CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
OF THE STUDY
The rate of increase in
population in the world is fast growing especially in developing countries like
Nigeria, that societal demands for essential goods and services are so much on
the increase that government owned companies and industries cannot meet up with
these demands. The government being aware of these pertinent problems created a
healthy environment in which some multi-nationals, the societal demands for
services and goods have been satisfied, but not completely.
Further, since human beings are insatiable and the
satisfaction of a problem leads to another, the society at large demanded for
some other smaller commodities in which
the government owned and multi-national companies
cou demands because of either disturbance in their production schedules or the
small quantities demanded. The government therefore gave legal authority by way
of edicts
to interested
individuals to establish their own small-scale companies of their choice. Not
only that they were given legal authority, they were given loans by government
to set up financial institutions to monitor and supervise the operations of
these small scale industries.
Agason
Nigeria limited an example of such a small scale company established under such
edicts: it is purely a one man business which was established in 1990, but it
started production in 1994. It is a soap manufacturing company located in
Owerri industrial layout in Imo state and has a staff capacity of thirty, made
up of three supervisors graduates, and the rest of the staff are semi-skilled
and unskilled workers. Her products are Anchor quality bar soap, ladder bar
soap, Anchor and ladder tablets.
The organizational
structure is such that the owner does all the managerial functions and every
worker is expected to report to him before any actions are taken. But the
company has not really received the financial assistant from banks because of
lack of personnel and poor managerial capability of the owner. But it should be
noted that whatever may be the organizational goals or activities of any
company, it can only be achieved and implemented through effort and
capabilities of people. Otherwise the organizational structure must be manned
and staff properly. Therefore it can clearly be put that the appropriate
management of human resources is an essential responsibilities in all business
regardless of size, in fact, the smaller the business, the less important it is
to select the right persons for the right job.
The question now become
who then selects the right person and how did it start in small scale
organizations. Small scale organization has been with man, since the creation
of man. Man has produced controlled and sold his commodities before now, and it is on history that every organization started as a
small scale. During the early stages, man was regarded as an adjunct to machine
which will be used fullest and discarded when not productive. This theory is
regarded as “factor of production approach” or "commodity approach” and was
Taylor and founded his associates. It by is the scientific management
principle, and they argued that if wages are tied to the units produced, a
worker will produce more units to get more money.
This approach gave rise to paternalistic management;
which means management should show a fatherly protection towards the employees.
It was predominant during the 1920s and replaced the commodity approach. The
paternalistic benefits ranged from loans and appointment of welfare officers whose
duty was to improve the welfare of employees.
During the 19th century, some group of
persons tried to intervene in industrial affairs to support the position of
underprivileged factory workers at the mercy of greedy employees. This process
was known as social reformer and was greatly propounded by Lord Shaftesbury and
Robert Owen they stood outside the organization and work place to criticize the
behavior of employers and induce some changes. Personnel manager were appointed
and provided with the frame of reference for the appointees to work within. It
is important to that these companies under study were small scale
companies.
The social reformer gave birth to the “Benevolence” which stage of personnel
management and was developed by Quaker Families of Cadbury and Rown tree and
the Lever brothers it appointed welfare officers who were given specific
responsibilities for improving the lot of employees. They provided goodies for
the employees because they partly desired them and they included childcare and
health screening the benevolence” or “Blean Approach “. Employing At this organization stage, were taken further
step in increasing their size, specialization was emerging in the management levels
and it led to the growth of personnel work , which school of thought influenced
the human bureaucracy stage in the development of personnel thinking, which was
in many ways a reaction against scientific management.
The human relation approach appealed immediately to
those who were concerned about industrial conflict and the bad results from
scientific management. The main advocate was Elton mayo (1993). The central
idea was to emphasize informal social relationships and employee morale as
contributions to organizational efficiency. It let to the concern, collective
opinion or negotiation stage where appointed as their accredited
representatives. Employee shifted towards bargaining with the representatives
on at least some matters. The personnel manager actively participated in the
bargaining since he had acquired bargaining expertise.
The human relations
view gave a number of benefits to employees; they were paternalistic determined
by management with more input from employees. Management felt the need to
maintain good relations with employees because it believed this would lead to
high performance. It thus, provided benefits not because employees demanded or
needed such benefits but because it wanted to buy over the employees as a
strategy for achieving its own objectives. It was popularized by the Hawthorn
studies, which demonstrated the effect of framework and co-operation on
performance.
The last stage is the manpower analyst, associate
human resources. There is also the u utilize and improve human resources. It
assesses what manpower will be needed, decides what manpower in an organization
is likely to have in the future, and take actions to ensure that supply meets
demands.
This last stage is where the problems of personnel
management lie in small scale organizations; this research will look deeply
into the functions and problems of personnel management and ways of improving
and combating them.
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