Step 1: Grouping the steps into three phases:
Staffing can be understood in three broad phases: (I) Acquisition — manpower planning, recruitment, and selection bring people into the organisation; (II) Development — placement, orientation, training, and appraisal build and assess their capability; (III) Retention — promotion, career planning, and compensation keep good employees motivated to stay.
Step 2: Why the sequence matters:
Skipping or rushing any stage (e.g. weak selection, or no training) typically shows up later as poor performance or high turnover, which is why staffing is treated as a continuous, linked process rather than a set of independent HR tasks.
Step 3: Continuous nature:
Because organisations keep growing, changing, and losing employees to attrition, the staffing process never truly 'ends' — it recurs continuously alongside the organisation's life cycle.
Final Answer:
Staffing unfolds in three linked phases — acquiring people (planning, recruitment, selection), developing them (placement, training, appraisal), and retaining them (promotion, compensation) — as a continuous organisational process.