ABSTRACT
Human resource planning must have been applied in a general sense ever since people have collaborated in working groups. The idea itself is, therefore, certainly not new. The modern version of HR planning as we know it developed from studies carried out shortly after the last war by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relationships in subjects connected with labour wastage and turnover, and from operational research, which was initially concerned with the application of scientific and mathematical principles to solving the operational problems of military and industrial organizations. Inevitably, it was realized that the human resource component of these problems could not be ignored. Thus, in 1967 the Manpower Study Group emerged from the Operational Research Society to become the Manpower Society in 1970. At about the same time, in 1969, the Institute of Manpower Studies, now the Institute of Employment Studies, was formed as a research unit.
