EFFECTIVENESS OF IN-SERVICE TRAINING ON EMPLOYEE'S DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY

Introduction

1.1 Background to the study

The role played by staff training can no longer be over-emphasized as many have come to recognize that training offers a way of developing skill, enhancing productivity, guaranteeing quality of work and building worker’s loyalty to the firm. Organizational goals also keep changing in line with the realities of the time; technology keep getting sophisticated; customers and clients of organization become more choosy and conscious of their rights in demanding organizational products and services, and organization’s products and services keep changing in response to their choice. It is hard for any business organization to exist without adequate manpower hence it is an indispensable tool for any organization. For employees to perform their functions effectively there must be well designed training and development programs to enable them enhance their productivity.

Training is defined as the process of developing skills, habits, knowledge and aptitudes in employees for the purpose of increasing the effectiveness of employees in their present positions as well as preparing employees for future positions (Avasthi, 2006). In-service training is a set of planned activities on the part of an organization to increase the job knowledge and skills or to modify the job knowledge and skills or to modify the attitudes and social behavior of its employees in ways consistent with the goals of the organization and the requirements of the jobs (Bartlett, 2001). In-service training is a kind of education, which is done to help the individuals in an organization to acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes in their jobs.

Udo (1983) views in-service training as the development of specific skills and attitudes needed to perform a particular job or series of jobs to maximize the productivity of the employee and improve the overall organizational efficiency. In service training to Ohakwe (2007), is a continuous assistance or coaching given to an employee in order to make him have the current knowledge of the job content, scope and relationship within the organization.

Development according to Ezeuwa (2009) can be seen as the use of human resources to quantitatively change man’s physical and biological environments to his benefits or ever seen as involving the introduction of new ideas into the social structure and causing alterations on the patterns of the organization and social structure. To develop staff, Daniels (2003) simply refers to as to make employee grow with the company so that they can be fitted for available higher positions within their capacity. Development deals with improving human relations and interpersonal (Iwuoha, 2009).

Training as the crucial area of human management, is the fastest growing segment of personnel activities. Training is a course of diet and exercise for developing the employees’ affective, cognitive and psychomotor skills to assist an employee towards enhancing his productivity. At times, some companies go beyond establishing their own schools for training and retraining their staff at no cost expense to the trainee.

There are two major types of training: On-the -job training and Off- the -job training as identified by Alo (1999). On-the-job training, is normally handled by colleagues, supervisors, managers, mentors’ to help employees adjust to their work and to equip them with appropriate job related skills. According to Ejiogu (2000) Off-the-job training would include lecture, vestibule training, role playing, case study, discussion and simulation .Armstrong (1995) listed group exercises, team building, distance learning, outdoor and workshops as part of off-the-job training.

The main aim of in-service training and development programmes in an organization is to enable employees increase their productivity. Productivity on the other hand is the end product of training and development as well as a measure of the output of the result from a given input. The importance of training has become more obvious, particularly to public sector, given the growing complexity of the work environment, the rapid change in organizations such as; ministries, parastatals, extra departments and public agencies, and technological advancement, which further necessitate the need for training and development of public personnel to meet the challenges. Training helps to improve quality, productivity, morale, management succession, business development, profitability and service delivery (Jones, George and Hill, 2000).

In-service training aims at providing knowledge, skills and attitudes to employees, which will help them to be more successful, more productive and happier in their jobs. Science and technology bring new knowledge, techniques and tools for each work area; therefore, the need to push the employee to learn more and improve themselves so as to accomplish the goal of the government becomes imperative (Obisi, 1996).

According to Mullins (1999) training is capable of producing the following benefits: increase the staff’s confidence, motivation and commitment of staff, provide recognition, enhanced responsibilities and the possibility of increased pay and promotion; give feeling of personal satisfaction and achievement, and broaden opportunities for career progression; help to improve the availability and quality of staff. Training motivates employees to work harder. Employees who understand their work are likely to have high morale and job satisfaction. They are able to see closer relationship between their effort and performance. Kartal (2010) believes that in-service training transmits the knowledge of the new staff to the related departments in a systematic way, decreases misunderstanding and disagreement among the staff and creates a positive work atmosphere.

