CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background of the Study

There are many factors that contribute to the success of any organization. These factors include; capital, equipment, manpower, etc. all these factors are important but the most significant factor is the human factor. Since it is the people that will put other resources to work, it should be viewed as such by the management by giving it due attention in order to achieve it organizational goals and objectives.

Manpower training increasingly has become the standard approach to manpower development by any organization. This position apart from being warranted by the objective tasks which organization are saddled with seems to have also been rendered inevitable by the fact that organizations would reasonably not want to undertake the process of selecting and recruiting their members endlessly especially from a labour market that is not the most ideal in terms of skill oriented, potential and supply position. Training has become more obvious given the growing complexity of the work environment, the rapid change in organization and technology advancement which further necessitate the need of training offers a way of development skills enhancing productivity and quantity of work and building workers loyalty to the firm (Jones 2000).

Cole (2008) sees training as any learning activity of specific knowledge and skill for the purpose of an occupation or task. According to Helleriegel and Solocum (2006) training is improving an employee’s skill to the point where he or she can do current job. Training is the process which members or organization one taught to acquire knowledge, skill and abilities they need to perform effectively the job at hand. Jones, George and Hill (2000, believed that training primarily focuses on teaching organizational members how to perform their current job and helping them acquire the knowledge and skill they need to be effective performance.

Development on the other hand focuses on building the knowledge and skill of organizational member so that they will be prepared to take a new responsibilities and challenges. Development is used in relation process of helping managerial employees who perform non-routine jobs to improve their management, administrative and decision making abilities and competence.

According to Jones (2000), he sees manpower development as the process of building the knowledge and skill of organizational members so that they will be prepared to take new responsibilities and challenges. Manpower development is the essential requirement of a firm or any organization for improved performance, job satisfaction, efficiency and all productive employment. This is to say that apart from organization’s utilization of technology and capital to covert input into output the human element resources is very vital in a bid to satisfy some societal goals both current and future.

To this extent performance become the reason for which organization employ people. According to Drucker (2007), organization employers deal with the personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for specific performance and for nothing else. Management and manager development should concern themselves with changes in behaviour likely to make a man effective.

This seems to have been built upon the adoption of the training function which organization have now come to embrace, sometimes without sufficient care about it full implication so extensively has this training “bug” caught on with present day Nigerian organizational format and practices that whilst the recognizable ground-mattes of our industrial workplace such as the John Hott, Levintees, etc have for long been maintaining their respective private training output, a confirm high portion or organizations in the country now see the training of their members and inseparable from their obligation.

This research therefore is specifically concerned with the training and development of manpower in public organization. It is recorded that Pericles, a renowned leader in ancient Greece introduced a scheme for the compensation of officials, thus, facilitating the continued participation in public administration by citizens who had to work daily for their livelihood (Cole, 2003).

1.2    Statement of the Problem

The human resources (manpower) is considered the most critical to any organizational survival; and that adequate supply of material and financial resources will help utilized these available resources to bring about the desired goals.

However, most organization plan meticulously for their investment in physical and capital resources and these plans are reviewed with utmost attention to detail yet they rarely do such organizations pay attention to human investment without which the capital and equipment will in vain. Not many organizations consider the necessity for a well-defined and sustained training and development programme.

It is observed that the poor performance or organization–workers follow from the inability to keep abreast with the new technological current as a result of the absence of appropriate and sufficient staff training. It is against the background that the work considered the impact of manpower training and development for improved performance.

• Objectives of the Study

The main objective of the study is to assess the impact of manpower training and development on organization performance.

• To identify training and development process and programmes in the Ministry of Agriculture, Uyo.
• To assess the relationship between manpower training and development on organizational performance in the Ministry of Agriculture, Uyo.
• To identify problems confronting manpower training and development in the Ministry of Agriculture, Uyo.
  • Research Questions

The questions are:

• What are training and development process and programmes in the Ministry of Agriculture, Uyo.
• What is the relationship between manpower training and development on organizational performance in the Ministry of Agriculture, Uyo.
• What are the problems confronting manpower training and development in the Ministry of Agriculture, Uyo.
  • Research hypothesis

Hypothesis I

Ho1: There is no significant relationship between training and development process and programmes in the Ministry of Agriculture, Uyo.