“Human resources staffing process and its impact on job involvement: Irbid District Electricity Company as a case study”

The study aimed to identify the level of practicing the human resources staffing process and the level of the employees’ job involvement in the Irbid District Electricity Company in Jordan; it also aimed to examine the impact of human resources staffing process on the employees’ job involvement. The study adopted the descriptive, analytical method, since it determines the characteristics of the phenomenon, describes its nature accurately and then determines the quality of the relationship between its variables. The study population included all the individuals in the senior and middle administrative levels by 100 individuals. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researchers prepared a questionnaire to examine the study variables. One hundred questionnaires were distributed to each manager, deputy manager, and department head in the Irbid District Electricity Company out of which the researchers retrieved 97 questionnaires valid for analysis. In order to analyze the data collected, the study relies on the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) where the descriptive statistics for all the fields of the study were estimated. The correlation matrix was also used to determine the relationship between variables. Furthermore, multiple regressions were used to determine the impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable. The findings showed that the level of practicing the human resources staffing process and the employees’ job involvement at Irbid District Electricity Company (IDECO) was moderate. The findings of the study showed that the process of human resources staffing was positively associated with the job involvement where the Pearson coefficient was r= .851 and at level of significance of 0.00. The research data have also indicated that the human resources staffing process had a positive impact on the employees’ job involvement. The study recommended that the procedures of staffing in all organizations should focus on achieving the fit between the employee and his job through focusing on choosing employees whose knowledge, skills and abilities correspond to the requirements of vacant jobs and also through implementing different tests and selection interviews, which help choose the person whose traits fit the job requirements. The study has also indicated that the recommended organizations should also pay attention to the job design process where the focus is on designing jobs in a way that creates a challenge, and enables employees feel independence and joy during the job; in this method, the employee can be more involved and can work in an effective way.


INTRODUCTION
Throughout the years, attention increased in the concept of the job involvement, since it contributes, as many researchers have claimed, to predicting the outcomes of employees, organizational performance, and organization's success.Despite the importance of this behavioral outcome in achieving the sustainable competitive advantage, it decreased in the current years.Some studies have shown that the US companies are suffering from the so-called "involvement gap" where employees in these companies are not fully involved or not involved into the jobs they occupy which cost these companies an estimated amount of $300 billion per annum due to low productivity (Rizwan et al., 2011;Singh & Gupta, 2015).The importance of being involved is that it is at the heart of the functional relationship, because it addresses what individuals do and how they behave in their roles and what makes them behave in other ways to achieve both their goals and the goals of the organization; this has a positive impact on many variables such as quality of service, customer satisfaction, high productivity, sales, increased profitability, and competitive advantage (Madi, 2014).The need to find a term to describe the employees' emotional engagement to the organization and the job was led to the birth of the term "job involvement", where employees with a high degree of job involvement are ready to fully invest their efforts for the benefit of the organization (Al-Abadi & Al-Jaf, 2012).Due to the fact that individuals differ from each other in their perceptions, ideas, values and desires, the organizations must be aware of the factors that enhance the employees' involvement and their level of commitment to both the job and the organization.Previous studies have pointed out that the existence of the fit, especially the fit between the person and his job (P-J fit) will lead to many positive behavioral outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job involvement, and organizational citizenship behavior (Organ, 1988 Kim et al., 2013).Memon, Salleh, and Baharom (2015) defined the person-job fit as "the relationship between the characteristics of the individual and the characteristics of the job".Abraham (2005) stated that there is also a correlation between the job involvement and the characteristics of the job which means that the more satisfying the characteristics of the job (job's nature and content) and the more such characteristics are fit with the characteristics of the employee, the more the employee's motivation towards the involvement in his job and made a high level of effort.This is consistent with the two-factor theory of 1957, which showed a relationship between the motivation of the individual and the job's nature and content and the McClelland's theory of needs (1985) stating that there are three needs that, if satisfied, will create the motivation required by the individual; jobs provide the opportunity to satisfy such needs especially if there is a fit between the characteristics of the individual and the characteristics of the job, which in turn leads to an increase in the individual's job involvement in his job.Kanungo (1979) stated that there is a correlation between the job involvement and the individual's belief that his job helps satisfy his silent needs.Therefore, organizations must work to increase the effectiveness of all processes that make it possible to achieve the fit between the employee and the job, most important of which is the staffing process, which is primarily concerned with placing the individual in a job that meets his knowledge, abilities and ambitions.Studies have pointed out that the staffing process will make the individual feel that there is a perfect fit between him and his job; the presence of any defects in this process is usually one of the most important reasons that make the individual feel dissatisfied, reduce his level of motivation towards showing positive behaviors inside the job environment, and thus increase his desire to leave the job and find another place that achieves the fit he seeks (Schneider, 1987;Porter, 2008;Parsa, Tesone, & Templeton, 2009).

