IMPACT OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT ON EMPLOYEES EFFICIENCY IN A PUBLIC SECTOR, A CASE STUDY OF OKENE LOCAL GOVERNMENT COUNCIL AREA OKENE KOGI STATE

CHAPTER ONE:

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Many public services today does not take the training and development of human resources available to them seriously, they fail to understand that, the success and failure of any public service depend mostly on the various categories of trained personnel.
A seasonal public service should have a well-articulated design programme for systematic management, training and development to enhance the transformation of policies and programmes contained in the annual budget into practical realities.
Training has come to be universally accepted as a vital input to improve the output of any public service both qualitatively and quantitatively. Training is the functions that enable others acquire and applied knowledge, skills abilities and attitudes which they are some part. Training is one of the management most crucial mean of achieving objectives and has been view as a public service sector most vital investment in human resources.
Terry (1989:201) states that the process of training and development is continuous one. Money spend on the training and the development of the employee is swell invested. Employees who have not yet receive adequate training being assigned with responsibilities lack necessary confidence and technical know-how with which to carry out the job.
The employees should be assisted to advance into more responsibility through systematic training and development. It is only then that he/she will feel confident to carry out responsibilities of the job. Because he believes that he has what is expected of him on the job and because he can do it, his enthusiasm on the job increases, it is a person in that position who can think and originate ideas as t know how best to carry out the task of the job.

People who are not trained tend to sick to what they are thought the first time they took over the job. They are frightened of doing the job in a different way because something might go wrong, and what that risk they want to avoid training and development is very vital to any public service for acquisition, creating, maturing and motivation of competent personnel. This infact, prevents frustration resulting from stagnation that leads to high personnel. It sharpens the behavior and attitude to the work of any employees. The end results are improved and enhance job performance.
According to Gary (2003:187) training is a hall-mark of good management. An organization or public service sector may have employees of abilities and determination with appropriate equipment and management support, yet productivity falls below expected standard.
The missing factor in many cases is lack of adequate skill and knowledge, which are acquired through training and development. It is evident that through personnel training of the employee, knowledge can be acquired skill performance on the job and increased output and most importantly to make the employee a part and parcel of the job. Also, it has been obvious that some employees do not know the benefit of training and development their staff, such as reducing cost, wastages, increased output and bridging the communication gap.
These problems boarder on ignorance both of the employees and the employees part of the most offenders are the most business owner who are not interested in training programmes for their employee so long as they can get money from them. To them, training is redundant. This particular attitude is an unfortunate one, which is the long run, will do such companies more harm than good. Nevertheless, successful public sector realized the fact that human resources deserves the required attention because it is a significant factor in management strategic decisions, which guides the public sector in its future operation.
Most public service today have realize the fact about even to point of sending some of their staff on overseas training to meet with new and current technical demands.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Training, development, maintenance and utilization of actual potentials, number of labour force are determinants to the success of any public services sector. Adequate planning is a major or crucial tool to the public services sector effectiveness and efficiency. With this view the study is set to examine the impact of training and development on employees efficiency in Okene Local Government Area. Some of the factors among others that led to how level of productivity in Okene Local Government Area include:
The attitude to work is very low because of lack of training
The high rate of exchange affect training especially overseas course
Lack of effective communication with the organization deprives workers from knowing the training opportunities available to them.
Top management and technical staff are not properly trained for proper productivity.

1.3 Research Questions

The following questions were formulated for the purpose of the study:
Can employee’s attitude to work be very low because of lack of training?
Do top management staffs think that training is the best way to improve the efficiency of workers?
Does lack of effective communication in the organization can allow workers to know of the training opportunities available to them?

1.4 Objective of the Study

Training is the activity that deliberately attempts to improve a person’s skill in a job so, the main purpose of this work of study is to verify the impact of training and development on employee’s efficiency as means of increase productivity in the organization. Other objectives include:
To verify how training and development can enhance better output of workers.
To find out various ways in which employee can acquire training and development.
To verify the adversity that could arise as a result of lack of proper training and development.
To find out the relevance of subjecting the employee into training.
To find out how training and development could boost the moral and behavior of employees.

1.5 Significant of the Study

The work will be of great help to improve training and development of employee in the below ways:
Firstly, it will assist in highlighting some of the training needs, and the need to train and development human resources in Okene Local Government Area for efficient performance of the staff and to meet with new technical demands. Secondly this study will acquaint both small and big public service sector the essentiality of training and development of personnel especially in this our environment that is dynamic. The research will also be of reference to other student who might in the future embark on similar work on training ad development.

1.6.0 Scope and Limitation of the Study

The scope of this research or study covers the problems of training and development of employee using Okene Local Government Area as a case study. It covers between January and December, 2007.
The limitation of the study on the other hand includes time factor, inadequate textbooks journals and finance. All these serve as constraint to the study. Time was the major constraint as it is very difficult to combine the research with usual academic work also, the inadequacy of require textbooks from the library is another constraint. However effort made elsewhere were successful.
Finance was another constraint as a result of poor economic situation in the country; little money was made available to finance this project. Despite of these problems, the study was successfully done.

1.7 Definition of Terms

Training: Training is a technique or method used to give present and new employee basic required skill for efficient execution of job for which he has employed.
Development: Development deals with the activities undertaken to expose an employee to perform and additional duties and assume position of importance in the organizational hierarchy.
Personnel/Human Resources: This refers to people employed in a service sector or institution.
Labour Turn-Over: This refers to the rate at which workers leave their jobs for jobs elsewhere.

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 An Overview of the Place Understudy

Okene Local Government Area is the case study of this study, Okene Local Government Area was one of the five local government areas inhabited by the Ebiras in Kogi State which are located in the south western part of Nigeria precisely, Babba province. Okene Local Government Area was created out of the Defunct Igbura aversion of Kabba province sequel to the 1976 reforms in the local government system in the country.
The Okene LGA inhabitants speak Ebira language and the last 2007 census of Nigeria place the population of people living in Okene LGA as high as 498,877. And Okene LGA could plausibly be referred to as the most developed in the state. It is strategically located at the gateway between the south and northern part of the country, commercial activities have a luxuriant base in Okene Local Government Area.
The main activity of Okene LGA being a public sector service is to cater for the people living in that area and to serve as link between the people and both the state and federal government.