AN INVESTIGATION ON HOW THE PROBLEMS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT COULD EFFECTIVELY BE TACKLED AND IN TURNS MAKE THE ORGANIZATION TO ACHIEVE ITS DESIRE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

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AN INVESTIGATION ON HOW THE PROBLEMS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT COULD EFFECTIVELY BE TACKLED AND IN TURNS MAKE THE ORGANIZATION TO ACHIEVE ITS DESIRE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1  Background of Study

The development of any nation depends to a very large extent on the calibre, organization and motivation of its human resources. In the specific case of Nigeria where diversity exerts tremendous influence on politics and administration, the capacity to increase the benefits and reduce the costs of this diversity constitutes a human resource management challenge of epic proportion in its public sector organizations. Human Resource Management (HRM) is the function within an organization that focuses on recruitment of, management of, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization. Human Resource Management can also be performed by line managers.

    Human Resource Management is the organizational function that deals with issues related to people such as compensation, hiring, performance management, organization development, safety, wellness, benefits, employee motivation, communication, administration, and training. Human Resource Management is also a strategic and comprehensive approach to managing people and the workplace culture and environment. Effective HRM enables employees to contribute effectively and productively to the overall company direction and the accomplishment of the organization’s goals and objectives. Human Resource Management is moving away from traditional personnel, administration, and transactional roles, which are increasingly outsourced. HRM is now expected to add value to the strategic  utilization of employees and that employee programs impact the business in  measurable ways. The new role of HRM involves strategic direction and HRM metrics and measurements to demonstrate.   

    HRM covers a wide range of activities. The main area of study we will focus on will be incentives and work organization. Incentives include remuneration systems (e.g. individuals or group incentive/contingent pay and also the system of appraisal, promotion and career advancement. By work organization we mean the distribution of decision rights (autonomy/decentralization) between managers and workers, job design (e.g. flexibility of working, job rotation), team-working (e.g. who works with whom) and information provision.

    Civil servants have a reputation for being lazy. However, people’s personal experiences with civil servants frequently run counter to this stereotype. We develop a model of an economy in which workers differ in laziness and in public service motivation, and characterize optimal incentive contracts for public sector workers under different informational assumptions. When civil servants. Effort is invariable, lazy workers and working in the public sector highly attractive and may crowd out dedicated workers. When effort is variable, the government optimally attracts dedicated workers as well as the economy’s laziest workers by offering separating contracts, which are both distorted. Even though contract distortions reduce aggregate welfare, a majority of society may be better off as public goods come at a lower cost.  Where we depart from several of the existing surveys in the field is to put HRM more broadly in the context of the economics of management. To do this we also look in detail at the literature on productivity dispersion.

    Human resource management encompasses the traditional personnel functions of recruitment, selection, training, motivation, compensation, evaluation, discipline, and termination of employees. Each of those tasks demands particular skills.  Increasingly, human resource management is being recognized for its strategic importance to organizations and jurisdictions, and is moving beyond its traditional position as a monitor of compliance. This course is designed to provide you with an understanding of the evolution of human resource management policies and practices, and how changes over time reflect shifting societal values and environmental circumstances. Our emphasis is on improving understanding of the historical context  and current conditions of public sector HRM and developing basic skills necessary  to be an effectively manage human resources.

    Within the public sector, many of the most visible and interesting controversies,  such as affirmative action, employee ethics, sexual harassment, drug testing, and  labour-management relations, are part of  human resource management. Human resources also account for the largest percentage of the operating budget for most public agencies, and public administrators must have both an appreciation for the costs of personnel decisions and the ability to project those costs. In addition, constitutional, statutory and regulatory requirements often constrain personnel decisions and actions in the public sector, and public administrators must have a working knowledge of these legal guidelines. Public administrators must recognize the political aspect of human resource management. Human resource management policies and techniques are developed, implemented and evaluated in a public context.  Public sector HRM practices effect the selection and experiences of government employees which, in turn, affects public policy. In order to make and implement effective human resource management policies, administrators need an appreciation of the political and historical context in which the policies have developed to date.

    In the current environment, a professional public administrator must be prepared to advocate for the strategic importance of human resources, find ways to be flexible and responsive to change, adapt to changing patterns of employment and inter-sectoral relations, utilize technology to more effectively communicate with prospective and existing employees, and develop more sophisticated and effective methods of measuring and rewarding performance (Ingraham and Rubaii-Barrett, 2007).

    Management must work with people. The proper use of people in an enterprise undoubtedly has a direct and significant bearing on the productive efficiency of the enterprise. As a result of the importance that managers assign to people who must work with them, terms such as “human resources” “human capital” are used to demonstrate the difference people make in the performance of a manager and consequently the enterprise.

   The issues in personnel management are major factors of the human problems affecting organization. These issues include:

i. Recruitment and Selection Process.

ii. Organization structure of personnel departments.

   The recruitment and selection processes are to ensure the engagement of reliable, competent and qualified workers. Fatiregun (1992:131) defines recruitment as the process of accessing a job, announcing vacancy, arousing interest and stimulating people to apply While selection is the process of choosing, for excellence, through process of rejection or matching the applicants.

    These processes of recruitment and selection have been corrupted by the Nigeria environmental factors (Nnadi, 2009) as shown below:

i. Political Pressure.

ii. Theory and practice of “Ima Mmadu” or “Who you knew”,

iii. Federal character principle of representation,

iv. Common state of origin among staff in the same department.

Organization structure of personnel departments shows clearly the operational contacts and co-ordination in the organization chart, including the hierarchies of the officers, functions and authorities. Human factors or participants will be engaged to fit into this abstract framework for the purpose of accomplishing predetermined results.  The structure is a fundamental design for the effective performance of people who work together in groups to achieve their purpose. The working party (1977:16) warns that if the structure is wrong or inadequate, not even the ingenuity and cleverness of those who operate it will give it the desired correctness or satisfactory function.

     Human relation at work can be a factor of human resource problems in an organization, which according to Fillopo (1971:57) is a formal relationship that exists among personnel and employees in working place. The timely and positive effort in handling human problems at the executive level will make for good human relations or reconciliation of the organizational and employee goals. Poor communication network, abuse of the principles of line and staff relation, blind recruitment and selection process, incompetent employees and personnel, and indifference attitudes to work are major human problems in managing human relation at work in an organization.

    The result of this poor attitude to work in the public sector organization is the reason for constant dwindling of management in public sector organization (Onodugo, 2008). It is sad to note that the typical work attitude of an average Nigerian worker is largely anything near what will turn around the public sector organization.

   Research findings Nwachukwu (1985), Korman (1977) have shown that the productivity of an employee is determined by three major factors:

1. The ability of the employee

2. The will to work, and

3. Situational factors.

The challenges of lack of skilled labour, heavy competition among firms,  technological problems, low productivity and to mention but a few leads to a high  rate of poor performance and poor product implementation while placing a serious  limitation on product expansion and increase in productivity. It is against this  background that this study is being carried out to appraised human resources  development in organizational productivity and profitability; using Akwa Ibom State Ministry of Education as a focal point.

AN INVESTIGATION ON HOW THE PROBLEMS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT COULD EFFECTIVELY BE TACKLED AND IN TURNS MAKE THE ORGANIZATION TO ACHIEVE ITS DESIRE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

AN INVESTIGATION ON HOW THE PROBLEMS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT COULD EFFECTIVELY BE TACKLED AND IN TURNS MAKE THE ORGANIZATION TO ACHIEVE ITS DESIRE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES