Make a Staffing Plan

Start the response with a comprehensive ‘To Do’ list for the early days.

1. 1. Define the time frame you want to deal with (For example, the first week or first two weeks).
   2. Brainstorm all the things the team must accomplish in the time frame that you defined above. Make sure you have area experts in your brainstorming group, HoP, MQC, and others.  You want to make sure you’re thinking of everything.
   3. Group these activities into logical categories or “Functions” (For example, Finance, Media, Program Design). These groups of activities are the basis of your first Scopes of Work for the emergency.
   4. Brainstorm a list of names of people who could be pulled in for each group of tasks. See Sources of Temporary Staff

We’ve used the attached tool – Staff Planning Tool – and find it helpful in this process. The workbook has three sheets, an instruction sheet, a template sheet, and an example sheet. The template is editable.

Tips:

1. 1. If, during your session listing activities for the immediate term you defined, you also think of activities that will need to be undertaken later than this first timeframe, separate them out onto a second list which is defined for that later time period (continuing from the example listed above, a list of things to tackle in the second week or the third week).
   2. In addition to making sure you’ve got everything covered for now, the resulting lists of activities, categorized into functions, can be the beginnings of job descriptions for positions that you might need to fill in the medium or long term.
   3. It might be that the CR, RD, or HoP is leading the hiring process, rather than you. If this is the case, you could still suggest undertaking this exercise and using the attached tool.
   4. You could also use the tool in the absence of a group to help you clarify your own thinking about what has to be done. With the document filled out you can more easily describe to others what kind of positions you would like to see filled and why.