Study problem
The organizational changes faced by modern organizations as a result of globalization, the traditional roles from the formal requirements of jobs, the complexity of career tasks, and the growing number of innovations and creations have put all organizations as noted by Mbugua, Waiganjo, and Njeru (2015) under pressures that impose the need to develop the products and services they offer.The sustainable competitive advantage the organizations seek cannot be achieved without the human element capable of manufacturing the products and providing services at a high level of quality, which can be achieved through employees' practice of behaviors that go beyond the role required to be achieved; here, we mean the voluntary behaviors that can be achieved through the internal integration of the individual at work or the psychological response to the job, which is called the job involvement.The practices of human resources management are the most important practices that can help in the emergence and strengthening of this type of behaviors (Morrison, 1996; Snape & Redman, 2010; Boon, Belschak, Den Hartog, & Pijnenburg, 2014; Al-Badareen & Al-Ghazzawi, 2018) stated that the way in which human resources are managed is the one that establishes the employee's relationship with the employer and the extent to which human resources management practices can create a social-exchange relationship between employees and the organization; these employees can show behaviors that go beyond those behaviors that are within the requirements of their formal work, most important of which is the job involvement.Wayne, Shore, and Liden (1997) showed that there is a high probability that individuals interpret the decisions and practices of human resources management as an indicator of the organizational support provided to them.In line with the theory of social exchange (1964), if individuals realize that the organization provides them with the necessary support and attention, they will in turn provide it with a set of positive behaviors, most important of which are the organizational commitment, the organizational citizenship behavior, and the job involvement (Settoon et al., 1996 ).The staffing process is considered the most important human resources management practice that gives individuals an indication that the organization is providing the required support, since the main objective of this process is selecting the best individuals to fill vacant jobs through choosing individuals whose characteristics (abilities, skills, experience, and training) correspond to the requirements of vacant jobs, which leads to filling them in jobs that enable employees to meet their needs and ambitions (Ojochide, Charity, & Cletus, 2017).Despite the importance of the staffing process in the emergence and promotion of positive behaviors among employees, most important of which is the job involvement behavior, most organizations, especially the Arab ones, still face many challenges with regard to the role that can be played by staffing processes in achieving a high level of the job involvement among its employees.This can be attributed to the weak realization and interest in the effectiveness of the staffing process by the people responsible for the human resources management; the staffing process in these organizations, as noted by Nadim (2008), Al-Farra and Al-Za'nun (2008), Jarghon (2009), Najadat (2014), Al-Shurman (2015), can often occur unprofessionally, without complying with the administrative procedures that take into account specialization, scientific qualification, experience, which may create a mismatch between selected individuals and the jobs; this will lead to reducing the appearance of many positive behavioral outcomes such as job involvement.The topic of the job involvement and staffing process attracted many researchers such as Liao and Lee (2009), Rizwan, Khan, and Saboor (2011), Abutayeh and Al-Qatawneh (2012), Ekwoaba, Ikeije, and Ufoma (2015), Singh and Gupta (2015), Mbugua, Waiganjo, and Njeru (2015), Pangemanan (2015), Ojochide, Charity, and Cletus (2017), Abdallah, Obeidat, and Aqqad (2017).However, it was obvious that among the previously mentioned studies, there were none tackling the impact of the staffing process with its different stages (recruitment, selection and appointment) on the job involvement except for Abutayeh and Al-Qatawneh (2012), who attempted to examine the impact of one stage of the staffing process, which is selection, on the job involvement and concluded that there is a correlation between selection and the employees' job involvement.Therefore, this study sets to examine the effect of staffing process (recruitment, selection and appointment criteria) on job involvement using Irbid District Electricity Company in Jordan as population of interest.In order to achieve this objective, we then hypothesized that: H1: Staffing process (recruitment, selection and appointment criteria) has a significant impact on job involvement.

