CHAPTER ONE

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Management, the life-wire of any organization, is the most precious part of civilization. One of the most important responsibilities of any organization is the management and development of people. Without management, an organization is but a muddle of men and machines. It is the human factor, which binds a group together and motivates it towards goals. Management activities such as planning, organizing and decision-making are dormant untill the manager triggers the power of motivation in people and guide them towards their goals.

Personnel management according to Ojiakor (2011) is “that part of human resources which co-ordinates, controls and directs other resources, such as materials, money, etc to achieve the desired objectives. This definition has two implications. Firstly, personnel managers are concerned with managing activities involved in optimizing the performance of the human resources.

 Ibekwe (1984) defines personnel management as the directing, co-ordinating and controlling of all the responsibilities for supply of required human resources and optimizing their performance.

Adam (1966) defines personnel management as “the organizing and training of people at work with the objective of getting each employee to make the highest possible contribution to the success of organization and to be happy in his work”.

Therefore, personnel management is indispensable to all organizations and other collective enterprise since industries and organizations are purely profit oriented. It is quite a big responsibility on the part of employer to make the working condition suitable and attractive to the employees for maximum output. The sole responsibility of this working condition is channelled through the personnel manager who serves as link between the employees and the employer.

Sometimes, organization performs badly in the short run because of adverse external circumstance beyond managements ability. All these shortcomings of personnel management moved the researcher to study the problems of personnel management based on selected business organizations in Aguata Local Government Area.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

There are shortcomings in the management of the selected business organizations. These organizations include Rozons hotel and G.U.O transport company all in Aguata  Local Government Area. Personnel management service has certain problems militating against its efficiency, which is assumed to be.

Lack of understanding among the personnels and the management lacks skills in the field of work and also may be inadequate working equipment and facilities. This may imply that in spite of the effort of these organizations personnel management programme has certain factors hindering its progress. It is therefore the intention of this research to find out the actual problems of the personnel management in the selected business organizations and its prospects with a view to recommending the ways and means of solving the problems for its optimal performance.

THE PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The main purpose of this study is to examine the problems of personnel management and its effect on workers productivity in the selected business organizations in Aguata Local Government Area.

Specifically the study is also aimed to

a        Evaluate how communication process affects the personnel management in selected business organizations.

b.      Determine how the working condition at the organization favourable to workers.

It is hoped that discovery of these problems will enable the managers of the selected business organizations to become effective managers thereby making himself and people working for him happy.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

To facilitate the advancement of the study, the researcher raised the following research questions:

i        To what extent is the working condition at the business organizations favourable to workers?

ii       How does communication process affect the personnel management and workers in the selected business organizations in Aguata Local Government area.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The researcher hopes that at the end of the study he will give solutions and possible recommendations to the problems posed by the personnel management.

The significance of this study is also aimed at benefiting managers especially in the selected business organizations who organize, control and direct all the human resources in business organizations in order to achieve a common goal. It is also hoped that this study will be beneficial to those in the organization and be of immense value to students of this discipline who would like to explore more on the study of the problems of personnel management.

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

        The scope of this study is limited to the problems of personnel management in the selected business organizations in Aguata Local Government Area. Again, the time allowed to complete this research may be short, and there might be financial constrain because this research may require a lot of fund to prepare and distribute questionnaires and he final report.