Impact of Human Resources Management on Local Performance
Chapter One
Objective Of The Study
- To identify existing training programs at Nigerian Breweries Plc, Rivers state.
- To evaluate the effectiveness in improving employee’s performance.
- To find out if the training programs have impacted on employee morale and the firm’s overall performance.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
HUMAN RESOURCE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
Training and development falls under HRD function which has been argued to be an important function of HRM (Weil & Woodall 2005).
Development
As one of the major functions within HRM, development has for long been recognized and thus attracted great research attention by academic writers (see e.g. Gordon 1992, Beardwell, Holden&Claydon 2004). This has yielded into a variety of definitions of development. For example, Gordon (1992, 235) defines development as the planned and systematic modification of behavior through learning events, activities and programs which result in the participants achieving the levels of knowledge, skills, competencies and abilities to carry out their work effectively.
It is worth nothing that, as researchers continue with their quest into the development research area, they also continue their arguments into its importance. Some of these researchers argue that the recognition of the importance of development in recent years has been heavily influenced by the intensification of competition and the relative success of organizations where investment in employee development is considerably emphasized (Beardwell et al. 2004). Related to the above, Beardwell et al. (2004) add that technological developments and organizational change have gradually led some employers to the realization that success relies on the skills and abilities of their employees, thus a need for considerable and continuous investment in training and development.
Benefits of development
The main purpose of development is to acquire and improve knowledge, skills and attitudes towards work related tasks. It is one of the most important potential motivators which can lead to both short-term and long-term benefits for individuals and organizations. There are so many benefits associated with development. Cole (2001) summarizes these benefits as below:
1) High morale – employees who receive development have increased confidence and motivations;
2) Lower cost of production – development eliminates risks because trained personnel are able to make better and economic use of material and equipment thereby reducing and avoiding waste;
3) Lower turnover – development brings a sense of security at the workplace which in turn reduces labor turnover and absenteeism is avoided;
4) Change management – development helps to manage change by increasing the understanding and involvement of employees in the change process and also provides the skills and abilities needed to adjust to new situations;
5) Provide recognition, enhanced responsibility and the possibility of increased pay and promotion;
6) Help to improve the availability and quality of staff.
Human resource management needs
According to Wognum (2001, 408), training and development needs may occur at three organizational levels namely; (1) strategic level where needs are determined by top management while considering organizations goals, mission, strategy and problems, which need to be resolved or fixed (2) tactical level where needs are determined with middle management while considering developments needs to the coordination and cooperation between organization units and (3) operational level where needs are determined with lower executive management and other employees while considering problems related to operations such as performance problems of individual workers and departments in subject. In order to enable an organization formulate human resource training and development goals that will enable both formal and informal human resource training and development methods and programmes create a workforce that enables effectiveness and competitiveness, it is worth giving consideration to, providing proper coordination as well as proper incorporation of the needs within the three levels The first issue is to identify the needs relevant to the organizations objectives. According to Wognum (2001) and Torrington et al. (2005), there are three categories of identifying training and development needs. These include: resolving problems, this focuses on workers’ performance, improving certain working practices, this focuses on improvement regardless of the performance problems and changing or renewing the organization situation, which may arise because of innovations or changes in strategy. The above are summarized in Table 1 below. It is worth putting in mind that during the identification of development needs, there is need to create, develop, maintain and improve any systems relevant in contributing to the availability of people with required skills. Moreover, development programmes should be designed to carter for the different needs. Further still, the development programme, content and the trainees’ chosen depend on the objectives of the development programme (Milkovic& Bordereau 2003).
A number of approaches have been highlighted in previous literature for identifying needs (Edmond & Noon 2001; Torrington et al. 2005). These are the problem-centred (performance gap) and profile comparison (changes and skills) approaches. Similarly, a number of approaches for analyzing development needs depending or either new or current employees have been pointed out by earlier studies (see e.g. Torrington et al. 2005, 390 – 392). The two most traditional approaches being the problem centered approach and the profile comparison approach. The problem centred approach focuses on any performance difficulties and the corporation analyses if the problems are due to insufficient skills, which then need to be developed if the problem is to be solved. Profile comparison approach on the other hand focuses on matching the competencies with the job filled, whether new position or existing position. Some changes in strategy and technology may also bring the need for new or additional skills.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
A research design means the instrument aimed at identifying variable and third relationship of one another, this is used for the purpose of obtaining data.
For this study work, survey research design was adopted, couples of questionnaires were personally distributed to the respondents and the same method adopted to collect the completed copies of the questionnaire distributed.
Population of the Study
The target population of this study comprises 25 employees of Nigerian Breweries Plc, Rivers state. The aggregate number of employees which formed the population of Nigerian Breweries Plc consists of 25 employees. The population to be observed will cover entire employee of Nigerian Breweries Plc, Rivers state.
Sample Size and Sampling Technique
Sample is the part of the population diocese for the study. Sampling Technique is referred to the process used in selecting participants for a research project. Thus, the sampling technique adopted in this study is the census sampling technique which is the process of taking a sample data of a population has equal chance of being selected without bias.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
Demographic Characteristics of Respondents
A total of 25 copies of the questionnaire were issued. Therefore, data contained in 25 copies of the instrument that were correctly completed were adopted.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
With respect to the objectives of this study, the following findings were revealed by the researcher.
Data collected revealed that Nigerian Breweries Plc, Rivers state state started introducing its training program at the time the company began its operations, till date. Most employees have had some form of human resource management.
The research also revealed that the purpose of human resource management and development activities at Nigerian Breweries Plc, Rivers state is to achieve both individual and organizational performance. However the basic purpose of human resource management as shown from the introduction is to improve the knowledge and skills of employees. It is also to change the attitudes and behavior of the employees for the purpose of enhancing the effectiveness of the organization as a whole and increase performance.
The rapid changes in technology also require that employees possess the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to handle the new processes and production techniques in order to be ahead of other competing organizations. Thus, there was the need to find out the major purposes for which Nigerian Breweries Plc, Rivers state trains its employees because reasons may differ per organization.
According to the Human Resources Manager, employees at Nigerian Breweries Plc, Rivers state are trained in order to improve their skills, knowledge, abilities, competencies, behavior and confidence. The ultimate objective however is to help improve both individual and organizational performance.
The difficulty has always been the basis for evaluating the impact of human resource management on the performance of the firm. The initial approach was to use the productivity approach by evaluating the contribution of each unit of labor to the company’s profit. If each unit of labor was contributing more to profit over time then one could conclude that labor was more efficient and could thus connect it to training. However, the non-availability of information on labor makes this approach difficult to utilize. Thus the new approach to be adopted though not the most efficient but the most expedient based on available information would be to analyze the growth of profit. If profit has indeed grown then we go further to analyze the basis. This could either be an increase in income or decrease in expenditure. I analyzed income per unit invested in the company. If every unit invested is resulting in more income then we can conclude an improvement in efficiency. Since the entity’s main input is labor then we can go further to conclude that labor is thus contributing more to the performance of their firm and then also go further to state the contribution training would definitely have made.
CONCLUSION
Nigerian Breweries Plc, Rivers state has training programs for its employees.. All employees no matter their qualification, age or rank consistently go through training. Training has been effective with its core objective being to improve individual and organizational performance as can be seen from the improvement in returns per unit invested in expenditure as well a consistent increase in income and profit. The training program is structured, planned and systematic and has resulted in improvement in skills, efficiency and performance as well as the acquisition of new skills and knowledge. Training has had an effect on the performance of the firm with increased profits and income as well as an increase in income per unit of expenditure invested. Nigerian Breweries Plc, Rivers state however, should consider the possibility of other training programs besides
Since it was discovered that not all employees were motivated with the current training programs an increasing of available options can help to tackle this. Competition in the organizations in Nigeria continues to increase with the continuous emergence of new players. Thus, it is important for organizations to invest if they intend to stay ahead of their competitors.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Nigerian Breweries Plc current in-house training program is effective but the company should also consider enabling employees to further their studies to improve their qualifications.
- Nigerian Breweries Plc should also continue with its training with periodic analysis of the program to ascertain its effectiveness, the certainty that the program caters to the specific needs of its employees and that program is in line with developments of the time.
- Nigerian Breweries Plcshould increase transparency to let the public know their contribution to the Nigerian system at large
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