Human resources staffing
It is one of the most important functions of the human resources management that must be performed with a high degree of efficiency and effectiveness.Najadat (2014), Gamage (2014), Ekwoaba, Ikeije, and Ufoma (2015) stated that the staffing process enables organizations to obtain the best qualifications, as well as contributes to preventing the appointment of unqualified person who would cost the organization a lot in terms of salary, allowances and other costs resulting from losses committed due to wrong staffing decisions, which may cause the organization to lose its mar-ket share.The staffing process is the natural extension of the human resources planning process, through which the organization can achieve the fit between the individual and his job, on the one hand, and the values and culture of the organization, on the other hand, which creates a sense of satisfaction and makes employees more committed to the organization.Furthermore, Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, and Johnson (2005) indicated that employees would leave their jobs if they feel that their job does not fit with their knowledge, skills, and abilities.The staffing process comprises three main stages: recruitment, selection and appointment, through which individuals are recruited and differentiated according to scientific criteria (Al-Salem & Al-Salih, 2006; Dessler, 2014).

Recruitment
It is the initial step in the human element management and it is extremely important, as it enables building effective and productive workforce in the organizations by providing the largest number of individuals with the qualifications and experience necessary to fill the vacant jobs (Aminuddin & Yaacob, 2011; Sarinah, Gultom, & Thabah, 2016).Some researchers have defined recruitment as the process of acquiring and attracting human resources from within or outside the organization with the numbers and qualifications needed by the organization and urging them to apply for appointment in the organization (Hmoud & Al-Khrisha, 2007; Barnoty, 2007).Uygur and Kilic (2009) stated that recruitment refers to searching and attracting qualified individuals to fill vacant jobs; it is important to set the requirements of this process accurately to ensure its effectiveness in achieving the goals that have been set.Recruitment's importance is evident through the benefits achieved by organizations, since it opens all the resources of the job for the organization and enables the organization to deliver its message to candidates as being the best place for them to work, build and develop their careers; it also helps the organization obtain the required quality that satisfies its needs of human resources at the lowest cost ( The selection process is considered as the most sensitive and dangerous process of staffing, since it selects applicants through certain stages and procedures that end up with excluding individuals whose suitability for vacant jobs will not be confirmed on the basis of criteria for filling the vacancies in the organization (Florea & Mihai, 2014).The selection process adopted in choosing people who were attracted depends on a set of clear and predefined criteria for each vacant job, in addition to the career analysis records where people whose qualifications suit the previously set criteria are selected (Wilson, 2005;Al-Salmi, 2008).Organizations may use additional methods of selection such as written tests and oral interviews, whether they were structured or unstructured, in order to judge the individual's ability with regards to his verbal interaction and communication, quick response in answering questions during the interview, as well as his ability to express his ideas fluently (Durra & Al-Sabbagh, 2008).

Appointment
After selecting applicants through the processes of recruitment and selection, it is important to appoint them; here, the organization may face some problems, such as the increase in the number of people suitable to fill vacant jobs; therefore, the organization can select the applicants based on age if it affects the job performance or on the basis of gender through favoring males or females (Shahri, 2010).The appointment is defined as the process by which an individual is empowered in the appropriate job (Decenzo et al., 2010).The appointment process includes four main steps: issuance of the appointment decision, initial preparation, evaluation during the trial period and empowerment after the end of the trial period and after employee' s efficiency is confirmed (Judeh, 2015; Al-Hiti, 2016).

