Manpower planning: the management of human resources

This book is intended to fill a gap in the literature of management which perhaps reflects a weakness in management itself. Manpower planning is not an activity carried out by a few specialists in a personnel department (although the specialist's contribution is an important one), but is part of the responsibility of all managers, line and staff.
The book is, therefore, primarily for the manager, although most of the topics are covered in sufficient depth to be a useful introduction to the specialist as well. It attempts to integrate the strategies and techniques of manpower planning with those in use elsewhere in management writing and experience, and in the field of industrial sociology. It also seeks to reinterpret thinking which has blinkered management for much of the last century and is now obsolete. For example, it considers how to give practical recognition to manpower as an income-generator as well as a cost.
The approach is grounded in personal experience of manpower planning, reinforced as appropriate by the experience of writers in the same or closely related fields. Every attempt has been made to avoid an unnecessarily superficial treatment; consequently a manager who has only a general interest or responsibility for manpower planning may find that some topics are covered in more detail than he requires. In particular, Chapters 3, 4, 8, 12, and 13 can be read at different levels. A manager-with more interest in principles than techniques can afford to skip some of this material, and the section-headings are designed to help him do this.