INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
The success of any enterprise depends solely upon its management, which encompasses the organization and coordination of men and materials within the enterprise in the most rational and efficient manner to achieve desired goals. According to Peretomode (2003), management is the social interactional and economic process involving a sequence of coordinated events such as planning, organizing, and the control of available resources to achieve desired outcomes. Management is considered effective if outlined objectives of an enterprise are to be accomplished and this can be done through careful and systematic arrangement and use of resources in a faster and efficient way. Resources as Ndiomu (2002) explained, embrace the penitent and invisible things as health, intelligence, sound memory, wisdom, knowledge, social harmony and power. Similarly, human labour, activities and skills which vary with time and location are resources. The explanation aboveindicates that resources could be material or human in nature. Zehinsky (2009) maintains that material resource refers to any substance or physical property that helps to satisfy human needs.
Human resources on the other hand, could be seen as the total knowledge, skills, creative abilities, talents and aptitudes of an organizations workforce as well as values and attitudes (Ankur 2009). It includes the approaches, and beliefs of individuals involved in the affairs of the organization. Human resource is the sum total or aggregate of inherent abilities, acquired knowledge and skills represented by the talents and aptitudes of the persons employed in the organization. Barmey (1995) and Onah (2003) agree on the fact that human resources include all the experiment skills, judgement, abilities, knowledge, contacts, risk-taking and wisdom of individuals and associates with an organization.
The human resources are multidimensional in nature. From the national point of view, human resources may be understood to mean the knowledge, skills, creative abilities, talents and aptitudes obtained in a population. On the viewpoint of the institutional enterprise, human resources represent the total of the inherent abilities, acquired knowledge and skills as expamplified in the talents and aptitudes of the employee (O’Brien 2009). In this study, human resource shall be understood as the human population in an institution working towards achieving the goals of the institution. According to Federal Republic of Nigeria (2004), the success of every education programme is hinged on proper planning, efficient administration and adequate financing. As noted by Towers (2007), efficient administration, planning and financing are a function of human resources management.
Human resource management has come to be recognized as an inherent part of management, which is concerned with human resources of an organization. Its objectives is the maintenance of better human relations in the organization by the development, application and evaluation of policies, procedures and programmes relating to human resources to optimize their contribution towards the realization of organizational objectives (Ulrich, 1996). In other words, human resource management is concerned with getting better results with the collaboration of people or employee. DeGaff (2010) reported that human resource management is concerned with people at work and their relationship within the enterprise. DeGraff further explained that human resource management is the management of an organization’s work force, or human resourcesthat is responsible for attraction, selection, training, assessment, and rewarding of employees.
Human resource management helps in attaining maximum individual development, desirable working relationship between employees and employers, employees and employees, and effective modeling of human resources as contrasted with physical resources. Onah (2003) asserted that human resource management involves a series of activities in which the job, the individual and the organization interact as each develops and changes. The author opined that human resource management is identifiable with the recruitment, selection, development, utilization, compensation and motivation of human resources for an organization.
In a similar tone, Ojo (1997) observed that human resource management is the function within an organization that focuses on recruitment, management, and provision of direction for the people who work in an organization. Ojo contends that human resource management is the organizational function that deals with issues related to people such as compensation, hiring, performance management, organizational development, safety, wellness, benefits, employee motivation, communication, administration and training. Okoh (1998) sees human resource management as a strategic and comprehensive approach to managing people and the workplace culture and environment.
Effective human resource management enables employees to contribute effectively and productively to the overall direction and accomplishment of an organization’s goals and objectives. In relation to the above, Mathis and Jackson in Onah (2003) posit that human resource management is the design of formal systems in an organization to ensure the effective and efficient use of human talent to accomplish organizational goals. Armstrong (2001) sees human resources as a strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization most valued assets, the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of its objectives.
In this study, human resource management is explained as the set of organizational activities directed at effective and efficient use of human talent to accomplish institutional goals. There organizational activities include human resource planning, recruitment, and selection, training and development, appraisal, compensation and motivation.
It might be pertinent to indicate that from the above classifications, human resource planning appears to be very important category interaction for the administrator. This is because the administrators while performing their administrative functions has to forecast the human resource needs and develop steps to be taken to meet them. They have to set and implement goals and actions needed to ensure that the right number and type of individuals are available at the appropriate time and place to fill the organization’s needs. Human resource planning dictates that the administrator should have thorough knowledge of the entire personnel that they are expected to serve in the organization. The administrators should be able to plan for staff expansions and adjustments in the existing workforce.
Besides human resource planning, there is also need for recruitment and selection as specified in the job description and job specifications of the organization. Recruitment is the process of searching both inside and outside the organization for suitable candidate to fill vacant positions, while selection is assessing the candidate by various means, making a choice and finally making an offer of employment. Effective recruitment and selection not only attracts individuals to the organization, but also increase the chances of retaining them once they are hired.