Job involvement
It is one of the modern terms compared with other terms in the field of human resources management.
It was presented in 1960s by Lodahl and Kejiner (1965) who related the job involvement to the psychological identification of an individual with the work or importance of work in the individual's self image (Khan & Nemati, 2011).Some researchers have stated that the job involvement indicates the degree the person integrates with the job he practices and realizes its importance; the involvement means that the individual loves and cares about his job (Al-Bataineh & Al-Mashakbeh, 2003).Agusramadani and Amalia (2018) stated that the job involvement means the dedication of the employee towards his job, as well as his active participation in his job; the employee's performance in his job is considered the source of pride.The job involvement is the method through which the energy of the workforce is utilized and the method of improving their commitment towards the success of the organization (Khan et al., 2011;Mildred, 2016).The job involvement has become an important issue in the field of business management and organizational behavior, as it is an important source of the motivation and self-development of employees, as well as in directing their behaviors toward achieving of the goals.For organizations, the importance of the job involvement is highlighted by the fact that it helps increase the job satisfaction, improve the quality of the career life, reduce absenteeism and delays, and make individuals more committed to their jobs and organizations.This greatly increases their efficiency and effectiveness and promote its competitive position in the market (Rizwan et al., 2011;Mgedezi et al., 2014;Nwiber, 2014).Job involvement includes many elements through which we can judge the level of the job involvement of employees at work, namely job engagement, functional vitality, and job dedication.

Job engagement
Some studies showed that the job engagement indicates harnessing the members of the organization and investing their physical, cognitive and emotional aspects in their jobs (Kular et al., 2008; Christian, Garza, & Slaughter, 2011).The importance of the job engagement lies as mentioned by Salman (2004), Al-Rasheed (2004) in the benefits achieved by this kind of behaviors to organizations represented in the fact that the job engagement is an important element in relating the organization and its employees, especially in times when organizations are unable to provide appropriate incentives to pay employees and come to highest level of achievement.Job engagement is considered an important means of increasing the acceptance of employees for any change that might serve the interest and progress of the organization; it is also considered as a vital indicator through which we can expect whether employees would stay or leave their job.

Functional vitality
Vitality refers to a combination of positive emotions that occur within the context of the job and it consists of the elements of status (mood and emotions); they are the sources out of which a physical strength is produced and such strength is represented in the high levels of energy when performing the daily tasks; the emotional energy which is represented in investing the emotions in relations with others and the cognitive vitality that indicates a sense of mental activity (Baruch, Grimland, & Vigoda-Gadot, 2014; Tummers, Steijn, Nevicka, & Heerema, 2016).Thus, the functional vitality is one of the positive emotions that drive the employee towards dedicating, preparedness for the good investment in one job and facing difficulties with a high level of energy and mental flexibility (Op den Kamp et al., 2018).

Job dedication
The employee with a high degree of job dedication usually performs his job with the utmost competence, honesty and fidelity in accordance with laws, regulations and instructions, and in favor of the public interest over other interests as well as conducting any initiative to maximize the interest of the organization (Gupta & Shaheen, 2017; Werang & Agung, 2017).Furthermore, a job-dedicated employee tries to avoid any negative impact of his obligations and activities on his performance.job-dedicated employee performs also his duties impartially and without discrimination among people based on personal criteria of gender, nationality, religion, color, political beliefs, or any other criteria such as kinship or friendship (Sweem, 2009).

Research design
The study adopted the descriptive, analytical method, since it determines the characteristics of the phenomenon, describes its nature accurately and then determines the quality of the relationship between its variables.The survey method, which is considered appropriate for the current study, was used to collect data on both the independent variable and the dependent variable through the questionnaire, and also to enable the researcher to combine the quantitative and qualitative research inputs, which contributes to reaching for conclusions for developing and improving reality (Mbugua, Waiganjo, & Njeru, 2015).

