PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE: A CASE STUDY OF AKWA IBOM STATE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION

CHAPTER ONE

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

• INTRODUCTION

Organization is all about people. They are meant to serve people through their workers. No organization can excel beyond the capabilities of the workers, hence the needs to made them better equipped for the challenges of meeting the needs of those being served by the organization cannot be overstated.

Organization, be it private or public is deliberately structured to achieve certain goals. According to Drunker (2000) one of the enduring truisms of organization analysis’s of that organization after all, are made up of two parts. Material and human parts. The material in organization has to do with the inanimate objects such as computers, office furniture, files and machines.

On the other hand, the human aspect includes the people that in one way or the other contribute to the attainment of the goals of the organization.

However, in a quest to have a coordinated and cohesive, human labour in organization. Personnel management department, which hitherto has been under the general administration division is now a department of its own in many organization according to Agbo (2003) prior to 1995, the function of the personnel officer was mainly concerned with record keeping for expertise who owned or managed most of the establishment in Nigerians. The officer had no academic preparation or necessary experience for the job. It was assumed by employers that Nigerians were best suited to deal with labour leaders of their demands especially as they were their brothers.

Between 2007 and 2014, the personnel management profession took a new turn. Uninterrupted effort was made to prepare Nigerians to manage their own affairs especially after the Nigeria independent. Many Nigerians were hired wither as personnel officers to assistance personnel officers especially in the civil service and large organizations. Alpa (2005) views personnel management like any other form of administration, which is a responsibility of the officials and as such, it is interwoven at all levels hierarchy and in all aspects of the supervision and direction in an organization.

The basic functions of the personnel department include. recruitment of staff, career development include recruitment of staff, career development and counseling, wage and salary administration, training, maintenance of good relationship in the organization, staff evaluation, labour relations and discipline and control of workers.

Hence, it will view the basic functions and objectives of personnel management as maintaining effective human resources and human relations in the organization, then it is largely a manner of management. The problem arises on how best to effectively perform these functions considering the fact that human beings who are primary elements in personnel management, are so dynamic.

The dynamic nature of human beings who are the key element of personnel management makes various organizations to adopt different approaches in dealing with its personnel so as to attain a high level of productivity, which is the primary aim of any organization whether it is private or public. In this work the emphasis is on study of personnel policies of organization such as promotion health facilities, job security and workers relations with the management with a view to arriving at a conclusion on how it affects productivity in organization.

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEMS

The rapid increased in the number and sizes of the organizations have brought some challenges into the system of personnel management and productivity in Nigeria organizations. The desire of the country to be industrialized brought about the establishment of large scale Industries necessitating the employment of large number of employees under one roof. This also brought about inadequate employment inn an organization or establishment. This immediately necessitated the performance of personnel functions in the civil service such as recruiting, training, developing, compensating and motivating the employees in the organization. However, since these functions were not given the needed attention adequately, it gave rise to loss of productivity, tardiness, high turnover rate of employees, excessive complaints, and labour management problems.

It is based on these problems that the researcher is motivated to produce this study on the personnel management and productivity in Akwa Ibom state civil service commission with a view to proffer possible solutions.

1.3   OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objectives of the study are as  follows: