THE EFFECT OF MANPOWER TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT ON EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE

(A CASE STUDY OF BEDC COMPANY BENIN CITY)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1             BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Organizational effectiveness rests on the efficient and effective performance of employees. The efficient and effective performance of the workforce in turn, 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.

    Manpower training and development should 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.

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), 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 Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) 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.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Despite the strategic dimension of manpower investment, most organization in Nigeria remains inert. Life in such organization is a sheer drudgery. Initiative is most often discouraged due to an environment that neither empowers nor enables the individuals to accomplish anything.

It is generally observed that whenever there is a resources crunch in Nigerian organizations, the first axe falls on human resources in terms of retrenchments and cuts in manpower development and training budgets. Employee are said to be a “soul” of the organization, but there are treated as the “sole” of the organization to tramp with. Organizations are hostile to their people, why are they so? Why are organizations more concerned with profits than with the well being of their people? Why are human resources regarded as part of organizational problems instead of being regarded as part of the solution to its problem? Why do organizations continue to seek solutions to their competitive challenges by downsizing, rightsizing, outsourcing and weakening their organizational culture, rather than putting their people first and drawing from extensive research, which confirms that organizations do gain enduring competitive advantage through investment in their people?

Even when there appears to be a general consensus that manpower investment is a strategy for organizational competitive advantage. Nigeria organizations think and perform differently. Indeed neglect of human resources is the order of the day in most Nigerian organizations. Can it be that the claim that manpower investment is a potent strategy for organizational competitive advantage is in the Nigerian environment, an invalid one?    

1.3 OBJECTIVES 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 Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) Benin City 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 examine if training and development enhances employees’ skill and knowledge

2)    To examine the effect of employees training and development on employees’ performance and productivity 

3)     To examine adequate training facilities that could help to improve the manpower training and development.

1.4             RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.       Does training and development enhance employees’ skill and knowledge?

2.     What effect will training and development have on workers productivity and performance?  

3.     Will adequate training facilities enhance manpower training and development programme.

1.5             STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS

HYPOTHESIS I

Ho: Training and development does not improve productivity and performance.

Hi: Training and development improves productivity and performance.

HYPOTHESIS II

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

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

HYPOTHESIS III

Ho: Adequate training facilities do not increase training and development

Hi: Adequate training facilities does not enhance training and development programme.

1.6             SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The research will be beneficial to all service organization especially Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) Benin City 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, and 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.

1.7             SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of the study in which the study was carried out comprises of service organization particularly Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC). 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 Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) Benin City as the case study.

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

1.8 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

There is no gain saying that there are no limitations in research work generally. Any shortcoming that arises in this study is as a result of factors which are beyond the researcher’s control.

Therefore, it will be of more importance to highlight certain militating factors that tend to narrow or limit my scope of study. This project research would have been easier if not for these limitating factors:

1.     Time factor: time was not on the researchers to consult various sectors of the economy to review employees or given out questionnaire to various institutions on the effect of government revenue policies.
As we all know, time is never our friend. The time scheduled for the completion of this research thesis was too short. As a result, generating information/data was strenuous as it coincides with final year examination period, which needed attention.

2.     Finance: this is another barrier that limited the researcher’s work.

3.     Available resources: was unavailable for the research work.

1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS  

       i.            MANPOWER: this is the power in terms of the workers available to a particular group or required for a particular task.

     ii.            SELECTION: Is the process of identifying the most suitable applicant and persuades him/her for employment.

  iii.            TRAINING: Training is the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and  competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance.

1.10 HISTORICAL PROFILE OF THE COMPANY UNDER STUDY

Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) is one of the 11 distribution companies unbundled from the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and sold to private investors, under the Federal Government’s privatization programme.

BEDC, with an area of wide geographical spread, spanning four states – Edo, Delta, Ondo and Ekiti, has 16 business districts in all.

Vigeo Power is the new owner of Benin Electricity Distribution Company, which has Mrs. Funke Osibodu, a former Managing Director of Union bank Plc, as the Chief Executive Officer.

Before it acquired BEDC, the company was the management operator for the National Pre-Payment Metering Program (NPPMP) in the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) covering Edo, Delta, Ondo and Ekiti States from 2007 to 2010. The programme primarily targeted at reducing non-technical losses and improving customer satisfaction via improved customer service delivery.

This entails the procurement, installation and management of prepaid meters in BEDC. The contract provides for the installation of 161,000 Pre-Paid Meters (PPMs) within 2 years and management of the vending operations until the operator’s investment in metering and vending infrastructure is fully repaid.

Established in 1999, Vigeo Power has extensive experience in the Nigerian electric distribution and downstream sector. The company is managed by a team of indigenous and expatriate professionals with over 60 years cumulative experience in power and utilities project management.

The company’s Nigerian experience includes over eight years of public private partnership experience in both Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) and prepaid metering service with the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), formerly National Electric Power Authority (NEPA).

Vigeo Power ’s experience in RCM, spanning over four years  - 2002 – 2007, which was an outsourced management contract in the commercial management of maximum demand, commercial and residential customers in the old Ikorodu, Ojodu and Somolu Business Units of Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IEDC) in Lagos State.