Employment Procedure and Its Effect on Government Parastatals
Chapter One
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The main objective of the study is to assess the employment procedure and its effects on government parastatals, but to aid the completion of the study, the researcher intends to achieve the following sub-objectives;
- To ascertain the effect of employment procedure on government pararstatals
- To examine the role of the senate in ensuring a transparen recruitment process in government sector
- To ascertain the impact of transparent recruitment process on the productivity of the parastatals
- To ascertain the relationship between recruitment process and job performance
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
Every organization depends on the effective use of its available resources in order to achieve its objectives. These resources, if they are to be effectively utilized, should be obtained in the right quantity, right quality, and at the right time. However, the human resources is considered as the most important, most valuable, most complicated and the least predicable. It is this resource that processes other resources in order that the results of these processes would constitute the goals of the organization (Mukoro, 2005). Thus, every organization regardless of its size, product or service must recruit applicants to fill vacant positions. The efficiency and effectiveness of any organization whether private or public sector largely depend on the calibre of the work force The availability of a competent and effective labour force does not just happen by chance but through an articulated job analysis and recruitment exercise. The personnel employed in an organization serve as the hub around which other resources revolve. This allows the entire wheel of the organization to turn smoothly in order to perform more effectively, efficiently and economically. This is the reason why the personnel employed in any organization who eventually becomes the bread-winners of his family and an instrument of progress for the society, have to be well structured (Vickerstaff in Mukoro, 2005). Recruitment for any organization is very important right through the entire lifespan of that organization. In the civil service for example that is governmentally controlled, especially in third world countries, governments should ever be self advised that good organization structure does not by itself guarantee good performance. There is the need therefore to match organizations or the civil service with very sound and quality staff so that performance would become more effective. Indeed, target setting; performance measurement and monitoring will be affected without the necessary impetus giving to systematic recruitment and selection mechanisms. The Nigerian federal civil service emphasizes uniformity, standardization, transparency (Babaru, 2003) in recruiting competent applicants. Despite the elaborate provisions in the constitution as well as the civil service rules and regulations as regards the mode of recruitment and selection into the service, the staff composition of most Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) reveals that mediocre and quacks’ get recruited against the tenets of merit and technical competence rooted in Max Weber’s ideal bureaucracy (Eneanya, 2009). In 2007, the size of the Nigerian federal civil service was estimated to be about 220,000 (Briggs, 2007). Despite the large size of federal civil service, the service still manifests signs of low productivity due to incompetence of personnel and poor attitude of bureaucrats to work. The paper therefore, seeks to further interrogate why the federal civil service of Nigeria has not effectively utilized its large workforce to meet the needs of Nigerians, by taking a look at the recruitment policies and practices in the federal civil service and its implications on employee performance with specific reference to Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC).
RECRUITMENT
Shaw (1990; 305) in his recruitment policy and effects on how employers and employees can be happy in order to achieve job satisfaction, analyzed the merit of internal and external recruitments. He observed that internal recruitment allows employees within the organization to advance in their careers, while on the other hand, external recruitment allows the injection of new ideas into the organization. He further analyzed that high level intake will mean higher salaries for new recruits so that the experience of existing employees must be reflected in their salaries as compensation. In addition to manpower planning, proper recruitment ensures that each employee has an opportunity to make his best contribution to the organization. Shapero (1989; 34), itemized channel of recruitment, which is the route by which an individual comes into an organization. He proffers that channels of recruitment to include:
Employments Agencies
Advertisement (in newspapers and trade and professional journals).
Company recruitment (college recruitment, professional meeting recruitment). Self-recruitment (through friends or acquaintances, knowledge of company’s work or reputation, perceived advancement opportunity).
Stephen etal, (2007; 327-329) suggests that an understanding of organsational human resources through job analysis will provide managers with employee’s needs; that is it will provide the manager with the understanding or excesses of capable hands in the organization. However if there is a surplus of employees the management of the organization can adopt recruitment to lay-off candidate employed. He further add that organization can avoid sudden talent shortages and surpluses. He therefore sees recruitment as the process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization.
He further considered recruitment as both “positive” and “negative” since both increases the selection ratio and at the same time do away with candidates thereby leaving the qualified ones to work in the organization.
According to Soji (2002) recruitment as a set of process used by organization to solicit for the interest of potentially qualified people so that the organization could achieve its objectives. He further states that recruitment has a two way impact on the selection and placement of employees, which he enumerated as follows:
- Recruitment determines the number of applicants applying for each job.
- Recruitment method directly affects turnover rates when job candidates are given a growing picture of a job, which could be letter discovered by the applicants that the true picture of the job was not specifically analyze to them, they later become dissatisfied with reality that does not link up to expectation.
Encyclopedia of Professional Management (1995; 679-681) views recruitment as a positive process which aims at putting the right person in the right job which they are best qualified for. Here recruitment is seen as the process seeking for the qualified person who will accept an employment opportunity, what job they can best perform in line with their field of specialization, it therefore sees recruitment as an activity involved in seeking out prospective candidate or employee and to persuade them to seek for the advertised or unadvertised vacant positions in organizations.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter deals with the method used in collecting data required in carrying out this research work it explains the procedures that were followed and the instrument used in collecting data.
SOURCES OF DATA COLLECTION
Data were collected from two main sources namely
Primary source and
Secondary source
Primary source: These are materials of statistical investigation, which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary data: These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
POPULATION OF THE STUDY
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher in interested in getting information from for the study employment procedure and its effect on government parastatls 200 staff of federal civil service commission was selected randomly as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the effect of employment procedure and its effect on government parastatals
In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges encountered in conducting a transparent recruitment in government parastatals
Summary
Recruiters in the Nigerian Public Service need to keep abreast of changes in the labour market to ensure that their recruitment efforts are not wasted or directed at too small a pool of labour. This in essence means that governments must know its exact workforce and also when there is the need to add to the existing workforce. Skill shortages may occur unexpectedly and recruitment and training processes need to be kept flexible. It is however, a good idea for any organization to plan its labour force requirements, matching available supply against forecast demand. A skills audit of existing staff will increase knowledge of the skills the organization has available and those which are lacking, and thus help pinpoint areas for future development. More so, despite the fact that Federal character and quota system was adopted in order to balance the development gap between the geo-political zones the country, in practice it is yet to produce any unrelenting effort to fix any of the structural problems that prompted the existence of the gap, instead it further widens it. This study would want argue here that the policy should be revisited and merit be accorded greater emphasis than region
Conclusions
Employment and selection are the instruments used by the Nigerian public service to ensure its continuity in the sense that those who exit the service by either retiring or withdrawal are being replaced instantly and this makes the public service work on-going i.e. a continuous process. It is however, through the system of recruitment and selection that competent and qualified personnel are being sort and offered job. This to a greater extent helps in maintaining sanity as well as the much needed development in the government work. Though the recruitment system is characterized by a number of irregularities which are mostly sentimental, it is believed that a lot can be achieved if the recruiters maintain the status quo by making sure that merit is considered as number one priority followed by impartiality, fairness and equality. Finally, it is hoped that employment agencies in the Nigerian Public Service will try as much as possible to put the suggestions offered into trial which are believed to be the solution to the identified problems.
Recommendations
To achieve recruitment of good quality (high flyers) graduates, this study recommends that the current recruitment policy in the civil service that calls for uniform qualifications do not specify classification of degrees, diplomas and certificates. This policy should be modified to make provision on preference for candidates with outstanding results at all levels of education. The Nigerian civil service should imbibe the prescripts of Marx Weber as regards to recruitment and the global best practices that place preference on recruitment of first and second class upper degrees, distinction and merit for diplomas and certificate holders. Interpretation of rules is a common factor of distrust among formulators of public personnel policies and bureaucrats as implementers. Federal civil service has procedures and guidance for implementation of policies entrenched in civil service rules. Civil servants must be supplied with these guidelines for guidance. To achieve success in recruitment into the federal civil service, we should deemphasize the recruitment of generalist graduates to man personnel departments. This is because personnel department in the federal civil service are assigned with the responsibility of interpretation of rules and regulations. Thus, right interpretation of rules would only be successful if it is assigned to bureaucrats who are graduates of public administration, law, management or at least graduates of humanities and social sciences with professional qualification in management and administration from professional bodies such as Institute of Public Management, Nigeria (IPM), Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPM), Chartered Institute of Management, Nigeria (NIM) etc.
Reference
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- Armstrong, M. (2009). A handbook of human resource management practice, London: Kogan page limited
- Babaru, A.S.M. (2003). Leading public service innovation” in New Zealand agency for international development (NEAID), monday, February 24th – 26th March, p. 26.
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- Bohlander, G, Snell, S & Sherman, A. (2009). Managing human resources, New York: SouthWestern college
- Briggs, R.B. (2007). Problems of recruitment in civil service: case of the Nigerian civil service” African journal of business management, I(6): 142-153
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