Objectives and Measures of Co‐ordination between Private and Public Manpower Planning with Particular Reference to the Use of Human Resource Measurement Systems

Abstract

The technical term “co‐ordination” has the meaning of systematisation, methodisation, normalisation or adjustment of subsystems, parts, units or activities within a large entirety. The format and means of co‐ordination must therefore depend heavily on the way in which a total system (for example an economic system) is structured and organised, e.g. the kind of typical decision‐making and communication rules and existing distribution of economic and political power and influence across the various parts or subsystems to be co‐ordinated. Co‐ordination in its widest sense can range along a continuum from the one extreme of mere coercion to the other extreme of mere moral suasion. In between lies the grey and somewhat undifferentiated area of co‐ordination instruments such as joint decision‐making, indicative planning, use of advisory bodies, co‐operative agreements or information exchanges to name only a few of these devices commonly used in industrialised nations. The area of active labour market policy or manpower planning is no different in this respect. As concerns the interface of state and enterprise manpower planning we find the use of some form of open or subtle coercion in such countries as the USSR or the DDR and, on the other hand, relatively much reliance on moral suasion in a country like the United States. In between we find the majority of industrialised European countries, who employ a variety of co‐ordination activities and instruments such as, for example, the advisory bodies of the labour ministry and the indicative planning exercises of the planning commissions in France, the range of decision‐making, advisory and consultation bodies within the Swedish Labour Market Board or the somewhat similar structures within the West German labour administration.

Citation

Weiermair, K. (1980), "Objectives and Measures of Co‐ordination between Private and Public Manpower Planning with Particular Reference to the Use of Human Resource Measurement Systems", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 11-16. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb044811