Study population
The study population consisted of the individuals in supervisory positions in the senior and middle administrative levels in Irbid District Electricity Company (IDECO) operating in Jordan by 100 individuals.

Data collection
For the purpose of collecting the preliminary data for the current study, a questionnaire consisting of both open-ended and closed-ended type of questions was prepared.There were 97 recovered and valid questionnaires by a rate of 97%.The secondary data needed for the current study was collected through the published theoretical literature related to the study variables from various books, periodicals and master's theses in addition to information available online.

Data analysis
Data collected in the study were analyzed through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), where the descriptive statistics for all the fields of the study were estimated by extracting the means and standard deviations.The correlation matrix was also used to determine the relation direction between the independent variable and the dependent variable.Furthermore, multiple regressions were used to determine the impact of the staffing of human resources with its different dimensions on the job involvement.To determine the reliability of data, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used which were estimated at 0.75-0.92,which were high and acceptable for application purposes; studies indicated that the ratio of accepting the reliability coefficient was 0.70 and above (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010).

Process of human resources staffing
For the purpose of identifying the level of practicing the staffing process, respondents were asked regarding the extent of practicing this process in the company.The findings in Table 1 showed that the level of practicing the human resources staffing process at Irbid District Electricity Company (IDECO) was moderate, where the mean for the answers of the respondents on the items related to the independent variable (practicing staffing process) was 3.52.

Job involvement
Means and standard deviations of the respondents' answers on the items reflecting the level of the job involvement of Irbid District Electricity Company (IDECO) employees were extracted.The findings in Table 2 showed that the employees' job involvement was moderate since the mean of the items measuring the level of the job involvement was 3.44.

Correlation analysis
The correlation analysis was to conducted test the strength of the relationship between the research variables.The findings of the study presented in Table 3 showed that the process of human resources staffing was positively associated with the job involvement where the Pearson coefficient was r = .851and at level of significance of 0.00, which means that there is a strong statistically significant correlation between the human resources staffing process and the job involvement.

