CHAPTER ONE

1.1  BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Since Nigeria gained her independent in 1960, we have been faced with the problem of shortage of trained and experienced manpower need for social economic development of the country. Our inability to provide for the necessary manpower training needs result in the inefficient and under utilization in Nigeria are much concerned with the profit maximization motive of business concerned that they tend to ignore the need for training their workers to equip them with knowledge, skills and attitudes required for effective performance on their job, they instead, considered the money they would spend on their training programmes as a waste than as an investment.

Training and performance appraisal like any form of training as a means to an end. In this case, the end to secure the human resources of the organization, in order to achieve the organization’s corporate objectives, the manpower situation with its strength and weaknesses will have assessed in general terms at the top management level. This assessment will have lead, where necessary to a number of long sufficient and suitable employees for the achievement of corporate plans as a waste.

The advent of the British in Nigeria saw them setting up a new system of local government administration in Nigeria by Lord Lugard in 1914 when he amalgamated the Northern and southern protectorates.

In the Nigeria context, the evaluation of local government can be traced to the pre-colonial rule. During this period, the various ethnic groups had their own systems of local government, which had the traditional rulers and chiefs at the helm of affairs.

The 1976 local government reforms were embarked upon by the central government and all the states governments under the leadership of General Olusegun Obasanjo (Rtd). The main areas in the pattern of local government management which attracted much attention were those of the structure, functions, sources of revenue of the local governments, the position of traditional rulers and other related areas. They were recognized as the bedrock upon which any purposeful reform has to concentrate if it is to achieve its goals. Also, it was felt that once they were adequately taken care of, all other needs would be relatively manageable.

This project topic will make us to understand or examine some concepts in the course of this study and such concepts include the following: productivity and result oriented.

In due examination with the growth of large organization both in the third world western societies such as complex, industrial and commercial undertakings. It may be important to undertake some functions live research, planning of staff development and training programmes.

For the purpose of this study, one can say that personnel have their training from time to time in order to come up with development in local government services.

We are most concerned with the performance of staff in the local government service through training needs.

Udoji commission emphasized in paragraph 25 of their report which state thus, ‘’there is need for a new conception or result oriented approach to public services, concentrating attention in resources on local government services which are created for productivity and performance are linked with the slogan result orientation in public services or local government is the gospel of running public venture. Although, it should be conceived in mind that there is no way government can run public service like private business, because government provide services as a means of saving the masses from the exploitation of private business. It is important to note that one of the problems facing staffs today as it relates to Okehi local government councils is that of low productivity or poor performance which is due to lack of adequate training for high productivity.

Therefore, the need to study staff training and appraisal in relation to employee performance especially as it affects Okehi local government area will be discussed in this research work.

1.2  STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The creation of local government certainly was just to create vacancies for staff to work and earn salaries, rather local governments in Nigeria were created to bring development nearer to the people and enhance their condition of living. However, over the years, a lot of problems has bedeviled the local government system which has crippled the performance of the entire system.

1. The public service rules and regulations which is ‘’Bible’’ and ‘’Quran’’ of the local government has been abused by the principal officers in charge of the local governments
2. There is excessive politicking in the local government system in Nigeria.
3. It seems the staff of local government has no recognition like that of counter part at the state and federal services
4. They seems to be excessive control on the local government by the higher tiers of government (state and federal) hence, the need for local government autonomy
5. The basic elements for staff motivation and performance seems to be lacking in the local government system.

1.3  OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objectives of the study are as follows:

1. To assess how training and performance appraisal are linked with moral and self commitment
2. To examine how training can improve employees performance and productivity
3. To examine the relevance of training to employees in local government services
4. To find out if wages and employees conditions of service can affect performance of workers.

1.4  SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study will be of great importance as it will help I providing the readers with unique information on training through the performance of staffs especially those intending to conduct investigation in the near future on this topic.

The study will educate managers, administrators, directors etc that training of staff is not a waste of time, it has merits.

The research project will assist workers to realize that training will improve their level of performance in organizations.

1.5  RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What is the necessity of performance appraisal in the public organization?
2. How can performance appraisal determine the training in an organization?
3. How effective is the training need in the overall performance of an organization?
4. What are the mechanisms used in performance appraisal to determine training needs?

1.6  THE SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of this research work which is the ‘’Impact of performance appraisal in the determination of training needs in local government service’’ covers Okehi local government area. This is therefore limited to Okehi local government area.

1.7  LIMITATIONS AND CONSTRAINTS OF THE STUDY

In the course of this research project, some limitations were encountered. Such as:

1. Lack of information accessibility: Normally, secret information’s is not easy to disclose
2. Respondents incorporation: Closely related to the first limitations is the fact that not all respondents are ready to cooperate in the process of data collection. However, the available data collected so far is something to go by as far as incompletion of this project is concerned.

1.8 DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS

TRAINING: Has to do with the organized procedure by which people earn skills and knowledge for a definite purpose or can be put as a process of acquiring additional skills.

DEVELOPMENT: Is the process whereby an employee grow in the job through the acquisition of varied and tested responsibilities

PERFORMANCE: Is the accomplishment of a given task measured against present known standards of accuracy, completeness, cost and speed

APPRAISAL: An act of assessing something or someone. The act of estimating or judging the nature or value of something or some.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL: The process by which a manager or consultant examines and evaluates with present standard, documents the result of the comparison and uses the result to provide feedback to the employee to show where improvements are needed and why. (Business Dictionary)

GOVERNMENT: Is the political direction and control exercised over the actions of the members citizens, or inhabitants of communities, societies and states; direction of the affairs of a state, community, etc political administration.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT: According to Sills (1972), local government is defined as ‘’a public organization authorized to decide and administer a limited range of public policies within a relatively small territory which is a sub division of a region, state or national government.