EFFECT OF STAFF TRAINING ON THE PERFORMANCE OF CIVIL SERVANTS A STUDY OF MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE ENUGU STATE

ABSTRACT

The project “effect of Training on the performance of  Civil Servants was an attempt to make contribution to the ongoing debate on the Nigerian Civil Service training and productivity that has been raging since the Nigerian Third and Fourth Republics. The study isolated an important internal functional process within the civil service and investigated the extent and the general dynamics of its practice within the context of the Enugu State civil service. It focused primarily on the effect of training on the civil servants in Nigeria, using Enugu State ministry of Agriculture as point of emphasis. The primary instrument for data collection was the questionnaire. The population of the study consisted of 6563 staff of the ten ministries and departments in Enugu State Civil Service. Prominent among the findings of the research was that although the ten ministries and departments used as case study had training schools, neither the training programs nor the staff attendance to the training program were regular. The study also found out that neither the ministries nor departments saw training of their staff as an investment. Worse still, the training programs were not restructured from time to time. Based on the above findings, the study recommended that appointments into the Civil Service should be reserved for professionals only who know the value of training of staff for the growth of the organization they preside over.

                                           CHAPTER ONE

                                             INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Nigerian employees are believed to have a poor attitude to work resulting in low productivity. Commenting on the low productivity of Nigerian employees, Eze (1981:2) observed that: Many achievement oriented, shrewd observers of Nigerian people at work have always come out with a common impression that generally Nigerian workers are lazy, slow, sleepy, reluctant to act, unconcerned, and deceitful in their approach to work assigned to them. These workers lack the zeal, (Adebayo, 2001),  the briskness and the momentum of hard work and generally, they dislike to hear anybody talk about efficiency, dedication, honesty, competence, determination, and productivity- all which characterize achievement people in production oriented society.

The inexorable march of time and the ceaseless clamour for social change combined to make adaptability and continuing preparation of the workforce as inevitable as the initial acquisition of knowledge and skills. This cannot happen if staffs training do not occur in an organization. In order to maximize productivity and efficiency of the organization, every executive, manager or supervisor in a public or private organization has the responsibility and indeed the bounding duty to ensure the training of men and women who have requisite knowledge and expertise. The aim is to enable them to contribute their full measure to the welfare, healthy and productivity level of the organization.

A according to (Harper and Row Croft, L.1996), Enugu State, the need to train skilled personnel in the civil service arise principally because of the need to provide necessary practical training required to make newly recruited graduates from ministries and technical institutions effective administrators and skilled technicians. There is also need for some orientation courses for those promoted from lower to higher technical and managerial positions. Furthermore, there is need to step up the training of Enugu State civil servants as quickly as possible in order to reduce the gap in the demand for and supply of skilled manpower, thereby reduce the reliance on foreign supply in accordance with federal government Nigerian Policy. Finally, comprehensive training is necessary to remove the main deficiencies in indigenous workers’ general attitude to work and working relationship with other worker. These deficiencies include lack of initiative, inadequate educational or professional background, unwillingness or reluctance to take decisions, unduly concerned with personal prestige, reluctance to do manual work etc.

Enugu state has several schools for the training of her workforce in the civil service. These include Staff Development Centre, Training School for Government Press, School of Health Technology Oji and School of Health Technology, Nsukka, among others. In spite of these training schools, myriads of problems still confront staff of these ministries: Agriculture, Land, Survey, Human Development and Poverty Reduction, Government Press, Board of Internal Revenue, Head of Service, Health, Science and Technology and Gender Affairs and Social Development.

The concept of productivity underlies most discussions of the civil service in Nigeria, like other formal organizations. Thus, criticism of and allegations against the service centre on its productivity and performance. This perhaps explains why the concept of productivity is very difficult if not the most controversial concept in economic and business world. The difficulty arose mainly from the problems associated with the yardsticks used in measuring productivity and the statistical data and other variety of issues involved. The problems are much more compounded with regards to measuring productivity in the public sector of the economy (Simons G.I, 1975 and Balogun, A1983).

Our understanding of productivity as a concept can be enhanced by examining it from two perspectives namely, the economic and instruments. Due to over emphasis on profit making, particularly in the

However, some business executives tend to reject this rather too “economistic” and narrow view of productivity. Rather this school of thought sees productivity as a measure of overall production efficiency, effectiveness and performance of an individual organization.

They insist that such issues, as quality of output, cost of labour, adherence to standards, absence of disruptions and strikes, customer satisfaction and turnover rates as well as such qualitative measurements as units produced in volume of sales are important matters that must be taken into consideration. Some scholars have even defined productivity as output per performance in an organization (Udo-Aka, 1983).

The above variations of productivity are all premised on the economic perspective of the concept. And as already observed, there are major problems in viewing productivity in the public sector from the economic perspective, problems largely connected with the social costing of the concept in the sector (Uluocha, 1983).

This leaves us with the instrumental view of productivity. The instrumental concept of productivity is essentially associated with the attainment of objectives and goals. Thus, an instrumental action is concerned on one hand with desired outcome (achieving results) and on the other, with the belief about cause/effect relationship. Its essence is the employment of specific action or means to produce the desired results. In this regards, the instrumentally perfect” tool is one that meets such results (Thompson, 1978:14). Viewed from this perspective, an organization is productive or instrumental in as much as the goals and objectives for which it is established are achieved.

Hence the concept of productivity in Enugu State Civil Service and indeed in this study shall be along the instrumental perspective. In this regard, the Civil Servant in Enugu State shall be regarded as productive, if the goals and objectives for which the government is established Aare achieved. The reverse shall hold if its goals and objectives are not realized or being realized. The central task of this study is to determine the effect of training on productivity in Enugu state civil service between 1999 and 2006.

1.2 Statement of Problem

After an employee has been recruited and inducted, his skills must be updated and developed to better fit into the job and the organization.  The need for training and developing the employee not only arises from the fact that he might not fit in the job posses the necessary skill needed in the job but have the effect of the dynamic nature of the society influenced by changes in the field of science and technology necessitated the continuous improvement of worker’s skill and the sill he expected to have in order better fit into the new job demands is bridged by manpower training.

Many organizations have over the years established good manpower training and development programmes in order incite better employee performance at work and increased productivity.  Good development programmes have not always been easy to attain in organization because of the forces that impede against the achievement of their objectives.  Some of the impeding forces include selections or recruitment problems, training procedure and inadequate facilities, government policy, the economy and labour legislation.  The crucial problems this research will address includes: