CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Until the early 1980s there was a general resistance to investment in manpower development in tertiary institutions. This is because of what Stahi (2004) posits was the belief that “employees hired under a merit system must be presumed to be qualified because they were already trained for their jobs, and that if this was not so it was evidence that initial selection of personnel was at fault”. This assumption has been jettisoned as the need for manpower development has become obvious both in the private and the public sectors. Many organizations have come to recognize that manpower development offers a way of “developing skills, enhancing productivity and quality of work and building worker loyalty to the firm” (White, 2009). Indeed the importance of manpower development has become more glaring given the growing complexity of the work environment, the rapid changes in organization and technological advancement which further necessitate the need for training and development of personnel to meet the challenges.
Training and development, according to Lassa (2005), happens to be the core of manpower development in organizations. They help to ensure that organizational members possess the knowledge and skills needed to perform their jobs effectively take on new responsibilities and adapt to changing conditions (Jones, George and Hill, 2000). Training “helps improve quality, customer satisfaction, productivity, morale, management succession, business development and profitability” (Olu, 2008). Elaborating further on the importance of manpower development (MD) the International Labour Office (Ilo, 2000) affirms that development and training improves the trainees, prospects of finding and retaining a job, improves their performance at work, their income earning capacity, their living standards, and further widens their career choices and opportunities.
Lassa (2005) at the macro level noted that manpower development and management are issues of primary concern and interest to every nation of the world. In support of the above, Agbato (2003) argued that in a developing country such as Nigeria, human resources development and management is critically central to any form of socio-economic and techno-scientific advancement. Agbato further stressed that Nigeria cannot claim to have developed enough manpower to service her various sectors of the economy and field of endeavour yet the issues of labour relations, manpower retention, job satisfaction and morale have been become national problems.
Hallstain (2005) recognizes the importance of a well-trained labour force in an organization. Administrative staff development programmes in an organization is concerned with recognizing and providing those areas of skill, knowledge, behaviour and attitude needed by the individual administrator that he may perform his work more effectively and efficiently to achieve the desired result. The desired result could be to correct deficiencies of the poorly trained administrative staff, to help the less experience administrative staff that have just picked up the job, to keep administrators abreast of educational and social development and to stimulate professional growth. It is only when the manpower is adequately qualified for the jobs to be performed that the resources input can effectively be deployed and utilized in the most optimal manner. Johnson (2001) laments that the organization itself is constantly in a state of flux, either growing or dying. It is either expanding or shrinking in its particular market place, and changes pace and direction due to the impact of an ever changing environment. He argued that the new products, new processes, new material and new services, new uses for old products, processes and services, and expansion of technology, the activities of competitors, the influences of regulations and other controls-all these and other factors combine to help or hinder an organization’s ability to survive and grow. Although Johnson was writing about USA in 1976, he perfectly could have anticipated the Nigerian business environment and educational sector in the 1980s for the tertiary institutions are in constant flux ever-changing, with both willing and unwilling employees and that administrative staff have to be trained and retrained on a regular basis since Nigeria needs literate and productive manpower to develop her tremendous natural resources. It is only through sound education delivered by teachers that such manpower would be developed. Ejiogu, (2001) remarks that people have to feel good in their jobs, and also have a genuine sense of learning, growing and developing as persons in the process of making their organizational contributions.
Significantly, emphasis has been laid on the need for training and development in tertiary institutions. For instance, Olu (2008) remarked that the complex nature of institution of higher learning exemplified by diverse human needs and behaviour make it the more reason why administrators should be constantly empowered through training on how to address the various emerging issues. So far, this has not been fully realized as a result of the following identified constraining factors.
That staff were meant to initiate training and development pursuit, and when they did this, management of tertiary institutions do not take it seriously, also that when administrative staff of tertiary institutions in Delta State apply for training and development programmes, management of the institutions subjected this application to rigorous criticism by various management level for comments and as such it takes a lot of time before consideration, and that in most cases approval for the programme usually come when the time for the programmes had elapsed. Furthermore, it was observed that management of tertiary institutions in Delta State did not commit adequate funds in the training and development of administrative staff, in fact, this act had crippled a lot of activities and programmes that would have made for qualitative administration in our schools. Several studies pinpoint the importance of training and development of employees. Continuing Harbison (1966) emphasizes the need to develop manpower so that they can take hold of all matters including the implementation of the tertiary institutions curriculum. He recommends regular update of staff to solve the problem of staff obsolescence.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM