CHAPTER ONE 

                                                         INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

 Manpower Training is a purposeful development of the required skills, knowledge and attitudes in an employee. Bedeian (1987:45) defines manpower training as “the process of developing an individual’s skills, knowledge and abilities so as to improve present and future performance.” The specific advantages derivable from training are varied, but the common denominator is improvement of employee performance. Training becomes meaningful only if trained staff is effectively utilized where they can apply the knowledge and skills gathered during training in the work environment. Training is a costly exercise and the organization can only justify such expenditure by utilizing the trained staff maximally towards the attainment of organizational objectives which invariably culminate in improved productivity.

 Manpower training and utilization is a tool employed by organization to equip their workforce to the accomplishment of set goals and objectives. The internal structure of any organization is made up of socio-technical arrangements which are deliberately designed to achieve the objectives of that organization by doing the right thing at the right time and in the right measure, (Olowu 1991:79). Manpower training and utilization focuses on the objective of equipping the personnel in the service from the point of their recruitment to that of retirement, so that manpower be kept constantly ready not only to provide improved conditions in Nigeria but also set the machinery for achieving accelerated growth and development within the country. Manpower training and

%

utilization is essential to the existence and survival of organization. Olowu (1991:79), supports the above school of thought as he points that manpower training and utilization enables civil servants (employees) to acquire the relevant professional skills and knowledge for effective performance. Drucker (1986:56) stated that: 

A good organizational structure itself does not guarantee good performance but it is the manpower training and utilization that equips employees (civil servants) with the relevant professional skills and knowledge that brings out effective and efficient performance. 

 Dye (1988:73) supports Drucker as she opined that “when steps are to be taken to improve the quantity of employees and overall organizational performance, attention naturally turns to the process of training, education and utilization of employees”. According to Foot and Hook (1991:98), manpower training and utilization is a planned process to modify attitude, knowledge and skills or behavior through learning experience to achieve effective performance in an activity or range of activities. Its purpose in a work situation is to develop the activities of the individual and to satisfy the current and future needs of the organization. Manpower training and utilization, according to Walker (1992:34), is specifically about providing a range of learning experience in a work situation. An important part or aspect of human resource management which is often neglected today in public today is manpower training and utilization. This is because most organizations, the top management regard training as of marginal importance and therefore gives it only a token support. Many managers even think that manpower training is purely a staff function for which the line managers have no responsibility. Even managers or organization that institute training programme do so because that is the fashionable thing to do. This is a misconception because we live in a changing world, a

&

world where people and things do change rapidly and rapidly and continually, new technologies and new work procedures emerge every day. People’s attitudes, beliefs, values, behaviors and taste change, the super environment is not static, in fact, there is knowledge explosion in the world which calls for additional and improved skills on the part of both the works and management hence the part of both the workers and management need training and retraining of manpower to make them cope with the dynamic world work.

 Whatever nature, training programmes for staff should be aimed at providing the staff with the knowledge, skill and attitude required for doing his present job and holding responsibility in future in the organization.  In the light of the above, one can safely assume that human resource is the backbone and flesh of any cooperate organization, society or a nation for that matter. Thus attention should be paid to human element in addition to physical assets. The reason as Nwachukwu, (2000:40), argued is that appreciable expansion of the physical assets of an organization cannot be attained without the corresponding effort at seeking optimum performance of the workforce in terms of efficiency ,effectiveness and productivity.

 Ubeku (1975:14) notes that employees who have not received adequate training before being assigned responsibilities lack the necessary confidence with which to carry out their jobs. He then suggests that an employee should be helped to grow into more responsibility by systematic training and utilization so that he will be confident enough to carry out the responsibility of the job. This, according to him, is because manpower training increases the employee’s belief that he knows what is expected of him regarding the job, the knowledge of which enables him to originate ideas as to how best to carry out