CHALLENGES OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT IN GOVERNMENT OWNED ESTABLISHMENT

1.1 Introduction

Personnel Management in simple terms means the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals. It comprises planning, organizing, Resourcing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Personnel management is an important element of the broader subject of human resources management, although in practice the two terms are frequently used interchangeably — emphasizing the facts that the people employed in a company are resources which are at least as important as financial and material resources and must be given careful and expert attention.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

The development of personnel management dates back to the period of World War I around the year 1915 and more recently to the human relations movement of 1935 − 1950. In one of the studies of Elton mayor, he discovered that psychological factors as well as social factors influence individuals at work rather than physical factors. Personnel are people who are employed by a company or organization to perform some kind of work (Ezeani and Nwankwo, 2002).

According to Floppo (1980), “Personnel Management refers to the procurement, development and utilization of an organization's human resources”. Personnel management is that part of management concerned with people at work and with their relationship within an enterprise. It's aim is to bring together and develop into effective organization the men and women who make up an enterprise and having regard for the well-being of the individual and of working groups, to enable them to make their contribution to its success.

Effective managers achieve high level of performance with available resources. For too long, many organizations have paid only lip services to the importance of their employees and sadly, attitude survey conducted among employees especially under the government owned establishments have revealed that the claims of chief executives to value and respect them are not borne out further down the line.

Managers have to be realistic and hard hearted to survive and succeed especially in today's competitive climate, and they need to be convinced of the importance of practicing good human resources management. For any organization to grow rapidly, the welfare of the employee must be taken care of and this can only be done through the personnel management department who see to it that the employees do their duties and are rewarded as at when due.

Most organizations now employ specialists, although the nature of their work and their titles can be very enormous. The institution of Personnel Management advises that, “Personnel Management forms part of every manager's job, but it is the special concern of those employed as specialists in the management team”. It is therefore the sole responsibility of the personnel management department of an organization to ensure that its human resources are met” (Beach 1975).

In a situation were the organization either fails to equip the personnel departments with the necessary things needed to carry out their assignment or they fail to leave to them everything that concern their work and allow them take care of it, this may result into so many problems which will definitely affect the employees and bring about a decline in the growth of that organization.

Many organization have collapsed due to lack of proper management of the welfare of the employees and also consistent intruding in the affairs of the personnel management by the managers or directors of the organization.

If the organization has to survive or grow, it must design programmes to develop its human resources to their fullest capabilities and maintain the commitment of the workers — which is the work of the personnel department in any organization.

Therefore, in Enugu State Board Of Internal Revenue where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Challenges of Personnel Management in Government Owned Establishment.

1.3 Statement of Problems

The central problem area of this study is to examine the causes and factors that bring about the challenges encountered by personnel management in government owned establishment. Most government establishments have closed down or are in a bad shape today due to bad management and lack of committed management to look into the welfare of the employees.

We will also look into the extent to which these challenges affect the employee performance and confidence in carrying out his assignment and hopefully find a solution to these challenges and help the government build a better structure that will improve the well living of the masses. Also we will look into how the expertise of personnel department can be improved in other for them to carry out their work effectively without any complain from the employees of the organization.

A good growing organization is seen in the performance of its employees and this is ascertained with a good and workable administration structure that looks into the well being of the employees. As the end of this research, we hope to find a good worker-able structure to replace the lapses in the personnel department of government owned establishment in other to improve the government establishments and make them more attractive.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to find out the problems faced by the personnel management of government owned establishments using Suleja local government establishments as a case study. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To find out if suleja local government establishments have a management who seeks for the good of its workers
2. To evaluate the workers' needs provided for personnel management in suleja local government owned establishment
3. To assess the workers satisfied with the management in charge of the affairs
4. To find out if low performance in suleja local government establishment result to lack of zeal to perform a work by the workers
5. To find out if the workers have system that train them to improve on their working capacities

1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• Does Suleja local government establishments have a management who seeks for the good of its workers?
• Are the workers' felt needs well provided for that they can fully work without any reservations?
• Are the workers satisfied with the management in charge of the affairs?
• The low performance is it as a result of influence or is it as a result of poor management or lack of zeal to perform a work by the workers?
• Does the workers have system that train them to improve on their working capacities?

1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: Low performance of Suleja local government establishments does not influence the zeal of workers to perform their organizational daily task
• H1: Low performance of Suleja local government establishments influences the zeal of workers to perform their daily organizational task

Hypothesis Two

• H0: Workers of Suleja local government establishments are not satisfied with the management in charge of the affairs
• H1: Workers of Suleja local government establishments are satisfied with the management in charge of the affairs

1.7 Significance of Study

Government owned establishment has been seen as one of the poorest and non-productive establishment due of the poor management of resources and a provision of a free hand, good personnel management who will over see and find out the challenges faced by the employees and also to speak on their behalf of the government.

This study hoped to find out these problems or challenges faced by these establishment and their employees in other to find a lasting solution and to bring about a rapid improvement in the working condition of the employees.

It's a well known fact that most government establishments are in a bad condition while others have been sold out to private owners due to the government and other factors interference and lasses-four nature to work.

This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.

1.8 Scope of the Study

Personnel Management itself is a very wide area of study and any effort to write on is generally will be very wide and too much. For the purpose of this study, the researcher has been confined to the problems of the personnel management in government owned establishment. The research is to review some of the constraints hindering the performance of the personnel department and its effect on the employees' confidence on the management of the personnel department.

The research also reviews the functional areas of the personnel management which include; training, recruitment and interview, planning, organization, directing, controlling, compensation and benefits, training and development, employee relations among other things.

In Niger state, one of the state establishment — ABC Transport Company was used due to the fact that the others had no personnel department.

1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this establishment to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
3. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
4. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
5. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

1.10 Definition of Terms

For better understanding, it is deemed fit to give the operational definition of some terms used in the study;

Performance: The action of performing something. The action or an act of performing (character) in a play.

Productivity: Is the ration between output and all the resources (input) used in production.

Efficiency: Measurement of the way an organization is currently using the resources at its disposal.

Effectiveness: Compares present achievement with what could be done if resources were managed more effectively.