Week Three Summary In Chapter five, the six steps of effective human resource planning were reviewed. Environmental scanning, labor demand analysis, gap analysis, action programming, and control and evaluation are all key factors for successful human resources. I have developed a contract and worked on the human resource planning with our HR department. I can attest to the importance of each one of these steps. We used them to defend the need for our positions and to hire new employees on the contract. For example, the contract was for a medical coder. In environmental scanning, we determined that the local area had a low staffing of coders, the coders that were employed had consistently low accuracy rates and finally, we found that they were vastly underpaid in comparison to the baseline salary. By paying more than our competitors, and including the accuracy expectations in the position description, we were able to draw in and recruit the most qualified candidates. Chapter six discussed the personnel selection process. In six months, I will be transitioning from the military to the civilian workforce, so I found this section to be particularly interesting as I am currently in a job search. The text says that the process begins by conducting a work analysis on the position being recruited. The analysis should conclude with a summary of the position's knowledge, abilities, skills, and other characteristics requirements. This can be used to evaluate the candidate’s qualifications against. Next, the company must determine their selection methods. The selection method should include criteria to ensure the candidates’ reliability, validity, and utility to the company. Reference checks and background investigations are also key to a thorough selection process. I was recently overseeing a contract where an employee went through a secondary screening in which we discovered a prior felony. Due to the nature of the position, they were let go. Had the recruitment company they were