PROBLEMS OF STAFF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT ON THE PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANIZATION

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

The problem of training and manpower development in an organization cannot be over emphasized. Before I go into full details of this topic, it is pertinent to take into concentration the meaning of training and development.

Training in its simplest definition means the process of learning or acquisition of the skills one needs to do a job.

Training constitutes all investments towards developing human resources for effective and efficient performance.

Training in a broad view, is also the act of providing or receiving instruction in or for a particular skill, profession, occupation etc. staff training and development are the heart of employee's utilization, productivity motivation and growth. Many employees have failed in organizations because their need to be trained was not identified and provided for an indispensable part important at this point to make distinction between training and development.

Training is an organizational obligation aimed at helping their employee to acquire basic skills required for efficient execution of the functions for which he was hired.

Development deals with the activities undertaking to expose an employee to perform additional duties and assume positions of importance in the organizational hierarchy (Nwachukwu 1992:121).

Therefore, the problems of staff training and development according to Ajida (1997:22, 28-29) are as follows:

1. The exposition of economic activity which has given rise to excessive expansion of institution and creating of new ones both in government and private sector. The effect of this has spread management materials very thinly in circumstances where the stock can not be readily supplemented.
2. There is the element of creeping ineffectiveness of management. This is exemplified by the growing level of indiscipline and authoritarian tendencies both in public and private sector/institutions.
3. There is also the problem of reluctance to release staff, particularly good ones for any external period of training. The reason for this is that the bidden of the management is becoming so cumbersome that the organizations can no longer spare existing personnel for the purpose of training.
4. The competitive demand for trained personnel where private sector attracts trained personnel from public sector; one organization includes the manpower of the other. In each of the situation, the tendency of the organization becoming unwilling to provide further training for their employee in future is there.
5. The geo – political factor in management which tends to over burden the good ones due to lack of skills by others.
6. The problems in the past have been the inadequate coordination. The need for additional resources has been recognized, but there were too many organization involved and this requires some effective co ordinations.
7. Ifedi (1991:11) highlighted that a training policy is an expression of company's attitude towards training for a given period. It is the company's training strategy for a given company that will determine and assist in the coordination of the company's efforts to make them consistent with the achievement of the company's overall objectives. Without training policy, an organizations attitude to staff development will be ill defined, haphazard and uncoordinated with the aim that whatever training hardly achieves the desired objectives or make the necessary impact.

In summary, the researcher believes that its long overdue to highlight the crisis situation in management development in this country and more particularly the facts that exists both in government and private sectors.

The problem of staff training and development in an organization is a huge impediment and cannot be left out. There is need to explain the concept of training and development before venturing into the main idea.

Training according to Davis (1981) is the process of preparing people to do their jobs better. It is slightly different from development which has been defined as a holistic and futuristic process that seeks to transform a worker (manpower) in his entity from a relatively less matured less experienced and more dependent state to a relatively more matured, more experienced and less dependent state.

Thus, to develop a worker (manpower) is simply to enable him realize his potential in full, or to assist him attain maturity in terms of his general perception, performance or activities, as a means towards his self fulfillment (Oko, 1991).

A staff could be developed for a greater knowledge or expertise, greater confidence, and higher degree of performance through two broad forms of training. It could be formal or informal training as observed by many workers like Nwanko (1988.pg3) usually occur at pre – career stage that is pre – entry training takes place after the officer has begun his career at various levels and when needed.

To train and develop staff is to equip and prepare him for effective job performance and effective life, in the organization. Thus they constitute variable means by which the organization gets the best out of the staff (workers). However, an organization guarantees itself maximum utilization of its manpower not only through constant training and development, but also through appropriate work deployment and motivation. Investments on training and development are wise investments.

