Performance evaluation is the process of evaluating how effectively employees are fulfilling their job responsibilities and contributing to the accomplishment of organizational goals. They also use feedback about people's performance to recognize them for a job well done and motivate them.

These external factors can be broadly categorized as the social and cultural, technological, economic, political and legal environments. While these external influences are often outside the control of HRM, they often require action from HRM to address their effects on the organization and its goals.

Employment separation occurs when the employment contract or at-will agreement between an employee and his or her company comes to an end. Some terminations will be forced by an employer, including getting fired or laid off. Other separations, like retirement or resignation, will be voluntary.

Trend analysis refers to the use of statistical techniques to plot a historical trend of a business factor. A Markov analysis can be used to track the pattern of employee movements through various jobs.

Ishikawa diagrams (also called fishbone diagrams, herringbone diagrams, cause-and-effect diagrams, or Fishikawa) are causal diagrams created by Kaoru Ishikawa that show the potential causes of a specific event.