ASSESSMENT OF TRAINING AS A MEANS OF MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATION A STUDY OF OGUN STATE MINISTRY OF HEALTH

CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION

An organization is made of up of both human and material resources. The human resources are in a position of manipulating the material resources to achieve organizational goals and objectives.

As it is said in the profession of law that “nemo dat quot non habat” i.e. “what you don’t have you can’t give”. If organization deems fit to achieve its set objectives, then training and manpower development must be taken seriously. The work environment is volatile, as things are fast changing in the present day world. Technology is fast growing and changing. Secretaries in offices who are trained with manual typewriter must try to acquaint themselves with the use of computer because typewriter cannot stand the test of time. Business managers must be internet savvy in order to fast track business transactions, the top desk officers (customer care centre) needs update on how to relate with customer (customer relation), marketing managers must be updated on how best to appeal to minds of consumers through advertisement, through the use of modern gadgets and instruments, as the security agents should also know the use of gadgets and electronic appliances to tackle the presents day security threat which cannot be handled by physical (man) police, all these and many more attest to the fact that training and manpower development play a significant role in the success of an organization.

According to Ian Johnston and Bobbie McClelland (2002), for any nation to succeed in internationally competitive markets, the following requirements are essential:

1. Companies need to invest fully in the people;
2. Individuals need to achieve their full potentials;
3. Enterprise and ideas must flourish; and
4. Learning must be accessible, relevant and stimulating.

Throughout the world, companies are realizing that the development of their Manpower is the key not only to business survival, but also to business success. The alternative to training and manpower development are nowhere near as effective and efficient as they may appear in the short term (Keith Sisson, 2000). It will be ridiculous and equivalent to backwardness when an organization makes efforts to recruit highly potential employees who possess the entire certificate required to doing such job and fails to train such employee then, automatically the organization will not make such employee perform effectively and efficiently. Training is salient for new employees and those who do routine job. Training and manpower development is a continuous process which will make the objectives and aspirations of the organization achievable through its manpower. Money invested in training and manpower development is money well invested.

Strategic training and manpower development is particularly relevant in helping organizations achieve a competitive advantage by developing competencies and specific skill sets, and promoting innovation and creating new knowledge.

According to Dale (1980), the relevance of employee training and development cannot be regarded as recent innovation. In general, training refers to a planned effort by a company to facilitate employees’ learning of job related competencies. These competencies include knowledge, skills, or behavior that are critical for successful job performance. The goals of training are for employee to master the skills, knowledge and behaviors emphasized in the training programme and to apply them to their day to day activities. Training helps employees develop skills that enable them to succeed in the current job and develop for the future. Training and development helps the organizations create a workforce that is able to cope with change, meet the increasing demand and challenge posed by the ever changing environment and prepare the future leadership of the company . Because activities in the industry and organization is becoming complex success will require smart, motivated employees who have the emotional strength to deal with change and adapt to innovations.

A company’s successful training activities should help organization achieve its business strategy. There is both a direct and indirect link between training and business strategy and goals. Training can help employees develop skills needed to perform their jobs which directly affect the business. Giving employees’ opportunities to learn and develop create a positive work environment which supports the business strategy by attracting talented employees as well as motivating and retaining current employees.

In some organization lip service is paid to training and manpower development or done in an informal way i.e. old staff are assigned to teach the new employee(s) what to do as far as his/her job is concerned. Many organizations meet their needs for training in an ad hoc and haphazard way. Training in these organizations is more or less unplanned and unsystematic Cole (2002).

A systematic approach to training and manpower development will generally follow a logical sequence of activities commencing with the establishment of a policy and the resources to sustain it, followed by an assessment of training needs, for which appropriate training is provided, and ending with some form of evaluation and feedback. (G.A Cole, 2002). Having the willingness and the financial backup to actually organize training and manpower development programme for the staff is not enough, getting it right is the answer. Investment in training and manpower development of employee can be a loss for organization if not strategically planned, implemented and evaluated.

