ABSTRACT
This
study was designed to evaluate staff personnel administration in Universities
in North Central Nigeria, with a view to finding out the extent to which the
guidelines on staff personnel administration are adhered to. The instruments
used included; Staff Personnel Administration Questionnaire (SPAQ), oral
interview and examination of documents. The SPAQ was used to collect relevant
data from 358 university officers sampled from 6 out of 15 of the universities
in the region. Standard deviation and means were used to answer the research
questions while analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Scheffe test were used to test
the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed among
others that to a large extent, universities adhered to the approved guidelines
in staff recruitment, staff training, motivation and welfare and retirement
practices; and to a low extent in orientation practices. This situation cut
across Federal, State and Private universities. Some of the implications of the
study are that the universities should not be blamed for any unrest or job
dissatisfaction since they complied with the regulations governing staff
personnel administration. It seems that any problem arising from staff
dissatisfaction should be traced to other reasons. There may be a need to
review the current conditions of service in universities as it has lasted for
many years and might have become obsolete in view of the global economic
changes. This might help to reduce brain drain. Also, the need for proper orientation
becomes apparent as new staff might have very high expectations. Some
recommendations were made to the effect that Universities should produce and
make guidelines available to all staff, and incorporate orientation practices
in the guidelines. It was also recommended that universities should ensure a
balance growth through the training of their administrative staff.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Personnel
administration is used interchangeably with Personnel management, manpower
management, or human resource management and they refer to the management of
people at work in an organisation. Therefore, staff personnel administration as
a specialised field of management is concerned with the development and
effective utilisation of human resources so as to achieve organisational
objectives. The American Management Association (1999) defined staff personnel
administration as a responsibility of all those who manage people. It is part
of management which is concerned with people at work and with their
relationships within an enterprise. It applies not only to industry and
commerce but to all fields of employment.
Personnel
administration, according to Obi (2003) can be viewed from different angles.
One angle is to view personnel administration as a function or responsibility
of every manager or supervisor who has people under him all of whom are working
towards the achievement of desired goals. The second angle is that Personnel
Management may be seen as a function in an organisation which is performed by a
department, the personnel department. Sharing a similar view, Ajayi and Ayodele
The
most elaborate and comprehensive definition of staff personnel administration
is that given by Flippo (1990:65). The study showed that there are two
categories of functions: management and operative. Summing up these managerial
and operative functions, Flippo define personnel administration as the
planning, organising, directing, and controlling of the procurement,
development, compensation, integration and separation of human resources to the
end that individual, organisational and societal objectives are accomplished.”
Ogunsaju
(2006) did not differ much from Flippo when he defined staff personnel
administration as the effective mobilisation of human resources based upon
appropriate recruitment, selection, training and placement of appointed staff
in order to achieve the organisational set down goals and objectives. He also
viewed it as the effective utilisation of human resources in an organisation
through the management of people and related activities.
From
these definitions, personnel administration may be viewed as a set of functions
and activities used in the management of human resources in a
non-discriminatory, affirmative, and effective manner for the benefit of the
organisation, the individual and the society. Nwachukwu (2005:73) identified the traditional functions or activities with which staff
personnel administration is concerned. These are: Staff recruitment,
orientation, motivation and welfare, training and development, manpower
planning, job analysis, health and safety, wages and salary administration,
Industrial relation, collective bargaining, discipline, performance appraisal,
personnel audit, employee communication, human resource research and employee
retirement.
The
critical functions of staff personnel administration highlighted by Nwachukwu
(2000) is examined in the context of the general practice in organisations
particularly in universities in North Central Nigeria. For the purpose of this
study, the following staff personnel functions were focused on. They are: staff
recruitment practices, staff orientation, staff motivation/welfare, staff
training, and retirement practices.
The
choice of these administrative functions was based on two reasons. First, the
practices fall in line with Edwin Flippo’s operative functions of procurement,
development, compensation, integration and separation. Each of these variables
correlate with those already listed for the study; for instance, procurement is
related to recruitment, compensation to motivation, separation to retirement,
integration to orientation and development to training. The second reason for
the choice of these functions was that they are the activities or functions
which the universities have in common in their regulations. Because these functions
have common regulations among the universities, they form the benchmark for
this study.
This
study determined to what extent the universities in North Central states of
Nigeria adhered to the guidelines. This was done by looking at the universities
both as an entity and on the basis of ownership i.e. Federal, State and Private
Universities. In order to achieve the objectives, carefully selected
instruments such as questionnaire, and oral interview were used on the
principal officers of the universities, the head of units and the senior
Registry staff of the universities selected for study. The main technique was
evaluation.
Evaluation
is the process of delineating, obtaining and providing useful information for
judging decision alternatives. It is, in the opinion of Alkin (2008) to mean to
judge, appraise, conclude, describe, justify, support, etc the planned
programmes or activities. Evaluating administrative practices is necessary when
one consider the essence of evaluation. According to Akem (2012) educational evaluation
is a continuous process where a value judgement or decision is made by an
evaluator in a given programme or activity. It is therefore necessary to
evaluate administrative functions identified in the universities in North
Central in order to determine whether the practices require review or not,
whether the.....
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