CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF STUDY
The
development of any nation depends to a very large extent on the calibre,
organization and motivation of its human resources. In the specific case of
Nigeria where diversity exerts tremendous influence on politics and
administration, the capacity to increase the benefits and reduce the costs of
this diversity constitutes a human resource management challenge of epic
proportion in its public sector organizations. Human Resource Management (HRM)
is the function within an organization that focuses on recruitment of,
management of, and providing direction for the people who work in the
organization. Human Resource Management can also be performed by line managers.
Human
Resource Management is the organizational function that deals with issues
related to people such as compensation, hiring, performance management,
organization development, safety, wellness, benefits, employee motivation,
communication, administration, and training. Human Resource Management is also
a strategic and comprehensive approach to managing people and the workplace
culture and environment. Effective HRM enables employees to contribute
effectively and productively to the overall company direction and the
accomplishment of the organization's goals and objectives. Human Resource
Management is moving away from traditional personnel, administration, and
transactional roles, which are increasingly outsourced. HRM is now expected to
add value to the strategic utilization of employees and that employee programs
impact the business in measurable ways. The new role of HRM involves strategic
direction and HRM metrics and measurements to demonstrate.
HRM covers a wide range of
activities. The main area of study we will focus on will be incentives and work
organization. Incentives include remuneration systems (e.g. individuals or
group incentive/contingent pay) and also the system of appraisal, promotion and
career advancement. By work organization we mean the distribution of decision
rights (autonomy/decentralization) between managers and workers, job design
(e.g. flexibility of working, job rotation), team-working (e.g. who works with
whom) and information provision.
Civil
servants have a reputation for being lazy. However, people’s personal
experiences with civil servants frequently run counter to this stereotype. We
develop a model of an economy in which workers differ in laziness and in public
service motivation, and characterise optimal incentive contracts for public
sector workers under different informational assumptions. When civil servants.
Effort is invariable, lazy workers and working in the public sector highly
attractive and may crowd out dedicated workers. When effort is variable, the
government optimally attracts dedicated workers as well as the economy’s
laziest workers by offering separating contracts, which are both distorted.
Even though contract distortions reduce aggregate welfare, a majority of
society may be better off as public goods come at a lower cost. Where we depart
from several of the existing surveys in the field is to put HRM more broadly in
the context of the economics of management. To do this we also look in detail
at the literature on productivity dispersion.
Human
resource management encompasses the traditional personnel functions of
recruitment, selection, training, motivation, compensation, evaluation,
discipline, and termination of employees. Each of those tasks demands
particular skills. Increasingly, human resource management is being recognized
for its strategic importance to organizations and jurisdictions, and is moving
beyond its traditional position as a monitor of compliance.
This
course is designed to provide you with an understanding of the evolution of
human resource management policies and practices, and how
changes over time reflect shifting societal values and environmental
circumstances. Our emphasis is on improving understanding of the historical
context and current conditions of public sector HRM and developing basic skills
necessary to be an effectively manage human resources.
Within
the public sector, many of the most visible and interesting controversies, such
as affirmative action, employee ethics, sexual harassment, drug testing, and
labour-management relations, are part of human resource management. Human
resources also account for the largest percentage of the operating budget for
most public agencies, and public administrators must have both an appreciation
for the costs of personnel decisions and the ability to project those costs. In
addition, constitutional, statutory and regulatory requirements often constrain
personnel decisions and actions in the public sector, and public administrators
must have a working knowledge of these legal guidelines. Public administrators
must recognize the political aspect of human resource management. Human
resource management policies and techniques are developed, implemented and
evaluated in a public context. Public sector HRM practices effect the selection
and experiences of government employees which, in turn, affects public policy.
In order to make and implement effective human resource management policies,
administrators need an appreciation of the political and historical context in
which the policies have developed to date.
In
the current environment, a professional public administrator must be prepared
to advocate for the strategic importance of human resources, find ways to be
flexible and responsive to change, adapt to changing patterns of employment and
intersectoral relations, utilize technology to more effectively communicate
with prospective and existing employees, and develop more sophisticated and
effective methods of measuring and rewarding performance (Ingraham and
Rubaii-Barrett, 2007).
Management must work with people.
The proper use of people in an enterprise undoubtedly has a direct and
significant bearing on the productive efficiency of the enterprise. As a result
of the importance that managers assign to people who must work with them, terms
such as “human resources” “human capital” are used to demonstrate the
difference people make in the performance of a manager and consequently the
enterprise.
The
issues in personnel management are major factors of the human problems
affecting organization. These issues include:
a) Recruitment and Selection
Process,
b) Organization structure of
personnel departments.
The
recruitment and selection processes are to ensure the engagement of reliable,
competent and qualified workers. Fatiregun (1992:131) defines recruitment as
the process of accessing a job, announcing vacancy, arousing interest and
stimulating people to apply while selection is the process of choosing, for
excellence, through process of rejection or matching the applicants.
These
processes of recruitment and selection have been corrupted by the Nigeria
environmental factors (Nnadi, 2009) as shown below:
i. Political Pressure,
ii. Theory and practice of “Ima
Mmadu” or “Who you knew”,
iii. Federal character principle of
representation,
iv. Common state of origin among
staff in the same department.
Visit www.researchshelf.com
for complete project materials, project topics, past examination questions and
answers, assignments, research proposals,
meet fellow students online, meet with lecturers and ask for help, read
and post news (Campus News). Registration is Free Of Charge (FOC).
Note also that our
mobile app will soon be launched where you can download it and view all the
above features on your mobile devices.
No comments:
Post a Comment