of matching labour supply to fluctuating demand rather than listing contract types.
- Give the cost effect, since short hours and fixed term contracts convert a fixed labour cost into a variable one and home working reduces premises overheads.
- Use capacity utilisation, actual output as a percentage of maximum possible output, to show why a flexible workforce protects margins when demand falls.
- Set the gain in flexibility against the loss of commitment, quality control and team cohesion, and apply that trade-off to the named business.
- For bought in services, credit the point that expertise and lower cost come at the price of direct control over the customer's experience.
- Gives the cause rather than the label: conduct or capability ends a contract through dismissal, while the disappearance of the post itself is redundancy, and it is the job that goes, not the person.
- Applies the difference to the named firm using evidence from the extract, such as falling orders, a closed site or new machinery, instead of defining both terms in the abstract.
- Sizes the consequence where the data allows it, for instance redundancy pay per employee multiplied by the number of roles lost, set against the annual wage saving.
- Evaluates on procedure and reputation, noting that fair process, consultation and notice cut tribunal claims and protect the employer brand the firm will need at its next recruitment round.
- Defines the individual route in a clause, personal contracts and terms set employee by employee, and the collective route as one negotiation between managers and a recognised union that binds a whole group.
- Applies to the named business using size, sector and union recognition, since a small independent rarely faces a bargaining unit while a large logistics or public sector employer usually does.
- States the trade off explicitly, flexibility and reward for performance against consistency, lower negotiating cost for each employee covered, and the risk of industrial action.
- Reaches a supported judgement that names the conditions, such as labour scarcity, skill levels and the cost of a lost day of output, under which each approach wins.
Examiner Tips
- 💡This is fertile ground for evaluate questions, so structure the answer around the type of work, the state of the labour market and the time horizon of the benefit.
- 💡Calculate turnover or productivity from the case data first, then use the figure to support the judgement, because unsupported assertion stays in the lower bands.
- 💡Motivation theory belongs here, but say what it misses, for example that Herzberg studied professional employees whose findings may not describe warehouse shift work.
- 💡These questions usually pair with a demand pattern in the appendix, so identify the seasonal or unpredictable element first and then choose the method that fits it.
- 💡Assess and evaluate answers need a stated criterion, such as cost per unit, service quality or staff retention, before the judgement is offered.
- 💡Motivation theory works on both sides here, because choosing your own hours can meet Maslow's needs for security and esteem or undermine them, depending on who does the choosing.
- 💡This normally appears as a short knowledge and application item worth about four marks, so one crisp difference plus one line of context from the extract is enough.
- 💡Where it sits inside a longer question on cutting costs, weigh the immediate wage saving against redundancy pay, lost firm specific skills and the morale of the survivors before judging.
- 💡Use the headcount and wage figures printed in the case; markers reward numbers taken from the evidence rather than invented national averages.
- 💡Expect this inside a question on managing change or cutting costs rather than on its own, so bring it in as a constraint on how quickly the business can act.
- 💡Quote a figure from the case, such as the number of staff covered or the daily wage bill, to make the cost of a dispute concrete rather than vague.
- 💡A judgement that states the condition under which each approach is better scores higher than one that simply prefers a side.
Common Mistakes
- Claiming the developmental approach always raises profit, when training and higher pay hit costs immediately while any productivity gain arrives later, if at all.
- Treating all labour turnover as bad, when some brings in new skills and a business reducing headcount may welcome natural wastage.
- Describing the two approaches as personality traits of managers rather than choices driven by the product, the labour market and the available margin.
- Assuming flexible contracts are free, when recruitment, induction and training are repeated for every new cohort of temporary staff.
- Writing that training people across tasks raises productivity without acknowledging the training cost, the output lost while it happens and the higher pay skilled staff can demand.
- Confusing bought in services with offshoring, or treating the decision as purely financial when supplier failure hits the brand directly.
- Using the two words interchangeably as polite terms for sacking, which throws away the exact distinction the question is testing.
- Writing that an employee is made redundant when it is the post that is redundant, so a business that advertises the same role weeks later has no defence.
- Reciting employment law with no reference to the business in the case, which earns knowledge credit and no application credit.
- Treating unions as automatically bad for the business and missing that one negotiation is cheaper and far more predictable than thousands of separate ones.
- Confusing collective bargaining with strike action, when a strike is what happens only if the bargaining fails.
- Describing both approaches in general terms without ever naming the firm in the extract, which caps the answer at knowledge marks.