Robert H. Mathis (2006), avers that training plans allow organizations to identify what is needed for employee performance before the training begins. A good training plan deals with the following questions:

• Is there really a need for the training?
• Who needs to be trained?
• Who will do the training?
• What form will the training take?
• How will knowledge be transferred to the job?
• How will the training be evaluated?

Michael Armstrong (2001), posits that, “it is not enough to believe in training as an act of faith. This belief must be supported by a positive and realistic philosophy of how training contributes to the bottom line. Underpinning this belief is the need to set hard objectives for training in terms of return on investment in the same way as other investments have to demonstrate a pay-back. The areas in which such a philosophy should be developed includes: a strategic approach to training, relevant, problem based, action orientated, performance related training, continuous development of training policies.

Development improves organizational climates. Increase moral may be due to several factors, but one of the most important of these is the state of an organizations education endeavour.

Development helps improve health and safety. Proper development can help prevent industrial accidents. Managerial mental state would also improve if supervisors know that they can better themselves through company-designed development programmes. Development leads to personal growth of the employees from their exposure to educational experience. It gives the participants a wider awareness, an enlarge skill, and enlightened altruistic philosophy and make enhanced personal growth possible.

Development programmes foster the initiative and creativity of employees and helps to prevent manpower obsolescence, which may be due to old age, temperament or motivation, or the inability of a person to adapt him/herself to technological change.

Factors Influencin Factors Influencing Development Programme

Source: Mondy Wayne et al, Personnel: The Management of Human Resources, 3rd Edition, pp. 258.

Fig. 1

1.1     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The failure of the first and second development plans of Nigeria according to Adebayo where partly attributed to inadequate and lack of trained manpower to handle the development plan as programmed. The country has been experiencing low productivity due to the dearth of training and manpower development and this has been an impediment in the development of the organization.

In Nigeria, inefficiency is a very serious problem that needs to be addressed urgently. Europe faced this same problem in the 18th and 19th centuries and writers such as Max Weber (1947), Vroom (1970), and a host of others were able to address the issue of how organizations can increase output and improve efficiency.

Most organizations find it difficult to identify the training needs, and even where the need is recognized, a lot of time and money is committed to training and manpower development. The exercise is often either in-appropriate, haphazard or premised on a faulty diagnosis of organizational training needs. In other situations, where training happens to occur, deployment of staff to train may be without regard to the skill the staff acquired, leading to frustration of personnel and also general inefficiency in the system. Public organizations in Nigeria are fond of this practise (Onah 2008).

The workforce is generally under-tapped, under-utilized and therefore falls short of its anticipated contributions to the realization of organizational goals. It is appalling to note that mangers in Nigeria have paid little or no attention on training and manpower development programmes often manifest tripartite problems of incompetence, inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Numerous scholars have been writing on how efficiency, competence and effectiveness can be achieved through training and manpower development.

According to Sam Aluku (1984), “productivity cannot be increased due to inadequacy of personnel, for instance health for all by the year 2000, the goal set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for its member nations could not be achieved due to manpower structural inadequacy and lack of material, drug, etc. The problem of this study therefore, is to assess training as a means of manpower development in public organizations and proper solutions that if religiously adopted, would enhance manpower effectiveness, world capacity output as well as place the country among the community of industrialized nations with adequate trained health personnel for the improvement of health service generally.

1.2     OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The general objective is to assess training as a means of manpower development in public organization.

The specific objectives of the study are to:

1. Ascertain the extent to which Ogun State Ministry of Health organizes training and development programme for her workforce.
2. Examine the extent to which the training organized by Ogun State Ministry of Health have positively influence higher manpower development.
3. Identify the hindrances to effective training generally and Ogun State Ministry of Health in particular; and
4. Determine the extent of damage done by inadequate training of manpower and the non developmental effect in Ogun State Ministry of Health.

1.3     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

To carry out this research, the researcher posed the following research questions:

1. What type of training and development do employees need to improve productivity in Ogun State Ministry of Health?
2. What are the training and manpower development policies, principles and practices in Ogun State Ministry of Health?
3. How does training and development affect staff performance in Ogun State Ministry of Health?
4. What are the relevance and effectiveness of training and development to the staff of Ogun State Ministry of Health?
5. What ways can we evaluate manpower training and development in Ogun State Ministry of Health?

