The company needs to select the top three outstanding employees from 15 employees. How many selection methods are there?

To solve this problem, we need to use the combination formula, which is used when the order of selection does not matter. The formula is:

C(n, k) = n! / [k!(n-k)!]

Where:

• n is the total number of items (in this case, 15 employees)
• k is the number of items to choose (in this case, 3 employees)
• "!" denotes a factorial, meaning the product of all positive integers up to that number.

Substituting these into the formula gives:

C(15, 3) = 15! / [3!(15-3)!] = (151413) / (321) = 455

So there are 455 different ways to select the top three outstanding employees from a group of 15 employees.