CHAPTER ONE

1.1 INTRODUCTION      

In most organizations particularly business organizations, most of what goes on consists largely of transactions. A transaction is a recorded event having to do with routine business activities. This includes everything concerning the product or service in which the organization is engaged: production, distribution, sales, order and stock-taking. It also includes the materials purchased, employees hired, taxes paid and so on. Today in most organizations, the bulk of such transactions are recorded in a computer-based information system. Computer-based information systems are systems that tend to have clearly defined inputs and outputs that enable and provide necessary facilities for accurately and efficiently managing an organizational process. It could be sales, order or record keeping of staff. Information system is a collection of people, procedures, software, hardware and data. Connectivity allows computers to connect and share information, thereby greatly expanding the capability and usefulness of an information system. Computer-based information systems are meant to reduce the stress in managing businesses or organizational procedures. Management Information System (MIS) is one of the major types of computer-based information systems. It uses the database of an organization in producing well structured forms of reports.   1.2               BACKGROUND OF THE 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. Specific reasons for the development of personnel management include: - (i)   As a result of increasing influence of trade unions,        traditionally         personnel administration took on the role of          pacifying the trade         unions, so that management could be free       to run the companies     without interference from employees. (ii)  The formulation of minimum wages low costs and individual          legislations increased the need for a team of personnel specialties. (iii) As the union became more sophisticated and powerful the         need for     highly skilled individual relations should increase. (iv) The increasing size of business, government and other        institutions          brought new dimension into the profession of        personnel management. . Traditionally, it was practiced in homes where the father is the head of the family. It was he who planned what the family should do, the type of farming, size and where to sell the harvested products. His wives and children helped in the process, no external recruitment was involved, so the more wives and children a man had, the more likely it was that the family be well-of. The recent practices of personnel management in Nigeria is tied up with history and development of the public services, private companies and civil services.       1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS. The management of human resources has remained the most complex aspect of many organizations. In fact, this had been the reason why most management scientists in the research identified personnel management as the backbone of any organization. Following the problem in Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, there were cases were files get missing, cabinet gets jammed delaying the presentation of certain information about the staff, destruction of files and records in the case of fire outbreaks, time required to record as well as presenting an Information and also the cost of purchasing files, paper and furniture and fixtures.  Lack of effectiveness in their methods of record keeping, further compounds the problem.   1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The objectives of this project work include; ·                    Timely and quality output to managers for decision making ·                    Providing specific type of output according to specified input ·                    It also aims at providing a well secure database management system   Most importantly, this project work aims at eliminating the problems      encountered in the manual system of personnel management               operations by the use of this computerized Personnel Management                 System software.   1.5 JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY This work could be useful for personnel managers or officers in an organization as well as those involved in research work on personnel management. However, this research work would let us know that the success of an organization largely depends on the assessment and appraisal of individuals and company employee’s potential, performance and how well the organization can strive to equip all its workers. Hence, this research work will be of immense assistance to the organizational environment because personnel will be able to find the best solution to the various personnel problems as the computerized personnel management information system software will play a very big role in removing the stress in record keeping. There are many other advantages, and some of them are listed below. ·       It saves a lot of time in processing personnel information. ·       Database access is fast, reliable and secure in term of     authorized access using data encryption and decryption. ·       Transactions are secured (login page). ·       It helps in reducing the costs of labour, fixtures and stationary     (Paper, files, pens, marker and so on.   1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY This research work will concentrate on staff employment form which includes the name, sex, location in fact information about the staff, performance assessment, retirement and handling of some queries like; updating staff record, deleting staff record and searching for staff information via Rank, Department or ID as the case may be. It is a case study of Nigeria Petroleum Corporation Lagos.       1.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY Due to time constraint, finance and confidentiality of information, program developed covers all aspect of employment, assessment and retirement. What ever is left out is as a result of the stated limitations.   1.8           ASSUMPTION OF THE STUDY During the process of data collection, information relating to personal management was obtained from Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Lagos. The information was collected from the admin staff during the course of my industrial attachment. Hence, it is assumed that all the data collected are correct and contains no false information.