CHAPTER ONE

 INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Manpower training and development must be based on a need analysis derived from a comparison of “actual performance’’ and behavior with “required performance’’ and behavior. Manpower training and development is one of the major ways organization invests in the workforce for greater return today and even in the foreseeable future.

        Organizational effectiveness rests on the efficient and effective performance of workforce that makeup the organization. The efficient and effective performance of the workforce inturn, rest on the richness of the knowledge, skills and abilities possessed by the workforce. Manpower training and development in most organizations is a continuous act/exercise. The inexorable march of time and the ceaseless glamour for social change combine to make adaptability and continuing preparation of the workforce as inevitable as the initial acquisition of knowledge and skills. This cannot happen if employees training and development do not occur in an enterprise. In other to maximize the productivity and efficiency of the organization, every executive, manager or supervisor in a public or private organization has the responsibility and indeed the bounding duty to ensure the development of their employees who have requisite knowledge and expertise.

     Training is like sharpening an existing skill in order to reflect the trends in technology and other social –cultural environmental changes of an organization. Productivity is the goal of today’s competitive business world and training can be a spring board to enhance productivity. The aim is to enable them contribute their full measure to the welfare, health and development of the organization (onah 1993). The main objective of training and development in service organization is to increase efficiency of employees with the resulting increase in corporate productivity. This accounts for why a large number of fund and time is expected by organization at one period or the order in the improvement of the skills of their employees at various levels.

       The principal intention of training according to AKPAN (1982:128), is to equip people with the knowledge required to qualify them for a particular position of employment, or to improve their skills and efficiency in the position they already hold.

       Manpower development on the other hand, implies growth and the acquisition of wide experience for future strategic advantages of the organization.

       Manpower training and development therefore, improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the employee. Therefore, the aim of this research is to know the current state, nature, procedure and method of training and development used by the power holding company of Nigeria (PHCN) for their employees and let’s not forget that any organization that has no plan for the training and development of its staff is less than dynamic for learning is a continuous process and acquired skills get obsolete when the environment changes. Also, a popular caption in the field of personnel management says, “If you think training and development are expensive try ignorance’’. While training and development prosper organization, ignorance destroys it. Therefore, workers like machines must be updated on constant basis or else, they end up becoming obsolete or misfit.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This research as it deals with the training and development of employees in service organizations is intended to find out the efficiency and effectiveness of training and development programme in service organization with reference to power holding company of Nigeria (PHCN) Enugu Zone. Since power holding company of Nigeria (PHCN) is an organization governing the use of electricity in Nigeria serves as a source of electricity supply, distribution and maintenance round the Nation. For this reason, it encounters numerous problems which range from:

1. Lack of qualified instructors and consultants to undertake training courses,
2. Lack of essential training tools, to
3. Lack of effective communication within the organization which makes it impossible for most employees to know about training opportunities available to them.

OBJECTIVES /PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

         The purpose for this research is to probe into the evaluation of the effect of manpower training and development in service organization using power holding company of Nigeria (PHCN) Enugu Zone as a case study with a view to find out how the organization is performing in terms of its employees training and development.

The following are the specific objectives of the study:

1. To highlight the advantages of employees training and development in service organization.
2. To examine the current training and development of employees in the organization and PHCN Enugu Zone in particular
3. To increase the general knowledge and understanding of individual member.
4. To recommend appropriate measures that could help improve the current manpower training program.
5. To increase efficiency and effectiveness of employees with the resulting increase in corporate productivity.

RESEARCH QUESTION

1.   What method of training and development does your organization use?
2.  What is the category of staff level in your organization (PHCN)?
3. What is the major problem in the organization?

STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS

Hi: Training and development improve skills and knowledge of manpower in service organization.

Ho: Training and development do not improve skills and knowledge of manpower in service

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The research will be beneficial to all service organization especially power holding company of Nigeria (PHCN) Enugu and their staff as it emphasized the need and encourage the establishment of policy guidelines on the efficient and effective training and development porgramme.

It will help managers of various organizations to generate ideas and solution to problems based on the best way to run training in their organization in order to achieve desired goals and objectives.

It will equally be useful to small scale business, large corporations, universities, college of education and to the government.

It will also help researchers to know more about training programme as a tool for improving employees’ performance.

Finally, it will be of great value to students as a point of reference and will equally form the basis for further research study.

SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The scope of this study although very wide if it has been carried out in the entire service organization. For this reason, it was necessary to have a concentrated area of study which was restricted to the evaluation of the effect of manpower training and development in service organization using power holding company of Nigeria (PHCN) Enugu Zone as the case study.

Its major limitation was the problem of getting information from the institution under study. As a parastatals, there is always the fear of giving out information to the public as such, vital information needed was not readily available.

Time equally would not be left out; getting permition to leave school and the issue of finance cannot be ignored as much was spent in procuring materials. However, with fact and judicial use of the limited resources, reasonable analyses have been carried out in this research work.