PRODUCTIVITY ENHANCEMENT THROUGH IMPROVED WORK ATTITUDE: A CASE STUDY OF THE NIGERIA FEDERAL CIVIL SERVICE
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Various definition of productivity exist in literature. Traditionally however, the concept of Labour Productivity is associated with visible, tangible output. Economist for instance, defined productivity as output per labour cost. Productivity is thus seen as the radio of a firm’s total output to total inputs.
That is productivity = Output = Goods & Services Produced
Input = Labour, Capital, Material, Time
This definition presents some difficulties when such services organisations as government, education and health institutions are considered. As noted by Jekelle (1987; p.11) whereas the output of manufacturing concerns are tangible and measurable, those of service organisations are not, thus making measurement difficult”.
In view of this limitation, a broad concept of productivity that incorporate all segments of work life is therefore necessary for our purpose. (1987, p.58) defines productivity as the measure of how well resources are being brought on organisations and utilized for accomplishing set of results.
It is reaching the highest level of performance with least expenditure of resources”. A variant of this is Olugbemi concept of productivity as “that which relates corporate achievement over a given time frame to objective(s) determined in advance of action”. Put in simpler term, productivity is nothing more than the arithmetical ratio between the amount produced and the amount of any resource may be money, land, materials, plant, machines or tools and the service of men (labour) and time.
As with performance, productivity comprises efficiency and effectiveness. This productivity is seen as a quantitative weighted measure of how efficiently a given set of objectives or targets. For this achievement of objective to the possible, the employee must have an attitude that can enhance the productivity but sadly a close observation of organization and institution especially government parastatal reveals that workers attitude to work is not such that can enhance productivity no wonder that the civil service is decaying for lack of right attitude to work.
Attitude has been defined as “an individual characteristic way of responding to an object or situation. It is base on his experience and leads to certain behaviour or expression of certain opinion (Okoh, 1990, p.107).
Attitude determines the employees approach to work. In the absence of attitudinal measurement data of work attituding’s of Nigeria civil servants by psychologist, a cursory observation of daily experiences behaviour reveal some basic negative, which are not helpful to increase productivity. The issue of apathy, indiscipline and recklessness with relation to work reigns supreme in the government sector.
- BRIEF HISTORY OF NIGERIAN CIVIL SERVICE
The Civil service as the major institutional management arm of the government has been subject to various metamorphic champs from the colonial era through independence to the present time. Public service embraces the civil service and other parastatals, commissions and agencies of the government.
The foundation of the Nigerian Civil Service was laid by Lord Lugard as Governor General of Nigeria (1912 – 1919). The Nigerian Civil Service is modeled on the British civil service which set up the service during days. It’s characteristics include:
- Permanence: The civil service is a permanent appointment rather than temporal. It is subject to promotion, gratuity and pension after retirement.
- Professionalism: The civil servants unlike the ministers are experts in terms of administration.
- Impartiality: A civil servant is a non political officer and he is expected to be impartial in the performance of his duties
By function the civil service in Nigeria ensures continuity of government especially when there is change of government. Secondly they keep records of the government. Thirdly they formulate and execute government policies, they advice political heads who are ministers and commissioners.
They take part in preparing bills and annual budgets and also serve as a link between government and the people.
The problem of low productivity ranks high in government federal service, they are accounted for the establishment of a full-fledged ministry of labour and national productivity scattered in all zones of the federation.
These countries are saddled with the responsibility to promote productivity awareness and consciousness among Nigeria workers. To this end several reforms have including 1998 and 1997 / as reforms have been effected to ensure enhanced productivity as the bed rock of growth and development.
Adebayo (1981) in his book listed thirteen factors that are responsible for inefficiency in federal civil service in Nigeria as follows:
Faculty recruitment, faulty posting and frequent posting, inadequate training, deteriorating health, incompetent supervisors, lack of clear objectives, conflict between administrative and professionals, lack of clear objectives, lack of helpful political direction, massive purges of the public services, colonial mortality, discontinuity in policy and fallen moral all these have gone a long way to affect attitude of workers negatively and hence low productivity. As with performance, productivity comprises efficiency and effectiveness. It becomes surprising that, today, the general perception of the federal service is that of ineptitude, inactivity, low productivity, negative work attitude, corruption and so on. The central problem of the study therefore is to find out the persisting factors inhibiting higher productivity vis-à-vis work attitude of the federal civil service and proffer solution to the problem.
The objectives of undertaking this researcher work are stated below:
- To identify factors that inhibits productivity in the federal civil service.
- To find out whether the non implementation of government policies contributes to low productivity in the federal civil service.
- To identify the major factors capable of boosting the morale and productivity of the worker.
- To make recommendation
In order to achieve the above stated objectives in this study the researcher stated three hypotheses as working instrument. They are here presented in the null form.
- HO: There is no significant relationship between negative work attitude and productivity
- HO: There is no significant relationship between non implementation of government policies and employee productivity.
- HO: There is no positive significant relationship between salary increment and employee productivity in the civil service.
- SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study is expected to reveal among others the military factors that inhibits federal civil servants productivity.
It will reveal measures to combat inefficiency and low productivity among staff in federal civil service.
The study will enable administrators of the federal civil service gain an insight into the problems bedeviling the sector and hence arm them with the type of retraining programme to mount.
The study is equally significant to other researchers and the general public who may be interested in similar studies and may find the recommendations to improve upon their research.
1.7 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
It is worthy of note that nearly all the 3 tiers of government are suffering from low productivity hence a study of all the states and local government in Nigeria should be investigated. Therefore the researcher adopts a conceptual approach of the federal civil service from Akwa-Ibom State stand point. The researcher is however limited by time and insufficient funds. Therefore only three federal establishment in Akwa Ibom State will be assessed.
However it is hoped that the findings will reflect the situation in Akwa Ibom State and other states and recommendation made will be of benefits to other states if applied.
1.8 ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY
This research work will be organized into five chapters with subsections. Chapter one comprises of the introduction statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research hypothesis and organization of study.
Chapter two deals with the review of related literature considered relevance to the study.
Chapter three, will highlights on the research methodology, such as the design of the study, sources and methods of data collection, validation research procedure in testing hypothesis.
Chapter four will deal with analysis of field survey data and conclusion and recommendation will be capture in chapter five.
