Technical jargon: What does "staffen" mean?

No, please don't Google the verb, because that would be misleading and wouldn't do justice to the coolness of the people who use the word. The verb "staffen" doesn't actually exist in the German language, and yet department heads, project managers and all other leaders in our industry love it. Those who are self-respecting insert it in passing during small talk and respond to the question of how things are going, for example: "We can't keep up with staffen," or "We have the order, we just have to staffen it," or even more directly, "Do you know anyone I could staffen? Questionable personnel policy  "Staff" is a loanword with a change of part of speech from the English noun "staff," which means "employees" or "co-workers" in German. In the advertising and communications industry, employees and staff are a volatile commodity. It has a bad reputation, and rightly so, when it comes to the treatment of "staff," because the way it deals with hiring and firing is nonchalant, to say the least.An agency wins a pitch and five new people have to be brought in, or else: The mandate is "staggered". If a mandate is lost, people are fired more quickly than in other industries. It's no different on the client side. If a CEO or management has a marketing affinity, then they "staff up" for all they're worth and suddenly 20 or 40 people are doing what five used to do. It's not that there's necessarily more work to do, no, in many places there are simply more people talking. In return, the self-esteem of those who are "doing the prodding" is rising.*Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He created the section "Vom Fach" in the NZZ FOLIO and was in charge of it for years. He presents and decodes words and terms that can be used either for small talk, being important, getting excited, playing Scrabble or simply for fun.