What methods are used by both small and large firms to forecast the supply of inside candidates?

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: Department managers or owners of smaller firms often use manual devices to track employee qualifications. Thus a qualification (or skill) inventory contains data on employees' performance records, educational background, and promotability. Thus personnel inventory and development records compile qualification information on each employee. Personnel replacement charts are another option, particularly for the firm's top positions. They show the present performance and promotability for each position's potential replacement. Larger firms obviously can't track the qualifications of hundreds or thousands of employees manually. Larger employers therefore computerize this information, using various packaged software systems. Increasingly, they also link skills inventories with their other human resources systems. So, for instance, an employee's skills inventory might automatically update each time he is trained or appraised.