Regression analysis
The study conducted a regression analysis to identify the significance relationship of the human resources staffing process against the employee job involvement.Table 4 showed that the coefficient of determination is 0.76; therefore, about 76% of the variation in the employee job involvement is explained by human resources staffing process.F test value was 99.04 by a statistical significance of 0.00, which is statistically significant; this means that there is an impact for the HR staffing process on the job involvement, which supports hypothesis H1.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The study was based on the premise that the job involvement contributes to predicting the employee's behavioral outcomes, organizational performance, and the organization's success.The importance of the involvement lies in entering the heart of the career relationship that it takes what people behave in their roles and what makes them behave in other ways to achieve both the goals of the organization and their goals, which has a positive impact on many variables such as service quality, customer satisfaction, high productivity and sales, increased profitability, and achieving of the competitive advantage.This is consistent with Kahn theory (1990), which indicates that the job involvement is an important aspect through which the organization can increase the productivity of its employees.Deeply involved employees usually exert additional efforts whether they were physical, mental or emotional to achieve the organizational goals.In addition, the employees who are involved in their job avoid engaging in any unwanted activities by the organization, which results in increased productivity.Therefore, organizations need to focus on all processes and strategies that can increase the involvement of employees in their jobs, most important of which the process of staffing with its different stages.The staffing process helps fit the employee with his job, which eventually results in many positive behavioral outcomes among employees, including the job involvement.Many studies have indicated that there is a correlation between the staffing of employees and their job involvement and that there is a correlation between the person-job fit, which is the fit already achieved by the staffing process and the emergence of many positive behavioral outcomes such as the job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job involvement, and organizational citizenship behavior (Organ, 1988 Kim, 2013).Accordingly, the current study was carried out for the purpose of determining the level of practicing the staffing process and job involvement of employees in one of the Jordanian companies that provide the electricity service to the Northern districts of Jordan, and explaining the impact of this process on the job involvement of the employees of this company.
The results have shown that the level of practicing the staffing process according to the procedures required was not sufficient, which may deprive the company from getting the required quality of employeese, specially those whose characteristics correspond to the requirements of the job they will occupy.
Respondents indicated that the company does not adequately examine and accept staffing applications based on the qualifications, specialization, and skills required to fill the vacant jobs.The respondents indicated also that the company does not perform all the required tests in the selection process and in conducting interviews as required, and the company does not adopt a sufficient trial period for the new employee nor holds training programs to prepare and direct the newly appointed employee.This can be attributed to the organizations' weak interest in the effectiveness of the staffing process by the people responsible for the human resources management; this is in agreement with Nadim (2008), Al-Farra and Al-Za'nun (2008), Jarghon (2009), Najadat (2014), Al-Shurman (2015) who revealed that the practicing of the staffing process in the surveyed organizations was not in the required level.
The results also showed that the level of the job involvement of employees was not at the level that would help the organization to obtain the benefits achieved by this type of behavioral outcomes, most important of which is increasing the satisfaction of employees, reducing the rate of leaving jobs and increasing productivity.This can be attributed to many challenges the most organizations still face with regard to the role that can be played by staffing process, the staffing process as the previous studies stated can often performed unprofessionally, not taking into account specialization, scientific qualification, experience, which may create a mismatch between selected individuals and the jobs; this will lead to reducing the appearance of many positive behavioral outcomes such as job involvement (Nadim, 2008; Al-Farra & Al-Za'nun, 2008; Jarghon, 2009).This is in agreement with Singh and Gupta (2015) who stated that there is a decrease in the employees' job involvement.
In addition, the results indicated that there was an impact for the staffing process on the job involvement of employees; this is in agreement with Memon, Salleh and Baharom (2014) who stated that person-job fit between an individual's attributes and their surroundings, which is considered one of the criteria that must be included by all staffing practices can increases the positive emotions, attitudes and behaviors, when fit occurs, consequently it generates work-related positive attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.This result is consistent also with Alsaedi and Akar (2010), Abutayeh and Al-qatawneh (2012) who revealed a positive correlation between effective staffing and job involvement; effective staffing, as mentioned in some studies, achieves a fit between the employee and his job (Chatman, 1989;Rynes & Gerhart, 1989;Bowen et al., 1991;Judge & Ferris, 1992;Sekiguchi, 2007).Furthermore, the empirical evidence indicated that the fit between the employee and the job, which is one of the criteria of the staffing process leads to an increase in the employee's involvement in his job and the deeply involved employees are considered an important asset for the proper performance of their functions and for success and survival in today's rapidly changing environment (Hollenbeck, 1989

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
One of the most important challenges faced by organizations today is the method of retaining talents; therefore, it became important that organizations understand the extent of employees' adhere to the job.Accordingly, the study aimed to help the management achieve the desired goals of the organization by identifying the most important behavioral outcomes of employees that enable it to achieve its goals efficiently and effectively, most important of which is the job involvement.Involved employees exert additional efforts in conducting their tasks and they not only become physically involved in their jobs, but also mentally and emotionally, and they make their jobs the focus of their lives.Based on this, the organization can best achieve its desired objectives through this type of employees.The attempt of the current study lies in identifying the most important factors that influence the involvement of employees, which were represented in identifying the impact of the staffing process on the job involvement.The procedures of staffing should focus on achieving the fit between the employee and his job through focusing on choosing employees whose knowledge, skills and abilities correspond to the requirements of vacant jobs and also through implementing different tests and selection interviews, which help choose the person whose properties fit the job requirements he wants to work in.
Furthermore, organizations need to provide job opportunities that not only correspond to the capabilities of individuals, but also help meeting the needs of individuals and achieving their aspirations and desires.Thus, the staffing process must take into account the fit between the need and supply, which means that the selected employee should be given a career that helps satisfy his needs, desires and ambitions.
Organizations should also pay attention to the job design process where the focus is on designing jobs in a way that creates a challenge, and enables employees feel independence and joy during the job; in this method, the employee can be more involved and can work in an effective way.

Table 1 .
Human resources staffing process