Therefore, the problem associated with the performance of staff training and development according to Ayida (1977) is as follows:

1. Favoritism, tribalism coupled with other objective factors disqualifying a personnel to undergo training schemes. The background of perspective trainers and the extent to which they can benefit from courses are sometimes ignored to the detriment of the organizational goal attainment.
2. Because of their financial implications, training schemes have been frequently subjected to too much control. This is very noticeable with training budgets which suffers sever buffeting at the annual estimate sessions. A personal observation from a member of training courses which the employees attended shows that there are still employers who approve staff training for the sale of it.
3. Employees have been drafted to training schemes which are not geared towards the objectives of the company. Too often, employers are misled by managers of private mushroom organization which have lately been springing up with embarrassing irregularities. Sometimes, some employers of labour embrace the mushrooms institutions because they are scared away by the prohibitive cost of the reputable training organization in the country.
4. Another point in view over the years is the age limit of personnel training. This issue has created considerable controversy among managers, and yet it is far from being resolved. An expert advice that employees over 45 years are Un – trainable and it has been a challenge on the grounds that there are personnel who reach their intellectual peak at middle age.
5. The most acceptable view seems to be that much depends on whether the training is operative, supervisory of management and the level of individual performance irrespective of age
6. Federal government had cause to complain recently about the inadequate training activities in both the public and private sector. It is apparently that despite the positive measures by the government to encourage national indigenous manpower development and utilization, the volume of informal training is not encouraging, considering the total volume of wage employment in the economy.

A contributing factor to this poor state of affairs is lack of consultations with the official training agencies like the industrial training fund (ITF), and centre for management development. All these are reason or why despite the pressure of manpower shortages in technical and professional areas are still there (very visible). It is still discovered that staff training and development is lacking behind in the increasing need for trained manpower all over the nation. The deficiency manifests itself not only in the public sector but also in the private sector.

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1.2 Statement of the Problem

Training is expected to be an investment in an organization which human resources often describe as the greatest asset of such organization. Furthermore, every training and programme is expected to be appraised in terms of relevance and timing by assessing the potential gains to the organization. When it is implementation from historical perspective many organization did not see the essence of training their workers (manpower) it was considered as an intangible service.

However, overtime, lack of adequate training exposure led to various problems, experienced varies from organization to organization. During the period of boom, organizations are buoyant and very liquid, they voted some fund for staff training and development but failed to monitor the effectiveness or impact they made (PAL 1998:19).

Lack of skilled personnel in an organization is identified as one of the major problems impending growth of economic development in Nigeria.

Ubeku (1975:270) points out the implications of lack of employee training as he noted that people who are not trained tend to stick to what they were told about the job. They are frightened of doing a new thing or doing a different thing on the job, because something might go wrong and that risk they cannot take.

In this view, such employees are redundant to the rapid change in technology. They tend to make an organization static and operate in an out date manner.

The following are some of the problems associated with management development in Nigeria as identified by organizations and employees.

• The objectives of the training programmes are not clearly stated to the participants. There is no mental preparedness.
• Some employees (staff) see some development programmes as a few days of work that are meant for relaxation.
• There is no positive intersegment after the training.
• The employee does not have opportunity to put the concepts and principles taught to him into practice.
• Inadequate support from the executives.
• There is a problem of transfer of learning, some of the concepts and principles taught are too academics and very difficult to apply in real life situation.
• The consultancy are not properly selected and do not adopt their lectures to suit specific organizational needs (Nwachukwu 1992:132)
• Many management development programmes are not properly planned as there are no sequences' to the courses offered from year to year.

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1.3 Objectives of the Study

The objectives of the study are as follows:

1. To find out the factors that militates against effective implementation or execution of staff training programme.
2. To discover whether the staff are adequately trained and skillfully developed.
3. To ascertain the level of participation of staff in the organizational programmes.
4. To discover the methods used in the training and development of staff and its effects on the employees.
5. To discover whether staff training and development influence productivity in Nigeria.
6. To estimate the influence of the cost of staff training and development in the ministry of education.

