What is the process of deciding how do you fill executive positions at a firm is known as?

Job analysis defines the duties and human requirements of the company’s jobs. The next step is to recruit and select employees. We can envision the recruitment and selection process as a series of hurdles

1) Decide that positions to fill, through personnel planning and forecasting
2) Build a pool of candidates or these jobs, by recruiting internal or external candidates.
3) Have candidates complete application forms and perhaps undergo initial screening interviews.
4) Use selection tools like tests, background investigations, and physical exams to identify viable candidates.
5) Decide who to make an offer to, by having the supervisor and perhaps others interview the candidates.

Planning and forecasting:

Employment personnel planning: The process of deciding what positions the firm will have to fill, and how to fill them.

The recruitment and selection process starts with employment or personnel planning. This is the process of deciding what positions the firm will have to fill, and how to fill them. Personnel planning embrace all future positions, from maintenance clerk to CEO. However, most firms call the process of deciding how to fill executive jobs succession planning.

Employment planning should flow from the firm’s strategic plans. Plans to enter new business build new plants or reduce costs all influence the types of positions the firm will need to fill (or eliminate). For example, JDS Uni-phase (which designs and manufactures fiber optics products) decided to expand its Florida operations. Its managers knew they’d have to expand its employment there from 140 people to almost 750. The human resources team thus knew they’d need plans for who to hire, how to screen applicants and when to put the plans into place. Figure below summarizes the link between strategic and personnel planning.

Employer strategic plan:
Diversify?
Integrate vertically?
Expand geographically?
On what basis should we compete?

Employer’s functional plans>>

1) Marketing and sales plans
2) Production plans
3) Financial plans
4) HR plans

1) Personnel plans>>
2) Training and development plans
3) Compensation plans
4) Labor relations plans
5) Security and safety

1) Personnel forecasts
2) Recruitment plans
3) Employees selection plans

One big question HR managers like those at JDS Uni-phase need to answer is whether to fill their projected openings from within or from outside the firm. Each option produces its own set of personnel plans. Current employees may require training, development, and coaching. Going outside requires deciding what recruiting sources to use, among other things.

Like all good plans, management builds employment plans on basic forecasts in this case of three things: personnel needs, the supply of inside candidates and the supply of outside candidates. We will start with personnel needs.

Forecasting Personnel Needs:

Managers should consider several factors when forecasting personnel needs. The usual process is to forecast revenues and then, from that, estimate the size of the staff required to achieve the sales volume. However, in practice the manager will need to consider other factors as well, such as projected turnover, resignations or dismissal, decisions to upgrade or downgrade, products or services, technological changes and the department’s financial resources. In any case, managers use several simple tools for projecting personnel needs, as follows:

Trend analysis: Study of a firm’s past employment need over a period of years to predict future needs.

Trend analysis means studying variations in your firm’s employment levels over that the last few years. For example, you might compute the number of employees at the end of each of the last five years or perhaps the number in each subgroup (like sales, production, secretarial, and administrative). The purpose is to identify trends that might continue into the future.

Trend analysis can provided an initial estimate of future staffing needs, but employment levels rarely depend just on the passage of time. Other factors (like changes in sales volume and productivity) also affect staffing needs.
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