CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background of the Study
Nigerian
employees are believed to have a poor attitude to work resulting in low
productivity. Commenting on the low productivity of Nigerian employees, Eze (1981:2)
observed that: Many achievement oriented, shrewd observers of Nigerian people
at work have always come out with a common impression that generally Nigerian
workers are lazy, slow, sleepy, reluctant to act, unconcerned, and deceitful in
their approach to work assigned to them. These workers lack the zeal, (Adebayo,
2001), the briskness and the momentum of
hard work and generally, they dislike to hear anybody talk about efficiency,
dedication, honesty, competence, determination, and productivity- all which
characterize achievement people in production oriented society.
The
inexorable march of time and the ceaseless clamour for social change combined
to make adaptability and continuing preparation of the workforce as inevitable
as the initial acquisition of knowledge and skills. This cannot happen if
staffs training do not occur in an organization. In order to maximize
productivity and efficiency of the organization, every executive, manager or
supervisor in a public or private organization has the responsibility and
indeed the bounding duty to ensure the training of men and women who have
requisite knowledge and expertise. The aim is to enable them to contribute
their full measure to the welfare, healthy and productivity level of the
organization.
A
according to (Harper and Row Croft, L.1996), Enugu State, the need to train
skilled personnel in the civil service arise principally because of the need to
provide necessary practical training required to make newly recruited graduates
from ministries and technical institutions effective administrators and skilled
technicians. There is also need for some orientation courses for those promoted
from lower to higher technical and managerial positions. Furthermore, there is
need to step up the training of Enugu State civil servants as quickly as
possible in order to reduce the gap in the demand for and supply of skilled
manpower, thereby reduce the reliance on foreign supply in accordance with
federal government Nigerian Policy. Finally, comprehensive training is necessary
to remove the main deficiencies in indigenous workers’ general attitude to work
and working relationship with other worker. These deficiencies include lack of
initiative, inadequate educational or professional background, unwillingness or
reluctance to take decisions, unduly concerned with personal prestige,
reluctance to do manual work etc.
Enugu
state has several schools for the training of her workforce in the civil
service. These include Staff Development Centre, Training School for Government
Press, School of Health Technology Oji and School of Health Technology, Nsukka,
among others. In spite of these training schools, myriads of problems still
confront staff of these ministries: Agriculture, Land, Survey, Human
Development and Poverty Reduction, Government Press, Board of Internal Revenue,
Head of Service, Health, Science and Technology and Gender Affairs and Social
Development.
The
concept of productivity underlies most discussions of the civil service in
Nigeria, like other formal organizations. Thus, criticism of and allegations
against the service centre on its productivity and performance. This perhaps
explains why the concept of productivity is very difficult if not the most
controversial concept in economic and business world. The difficulty arose
mainly from the problems associated with the yardsticks used in measuring
productivity and the statistical data and other variety of issues involved. The
problems are much more compounded with regards to measuring productivity in the
public sector of the economy (Simons G.I, 1975 and Balogun, A1983).
Our understanding of productivity as a concept can be enhanced by examining it from two perspectives namely, the economic and instruments. Due to over emphasis on profit making, particularly in the
However,
some business executives tend to reject this rather too “economistic” and
narrow view of productivity. Rather this school of thought sees productivity as
a measure of overall production efficiency, effectiveness and performance of an
individual organization.
They
insist that such issues, as quality of output, cost of labour, adherence to
standards, absence of disruptions and strikes, customer satisfaction and
turnover rates as well as such qualitative measurements as units produced in
volume of sales are important matters that must be taken into consideration.
Some scholars have even defined productivity as output per performance in an
organization (Udo-Aka, 1983).
The
above variations of productivity are all premised on the economic perspective
of the concept. And as already observed, there are major problems in viewing
productivity in the public sector from the economic perspective, problems
largely connected with the social costing of the concept in the sector
(Uluocha, 1983).
This
leaves us with the instrumental view of productivity. The instrumental concept
of productivity is essentially associated with the attainment of objectives and
goals. Thus, an instrumental action is concerned on one hand with desired
outcome (achieving results) and on the other, with the belief about
cause/effect relationship. Its essence is the employment of specific action or
means to produce the desired results. In this regards, the instrumentally
perfect” tool is one that meets such results (Thompson, 1978:14). Viewed from
this perspective, an organization is productive or instrumental in as much as
the goals and objectives for which it is established are achieved.
Hence
the concept of productivity in Enugu State Civil Service and indeed in this
study shall be along the instrumental perspective. In this regard, the Civil
Servant in Enugu State shall be regarded as productive, if the goals and
objectives for which the government is established Aare achieved. The reverse
shall hold if its goals and objectives are not realized or being realized. The
central task of this study is to determine the effect of training on
productivity in Enugu state civil service between 1999 and 2006.
1.2
Statement of Problem
After an employee has been recruited and inducted, his skills must be updated and developed to better fit into the job and the organization. The need for training and developing the employee not only arises from the fact that he might not fit in the job posses the necessary skill needed in the job but have the effect of the dynamic nature of the society influenced by changes in the field of science and technology necessitated the continuous improvement of worker’s skill and the sill he expected to have in order better fit into the new job demands is bridged by manpower training.
Many organizations have over the years established good manpower training and development programmes in order incite better employee performance at work and increased productivity. Good development programmes have not always been easy to attain in organization because of the forces that impede against the achievement of their objectives. Some of the impeding forces include selections or recruitment problems, training procedure and inadequate facilities, government policy, the economy and labour legislation. The crucial problems this research will address includes:
- The
problem of inadequate manpower resources in the Enugu state civil service.
- The
lack of functional manpower development programmes.
1.3
Objectives of Study
The
broad objective is aimed at establishing the impact of staff training programs
in Enugu State Civil service within the period under review.
The
specific objectives of the study are as follows:
EFFECT OF STAFF TRAINING ON THE PERFORMANCE OF CIVIL SERVANTS A STUDY OF MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE ENUGU STATE
