THE INFLUENCE OF EFFECTIVE PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT PRACTICE IN ORGANIZATION PERFORMANCE

1.1 Introduction

Effective 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.

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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).

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.

Many organizations 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.

The success of any organization depends upon a large extent in the caliber of the workers who work for it having the right person in the right place at the right time, discipline any misconduct of the employees, compensating them in form of wages and salaries, promoting, motivating to bring efficient product for great profitability, which is the main objective of any organization.

The origin of personnel management dated back to the time of industrial revolutions in Britain. At the time there were poor working conditions. People had to work for long hours (between 14. 16 hours) another important factor was that woman above 50 years and children under 10years were hade to work. This was dated back to the 19th century. On this account, and being conscious of their oppression as a class, workers foresaw the inevitability of organized labour movement or trade unions as a practical solution to fight against hardship, vision of a new social order to improve their well being. This led to the emergence of welfare workers’ who went from industry to industry in order to forge workers and trade unions brotherhood in order to ameliorate their predicament the movement gained ground and led to the formation of welfare workers Association in 1913, this movement was however disrupted by the fist world war about government intervened and this brought about improvement in the working condition of the workers.

Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the influence of effective personnel management practice in organization performance using Owerri West LGA as a case study.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that the increase in the number of employees traceable to industrial revolution era and complexity in management constitute major problem in every business organization. Due to poor span of control a manager who used to manage twenty (20) instead of five (5) works. This requires a lot of specialist skill and methods; hence there is need for personnel functions.

In view of the above, can an organization do without personnel management, in the area of human relations in an organization? This can be referred to as the interaction between management and workers, and the outside world, such as government, supplier’s contractors and all the external environment of an organization. Organization must improve the working performance and productivity, skills and ability of its employees.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to examine the influence of effective personnel management practice in organization performance using Owerri West LGA as a case study. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To ascertain basic understanding of the effect of personnel management on organizational performance.
2. To know how effective are the personnel are functions to the well-being and performance of the workers in an organization.
3. To investigate the factors influencing the effective personnel management practice in an organizational.
4. To elucidate some problems encountered by an organization.
5. To ascertain the relationship between personnel management and organizational performance in Owerri West Local Government Area in Imo State.

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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:

• Are there factors influencing the effective personnel management practice in an organizational performance?
• Is there any relationship between personnel management and organizational performance?
• What is the impact of personnel management on organizational performance?
• What are the problems encountered by an organization?
• How effective does personnel functions to the well-being and performance of the workers in an organization?

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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: There is no effect of personnel management on organizational performance.
• H1: There is an effect of personnel management on organizational performance.

Hypothesis Two

• H0: There is no relationship between personnel management and organizational performance.
• H1: There is a relationship between personnel management and organizational performance

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1.7 Significance of Study

The study will give a clear insight on effect of personnel management on organizational performance. The study will be beneficial to organizations and management of the organizations and the students. The study will serve as a reference to others researcher that will embark on this topic.

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1.8 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the influence of effective personnel management practice in organization performance using in Owerri West Local Government Area in Imo State as a case study.

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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. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. 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).

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1.10 Definition of Terms

Personnel Management: Personnel management is an administrative function of an organization that exists to provide the personnel needed for organizational activities and to manage the general employee-employer relationship.

Organizational Performance: Organizational performance comprises the actual output or results of an organization as measured against its intended outputs (or goals and objectives).