ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate how best human resources management practices influenced performance of college of health sciences of the University of Abuja, Nigeria. The study was focused to find out if indeed the college practices best human resource management practices and how they influenced its performance. The study was guided by the following objectives; To assess the extent to which recruitment and selection as a component of best human resource management influences performance of college of health sciences, To assess how reward system as a best practice of human resource management practices influenced performance of college of humanities of social sciences, To establish how job design as a component of best human resource management practices influenced the performance of college of health sciences, To what extent do training and development as a best practice of human resource management influenced the performance of college of health sciences and, To determine an extent to which performance management influenced performance of college of health sciences. The study adopted a descriptive survey design since it is concerned with determining the frequency with which something occurs. The targeted population of the study comprised of 54 administrators of the college of health sciences. The study used the entire administrators of the college of health sciences. Purposive sampling technique was employed. Data collection was carried out using structured questionnaires, interviews reviewed secondary data and descriptive survey. The data were presented in form of tables employing the use of frequency distribution and percentages and the data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings of the study showed that, best human resource management practices, has a positive significant on organizational harmony. The study recommended that further research to goods producing organizations to bridge the gap of this study which focused on service producing organization.
1.1 Background to theStudy
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
Human resources are considered the most important asset of an organization, but very few organizations are able to fully harness its potential. Lado and Wilson (1994) define a human resource system “as a set of distinct but interacted at attracting, developing, and maintaining a firm’s human resources”. Traditionally, management of this system has gained more attention from the service organization than from manufacturing organizations. However, to enhance organizational harmony effectively, managing this system is equally important in both types of organizations. Needless to say, sophisticated technologies and innovative manufacturing alone can do very little to enhance operational performance unless the requisite best human resource management practices are in place to form a consistent socio-technical system. For this reason, manufacturing organizations need to carefully evaluate their existing practices and modify them, if needed, so that employees can effectively contribute to operational performance improvement.
Several studies in the human resource literature investigated the influence of best human resource practices on organization performance. Although, some related studies related to human resource practices can be found in the operations management literature. (Jayaram et al, 1999), this discipline has tended to address structural issues and analytical questions, and has paid the little attention to human resource issues. Over the years, researchers have suggested many best human resource management practices that have potential to improve and sustain organizational harmony. These practices include emphasis on employee selection based on fit, with the company culture, emphasis on behavior, attitude, and necessary technical skills required by, the job compensation contingent on performance and employee empowerment to foster team work among others.
The influence of best human resource management practices on organizational harmony has the subject of much attention over the years. However, empirical validation of the findings in operations across countries or industries is nearly non-existent and very limited of best recent trends towards globalization and mergers and acquisitions in the business world make the study
of best human resource management practices in the context of country and industry a necessity. The literature has emphasized the need for generalizing of the relationship between human resource management practices and organizational harmony. For example Delery and Dory (1996) raise concern that the results of their study of human resource management practices on organizational harmony in banking industry may not be valid on other industries.
