CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   GENERAL OVERVIEW

Origination effectiveness is a function of number of variables; the most significant is the quality of the human resources. The process of ensuring that the required human resources are constantly and appropriately provided for in an organization is known as Human resources management (HRM). Human Resources Management entails a number of interdependent activities such as Manpower planning, Job analysis, Recruitment and selection criteria, Job placement and re-orientation, Compensation Management, Training and Manpower Development etc. The cardinal aim of these activities is to improve and maintain quality manpower, through formal and informal systems of behvaioural change process which ensure that necessary skills, knowledge, and attitude to function effectively and efficiently are acquired by these human capital of the organization.

These skills are usually acquired through well structured Training and Development Pogramme. Unfortunately, most Training and Development programmes usually fail to bring about attitudinal change because often times, Training and Development are not effectively linked with manpower planning nor accepted as a legitimate management activity. It usually considered a responsibility of outsourced training and development specialist. Employers commitment to employees training needs is limited and Management development is often characterized with a “sink o swim”philosophy. Nigerian Management still relies on sending Mangers on courses rather than ensuring and encouraging self-development. Training consists of planned programmes designed to improve Employees knowledge, skills and attitude toward a job.

According to French (1974),  “Training is the process of acquiring basic skills needed for immediate or relatively narrow application” Byars and Rue (1979) opined that “Training involves the process of developing skills, learning new concepts, rules or attitudes to increase the effectiveness of doing a particular job. It focuses on capacity building, knowledge, skill and attitude of organizational members, so that they will be prepared to taken up new responsibilities and challenges. Obisi (1996), asserted that “training is not one short activity, it is and should be a continuous one for individuals and organizational development. Development on the other hand is a long-term programme, designed to meet anticipated changes.

Lawal (1999) differentiated training form development on the basis of when? What? And who?

· Development is long-term and more embracing process than Training –when?

· In most cases, Training focuses on provision of technical skill while development aims at adding to the skills of the worker, imposing general knowledge and altering attitudes-what?

· Traditionally, lower level worker were trained while higher-level managers develop through experience gained.

Another related concept is learning.  It is acquiring and utilizing new knowledge, habits and attitudes in such a way that behaviour is modified. Learning is also a continuous process. People learn from past personal experiences, simulated cases studies and vicarious experience. A host of changes have taken place in the process of training. An entirely new paradigm for training and development has evolved. This paradigm has moved beyond the individual training focus of traditional times to encompass individual and organizational development and learning.   

The features of today’s training include:

1. The discovery that individual competency will not guarantee business success. For instance spending so much money to build one talent may produce individual stars, but may not lead to team success. This is to say that business is a team game; it requires collaboration and co-operation by all.

2. That a commitment to learning by all is better than investment in training, skills or competencies learned through in any classroom will inevitably be out dated, this is because there is usually a long time taken to assess people needs, create and deliver knowledge; all this makes the content to be out-dated.

3. The development through non-classroom experiences offers a more complete portrayal of how people learn.

4. Results of training are usually seen in behaviours, obviously the very hours spent at classroom training session can never be enough to modify employees’ behaviour.

5. Transfer of learning from training to action does not naturally occur because of the setting (classroom) where the training has taken place. Training should be activity based.

6. Training should create competitive organizations not just build individual competencies.

This new paradigm is called development and learning, which arose form Europe and has been copied by various nations of the world. It has the following assumptions:

1. That today’s competitive organizations combinations of individual competencies and organizational business world, individual skills are necessary but not sufficient.

2. Organizations have become living entities with personalities, cultures, habits and capabilities some of which include an organization’s   ability to learn and respond quickly to changes.

3. For managers to use training as competitive weapon, Training must change from having exclusively and individual skill portfolio, to having a broad band development and learning activities such as:-

- Theory and practice

- Current and future technologies

- Skills and system

- Short and long-term training

- Individual and organizational based

- Tied to strategic direction

In summary, the new paradigm tends to narrow the extremes of both training and development.

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The goal of the researcher is to empirically investigate the effect of training and development in the Food and Beverage Industry. The problem has to do with the present and future meeting of ever increasingly demand for flour in the baking industry. Most importantly, being able to give the poor their“Bread” as popularly said and also ensures that “Cake”  is available for the rich. It is pertinent to enhance productivity in this industry to meet up with the challenges and realities of the present time.  Productivity according to Koontz (1981)  can be expressed as input output ratio, within a given period and stipulated standard. Hence all factors of production should be used optimally, with more focus on training and manpower development to enhance high productivity. 

1.3   PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

Managing human beings is the hectic task of a manager. So to determine the well being of all sundry, this research work is embarked to accomplish the following objectives:-

1. To establish socio-economic factors affecting the training of workers in Flour Mills of Nigerian Plc.

2. To furnish the management of Flour Mills of Nigerian Plc with necessary information that would assist it develop an effective modern training scheme.

3. To assert the impact of training on Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc performance.

4. To compare training in Milling (Production) department with training in other department of the organization.

1.4   RESEARCH QUESTION

In order to give credence to this research work, the following research question is posed:-

1. Would training act as an antidote to reduce passage of defective products to the market?

2. To what extent does the lack of state of the facilities affect workers ability to put into practice, skills acquired during training?

3. What can be regarded as the criteria for training of workers in Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc?  

4. Will external training programme produce better results when compared to training carried out internally?

5. Is training the solution to expected quality and desired level of productivity, effectiveness and efficiency.

1.5   SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

Though, a lot of works have been done by various researchers on this subject matter: “Effect of training and development on productivity”, not much has been done focusing on how subject matter affects productivity of Flour Mills of Nigerian Plc. This research work in intended to provide the organization and the its workers with modern technicalities, skills to attain higher productivity with lesser man-hour.

This research work would shed more light on the significance of training and development, and the role it plays in the survived and existence of a business organization.

The research work will be useful also in the following ways:-

1. Contribute to the wealth of knowledge or existing literature on the subject matter.

2. Echo the benefits and importance of training and development to the top management of organizations.

3. It will equip the workers with the right tools, skills and attitude for the specific job they are employed for, with regards to the Milling Industry.

4. Recommendation to be preferred will enhance quality and desire level of productivity, effectiveness and efficiency.

1.6   RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

Below are hypothesis, which this research work seeks to test:-

Ho: There is no relationship between job status of worker and their opinion on the effect (benefit) of training on job performance.

H1: There is relationship between job status of a worker and their opinion on the effect (benefit) of training on job performance.

H0: Theless opportunities of workers participating in training, the less prospects for promotion and more tendency for labour turnover.

H1: The more opportunities of workers participating in training, the more prospects for promotion and less tendency for labour.

H0: training does not account for improved quality and higher productivity in the milling process, to meet the taste and demand of the customers (mostly bakers).

H1: Training accounts for improved quality and higher productivity in the milling process to meet the taste and demand of the customers (mostly bakers)

1.7   SCOPE OF THE STUDY AND LIMITATIONS

The Food and Beverages industry is large with various individual units (firms), it will be practically impossible to deal with the entire industry without limiting our scope to a case study. So, the subject matter “effect of training and development on productivity” will be focused on Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc. Furthermore, within the organization, the study is restricted and applied to the production department (i.e Milling Process). Limiting study to production department is to solve a specific problem facing performance and productivity, thus making contribution to knowledge; but subject to these constraints:-

i.  Time

ii. Finance   

1.8   DEFINITIONS OF TERMS 

HRM: Human resources management

FMN: Flour Mills of Nigeria