Fundamentally, the central objective of training in one word is efficiency, which is to increase the effectiveness of the work of the officials for the purposes of administration. Efficiency has two important aspects, the first of which may be said to be technical efficiency in the present work of the employee or some higher work to be entrusted to him in future, and second of which is the improvement of his morale.

Ebonyi state Ministry of Finance and Economic development was created as soon as the state was created in 1996 during the late General Sanni Abacha’s regime with Mr. Oko Udo Oko and Mrs. Ngozi Nwankwo as the pioneer commissioner and accountant general respectively. Dr. Ekuma Nkama is the current political Head of the ministry. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development is a service ministry in Ebonyi State. The ministry is charged with the enormous responsibilities and functions of overseeing the financial and development policies and objectives of the State Government.

The vision of the Ministry is the integration and implementation of fiscal and developmental policies and programmes of the state. Ebonyi state government organized in-service training for all the employees of the ministry in the year 2014. This in-service training was on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) organized by the immediate past administration of Governor Marthin Nwanchor Elechi (MFR). The training programme which had its venue at the staff development centre Abakaliki, was aimed at equipping the staff of the ministry with the requisite knowledge of information and communication technology so as to enhance their job efficiency and productivity.

1.2 Statement of the problem

Despite the importance of training and manpower development in employee productivity and organizational performance, training programs are not sufficiently supported by organizations in Nigeria. These organizations consider the money they will spend on their training programs as waste rather than investment. They fail to foresee the desirability of continuous training and development of their employees in order to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of their organizations. Those that attempt to conduct trainings for their employees do so in an ad- hoc and haphazard manner, and as such, training in those organizations is more or less unplanned and unsystematic. This view is corroborated by Nwachukwu (2002) who argued that many employees have failed in organizations because of lack of basic training.

Furthermore, there is a general consensus that a relationship exists between investment in training and productivity. While some studies have provided evidence of positive and sizeable returns on human capital investments, others have documented negative evidence. Again, despite the significance of training and manpower development, the outcomes of studies conducted in this area generally differ considerably from country to country and from period to period. For instance, while Harel (2003) found that training and development practices had positive relationship with firms ‘performance in public and private sectors in Isreal, Itami (2004) in his study in Korea did not find any association between training and development on employees’ productivity.

Consequently, this inconsistency in the existing empirical evidences makes it imperative to provide further empirical evidence on the effect of training and development on employee productivity in Nigeria. The present study therefore contributes to the literature by evaluating the effectiveness of in service training on employee’s development and productivity with particular reference to Ebonyi State Ministry of Finance, Abakaliki.

1.3 Objectives of the study

The main objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of in-service training on employees’ development and productivity.

The specific objectives are:

1. To evaluate the impact of in-service training on employee’s morale.
2. To examine the impact of in-service training on employees’ efficiency and productivity.
3. To evaluate the effectiveness of in-service training on organization’s performance.

1.4 Research Questions

The following research questions were formulated to guide the study:

1. What are the impact of in-service training on employee’s morale?
2. How does in-service training affect employee’s efficiency and productivity?
3. How does in-service training affect organization’s performance?

1.5 Research Hypothesis

The following research hypotheses were formulated for the study:

1. H0: in-service training have no significant impact on employee’s morale.
   H1: in-service training has significant impact on employee’s morale.
2. H0: in-service training has no effect on employee’s efficiency and productivity.
   H1: in-service training has effect on employee’s efficiency and productivity.
3. H0: in-service training has no effect on organizations’ performance.
   H1: in service training has significant effect on organizations’ performance.

1.6 Significance of the study

The findings of the study will be of immense benefit to the employers, the employee and future researchers.

Employers:

The findings of the study will be of immense benefit to the employers because it will reveal to them the need to regularly organize in- service trainings for the employees both in private and public organizations.

Staff:

The findings of the study will be of great benefit to staff of Ebonyi State Ministry of Finance because it will show them the need to actively participate in in-service training services as it is clear that in-service training enhances employees’ productivity.

Researchers:

The findings of the study will be of immense benefit to researchers who may wish to conduct a study on this topic in future time. The findings of the study will serve as a future reference to those researchers

1.7 Scope of the study

The study evaluates the effectiveness of in-service training on employees’ development and productivity. The geographical scope is Ebonyi State Ministry of Finance, Abakaliki.