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1.4 Research Questions

• How does training and development influence productivity in the organization?
• Does cost of training and development programmes influence the organization expenditure?
• Does the ministry engage in any form of staff training?
• If yes why do they engage in training and which type?
• Why in your view does the ministry undertake such training programme?
• What are the methods used in the training and development of staff in the ministry?
• What are the factors that militate against effective implementation or execution of staff training program?
• Does the staff adequately trained and skillfully developed?

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1.5 Statement of Hypothesis:

In research, hypothesis is classified into two types namely:

• The null hypothesis
• The alternative hypothesis

Null Hypothesis:

The null hypothesis is an assertion that the population parameter or parameter estimate is not different from what it is supposed to be or what it has been in the past.

It represents an existing belief; we normally assume that null hypothesis is true until we have sufficient statistical evidence to the contrary. It is symbolized by HO

Alternate Hypothesis:

Alternate hypothesis specifies a population parameter or parameter estimates that is different from status quo of what it used to be in the past. This is symbolized by HI.

Null Hypothesis

• H0: lack of training does not contribute to poor performance of staff in the ministry.
• H1: lack of training contributes to the poor performance of staff in the ministry.

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1.6 Significance of the Study

Qualified personnel's should occupy all the sensitive positions in any organization for effective productivity and growth in such organization. In developing countries, such as Nigeria, the role of well trained and consequently competent personnels assumes a great significance.

The quality of decisions or management in all sectors of the economy, therefore becomes a key factor in the well being of the entire economy. In Nigeria this factor is either lacking or inadequate in organization.

Its however, in the realization of the significance of staff training and development that the federal government on its part promulgated industrial training fund (ITF) to promote and encourage the skill acquisition in the industry of commerce with the view of generating a pool of indigenous trained manpower sufficient to meet the needs of Nigeria economy (Ubeku 1975:271)

More so, the area on employee's activities and response to training programmes will be useful to the management in the formulation and implementation of training needs, policies and programmes in subsequent times.

Specifically, some findings and recommendations at the end of the study if properly done will be useful to the management and staff of federal ministry of education Umuahia, Abia state. students in public administration, personnel management and also to open up areas of further research which might result in constructive suggestions, improvements, change and new method to solve problem of staff training.

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1.7 Scope of Study

Based on the topic of this study, the research was conducted at the federal ministry of education umuahia, abia state. This is to enable the researcher do thorough study on the problems of staff training and development, the researcher however, believes that the findings will be encouraged by federal and every state establishment in training and developing of their staff as if effects efficient performance in their organization respectively.

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1.8 Limitation of the Study

In carrying out this research the researcher encountered numerous problems. But it is the intention of the researcher to mention just few problems that affected this research work.

Finance:

Finance was the greatest problem the researcher had in the course of this research. Therefore, it became imperative for the researcher to limit his spending in the project to size and manage his purse.

Time:

Time was another problem that affected this research work, this is so because lecture period as affected the course of gathering data. Yet it is not exaggeration to say that more of the time available to the researcher was same into the work.

The researcher missed classes and abstained from other political and social functions in order to keep appointments connected with the research.

Respondents:

The issue of total co – operation from the respondents always poses great problems to the researcher. Sometimes, inability of respondents to open up and give useful information to the researcher poses another problem.

However, the researcher tried as much as possible to establish cordial relationship with the public relation officer (PRO) in order to get concrete information from them. In spite of all these constraints, the researcher can still say the quality of this work is undiluted and viable.

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1.9 Definition of Terms

For a better understanding and clarity, some important concepts used in this study are clarified.

Staff:

Is used to refer to a group of assistant working together in an establishment.

Training:

Is a systematic process of altering the behavior or attitude of employees in a direction to release organizational goal attainment.

Organization:

An organization refers to a social unit (or human grouping) that is knitted together to achieve specific goals.

Development:

Development is an upward movement or growth towards positive line and also a change in the organization age.