Last year, when the writer was invited to address the Inaugural State Conference of the IPMA Queensland
Division on trends affecting human resource management in the United Kingdom, he had some doubts
about the extent to which it would be possible to present a general description of these developments.
Experience as a management researcher in Britain, which had brought him into close contact with a wide
range of organisations, had led him to conclude that personnel practices in Britain varied enormously. Some
concerns (albeit only a few) appeared as impressive, effective, and innovative in their management of human
resources as organisations anywhere in the world; others were strong in a particular facet of the personnel
function (e.g. industrial relations) but weak in others (e.g. manpower planning); many had rudimentary and
not particularly well-managed personnel functions, and in some enterprises this field of management activity
left a great deal to be desired. His involvement at national level in the activities of the Institute of Personnel
Management for some five years confirmed the view that there existed a wide range of personnel practices
in British organisations.
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