CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The Staff Management System which entails the building of a system to help the Administrators of the Office of the Secretary to the State Government (OSSG) to effectively manage employee information originally stored in paper which had a mixture of smooth progress and setbacks. During this work, the researcher had studied the existing system by looking at flats files containing Staff Information and asking questions on what they wanted to do with the content of the flat files and how this information was helpful for their work. All this information made it easier to understand the conceptual design of the system.
Looking at the hard copy of the files like the individual employee form gave an idea on how to design the individual employee information report. Data from files was readily available for use in testing some objects of the application.
The Staff Management application has helped the human resources to avoid some of the drawbacks of the flat files system like consistency and security of employee information. Strategic reports like the employee retirement forecast will help management to plan for new employment well ahead of time.
This research work focuses on the computerization of Staff Management process in any Government Ministry, Department or Agency but primarily designed to suit the Office of the Secretary to the State Government.
- Background of the Study
Every organization performs its task with the help of resources from men, machine, materials and money. Other resources are non-living except manpower which is a live generating resource. Manpower utilizes other resources and gives output. If manpower is not available then other resources are useless and cannot produce anything. Out of all the factors of production, manpower has the highest priority and is the most significant factor of production and plays a pivotal role in the areas of productivity and quality.
Though lack of attention to the other factors may result in reduction of profitability to some extent, lack of attention to human resource will be very disastrous. In a country where human resource is abundant, it is a pity that they remain under-utilized. Technology alone, however, cannot bring about desired change in economic performance of the country unless human potential is fully utilized for production. Sheldon (1923) noted “No industry can be rendered efficient so long as the basic fact remains unrecognized that is human.” The people at work comprise a large number of individuals of different sex, age, socio-religious group and different educational or literacy standards. These individuals in their working place exhibit not only similar behavioral patterns and characteristics to a certain degree but also show much dissimilarity.
The human resource is critical and difficult to manage. It is because human behaviour is highly unpredictable. It differs not only from individual to individual but often on the part of same individual at different points of time. In spite of biological and cultural similarities, human beings not only differ in their appearance but also in their capabilities based on their background, training and experience. Therefore, there is need for management of any organization to fashion out the best method of handling human resources.
Management is the process of efficiently getting activities completed with and through people. The management process includes Planning, Organizing, Leading and controlling activities that take place to accomplish the goal. Personnel management which is a branch of management performs the same functions towards achieving the desired goal of the establishment. Different terms are used for personnel management. The different terms are labour management, labour administration, labour management relations, employee-employer relations, personnel administration, human assets management, human resources management etc. In simple sense, human resources management means employing people, developing their resources, utilizing, maintaining and compensating their services in tune with the job and organizational requirements with a view to contribute to the goals of the organization, individual and the society (Manuguru, 2010).
Staff Management is not a new trend in large cooporations especially in the banking and telecommunication industries where detailed staff workforce exists. The Government parastatal is no exception as it is very necessary to improve on the Staff documentation system through a computerized means for easy access to detailed and well documented Staff records.
- Statement of the Problem
The current method of Management Information System has proven to be problematic in government institutions leading to several setbacks. The problems exist in the following ways:
- Improper documentation of staff movement with respect to Leave and permissions;
- Indiscriminate abuse of staff work-flow targeted at un-organized staff duties or schedule of duties;
- Inaccurate documentation of staff population at each point in time.
- Lack of clarity in the chain of command according to organizational order of hierarchy.
- Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of this project is to design a Computerized Staff Management System so as to automate processes and improve efficiency for the organization. To achieve this, the following objectives will be considered:
- To provide a database for easy and well organized record keeping;
- Search engine are fully optimized to ensured quick and prompt search of any Staff record at any time;
- Generating of reports are achieved to detect or inform the Administrators on various Staff activities at any point in time;
- Password Security is applied to ensure that only authorized personnel can access the Staff records.
- Significance of the Study
This project will be beneficial to the Office of the Secretary to the Government at Federal and State level for effective monitoring of staff duties, employment and retirement status, Leave and permission status, organizational structure according to hierarchy, etc. It will also help to reduce redundancy in the Staff records and provide an enabling environment to track staff management issues whenever they arise.
- Limitations of the Study
There are certain restrictions that hindered me from timely providing this project. They include:
- Financial Constraint: A lot of money was spent on the search of materials for referencing. It involved frequent surfing of the internet, putting together pieces of already existing staff management procedure which requires regular visit to various departments under the Office of the Secretary to the State Government in Anambra State to gather facts and sample materials.
- Technical And Logistic Constraint: Irregular power supply or failure and frequent need for update of my computer Anti-virus to avoid virus attack while surfing the internet during the period of my research was a problem to contend with. The challenges encountered were overwhelming thereby affecting the ability to go beyond the extent of research.
- Definition of Terms
Management Information System (MIS): This focuses on the management of information systems to provide efficiency and effectiveness of strategic decision making. The concept may include systems termed transaction processing system, decision support system, expert system, or executive information system.
Database Management System (DBMS): It is a computer software application that interacts with the user, other applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze data. A general-purpose DBMS is designed to allow the definition, creation, querying, update, and administration of databases.
Application Program Interface (API): This is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. An API specifies how software components should interact and APIs are used when programming graphical user interface (GUI) components.
Java Database Connectivity (JDBC): This is an application programming interface (API) for the programming language Java, which defines how a client may access a database. It is part of the Java Standard Edition platform, from Oracle Corporation.
Java is a programming language. It was first developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems, which is now a part of Oracle Corporation. It was released in 1995 as a part of Sun Microsystems’ Java platform. The language has developed much of its syntax from C and C++.
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