1.4     RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

The following hypotheses were formulated to guide the study:

1. Ho: There is no significant relationship in the types of training programme in Ogun State Ministry of Health and staff productivity.

Hi: There is significant relationship in the types of training programme in Ogun State  Ministry of Health and staff productivity.

1. Ho: Training and Manpower development is not relevant to employees’ performance in Ogun State Ministry of Health

Hi: Training and Manpower development is relevant to employees’ performance in Ogun State Ministry of Health.

• Ho: There is no significant relationship between the relevance of the content of the training materials and the job of employees in Ogun State Ministry of Health.

Hi: There is significant relationship between the relevance of the content of the training materials and the job of employees in Ogun State Ministry of Health.

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This research work will help the Ogun State Ministry of Health as well as individuals in public health sector, schools and researchers as it will provide practical solution and literature in this respect. It will also help medical directors / administrators to map out strategy and introduce modern schemes for training and development for their staff, to be able to meet the challenges of change in the future. The importance of a healthy nation cannot be overemphasized as they say health is wealth, therefore having well trained health personnel to deliver quality health service is what the study is all about.

Finally, the work would highlight and assess training as a means of manpower development in public organization to the administrators of various ministries in the state who do not give service attention on training and development of it manpower.

1.6     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

I am aware of the existence of other ministries that train human resources in Nigeria. It is outside the focus of this study to research other agencies. The main focus of this study is the assessment of training as a means of manpower development in public organizations. The interest of the study is to assess the relevance of human resources training and development, the extent of achievement and the extent to which these will help to improve productivity.

The geographical coverage of the study is Ogun State Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health is one of the several agencies of the Ogun State Government. The study will focus on assessment of training as a means of manpower development in public organizations. Assessing training as a means of manpower development in Ogun State Ministry of Health and other ministries in the federation can only be alluded to as a way of using such assessment to classify what happens in Ogun State Ministry of Health. However, such performances in other part of the state ministries will not in themselves constitute subject for study.

1.7     LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The interest of this study is to highlight the relevance and the impact of training and manpower development on performance and productivity of workers. It is also aimed at producing at a glance the effect of training and manpower development in governmental agencies. However, the geographical area covered by the study is Ogun State Ministry of Health. The study will therefore use the activities of administration in Ogun State Ministry of Health to illustrate what happens in other ministries in the state.

Every human activity has its inherent weakness and strengths. As a result this study own boundary of limitations. Finance, time, lack of adequate cooperation from the respondents and logistics, where some of the problem envisaged limitations of this study. Consequently, it is obvious that I will encounter some problems and limitations during this research work which none will be considered as serious as to affect its validity.

Another intention was to use the study in generalizing on training and manpower development in Nigeria public organization.

However, there always exist many constraints militating against a good research work. Among these limitations/ constraints aside the ones mentioned above include the unwilling attitude of some individuals and civil servants to come up with relevant information, for some reasons best known to them.

Another constraint is that of reaching to the appropriate respondents. Most of our respondents could not be reached and this posed a problem for the researcher. Besides, some of the respondents subjected the researcher to some rigorous bureaucratic process thereby making it hard for the researcher to get some relevant information needed for the study and this also posed a limitation to the researcher.

However, despite these constraints, the research was successfully carried out through persistence and perseverance.

1.8     DEFINITION OF TERMS

Training

Organized activity aimed at imparting information and/or instructions to improve the recipient’s performance or to help him or her attain a required level of knowledge or skill

Manpower

Workers available to a particular group or required for a particular task.

Development

The systematic use of scientific and technical knowledge to meet specific objectives or requirements.

Manpower Development

Commonly referred to as human resource development, is an ongoing process that analyzes, forecast and projects an organization’s future manpower requirements.

Health Workers

Health workers are people engaged in actions whose primary intent is to enhance health. These include people who provide health services – such as doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, laboratory technicians – as well as management and support workers – such as hospital managers, financial officers, cooks, drivers and cleaners (WHO, 2010)

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