Staffing renewal projects by voluntary enrolment

In this article, we examine a new staffing procedure, in which enrolment is dependent on employees voluntarily responding to internal advertising of projects. An important issue in voluntary enrolment is the employee's decision to enrol or not. We develop a model describing this decision process. The model, called the 'Enrolment Readiness Model', is tested in a municipal administration organisation that has staffed projects by voluntary enrolment for a number of years. The study mainly confirms the proposed model, but also clarifies that voluntary enrolment may cause problems in getting a sufficient number of participants in the proposed projects. The article concludes by stressing that voluntary enrolment seems to require more attention and effort from top management than a traditional/conventional staffing procedure and we propose ways that the enrolment readiness model can be helpful in supporting voluntary enrolment.