Staff Development And Organisational Performance In United Bank For Africa (U.B.A) Branches

Introduction

1.1. Background of the Study

Everything in the world changes and it becomes evident that nothing last forever. The world is changing everyday bringing both opportunities and threats to human beings in general, and to organizations in particular. The challenges ahead, more than ever before, require organizations, industries and societies to change, and to keep changing, in order to survive (Ongori and Nzonzo, 2011). Change may be planned, proactive and about creating the future. Similarly, the business world is continuously changing; organizations will need to provide their employees with training throughout their careers. If they choose not to provide continuous training they will find it difficult to stay ahead of the competition. Training will keep employees motivated. New skills and knowledge can help to reduce boredom. It also demonstrates to the employee that they are valuable enough for the employer to invest in them and their development. Training can be used to create positive attitudes through clarifying the behaviors and attitudes that are expected from the employee. It is cost effective, as it is cheaper to train existing employees compared to recruiting new employee with the skills you need (Othman, 2009). Training can save the organization money if the training helps the employee to become more efficient.

Performance refers to the accomplishment of something or mere working effectiveness. In an organization performance is realized at the levels of organization, process and individuals and the interrelationships among these will define the vantage points of the organization. In contributing to the overall goal of the organization, training and development processes are implemented as this benefits not just the organization but also the individuals making up that organization.

It is expected that industrial development need to offer plenty of employment opportunities to the poor from the perspective of poverty reduction (Sonobe et al, 2006:2). At the same time this implies that industrial development and expansion is positively correlated with well-equipped productive workforce. Despite the fact that many other factors play a key role in the success of a business organization, it is extremely dependent on its human resources filled with effective, financially solvent and competitive employees (Shelton, 2001:1). Without Staff no business can operate in any way. Human resource is the key and valuable resource for the success of organization in order to successes in lucrative business that determines its ultimate goal. The nominal availability and/or the collection or mob of people cannot suffice to guarantee for the success of the organization. At the same time, what matters is the technical quality and fitness of employees in every production process.

This requires series improvement of organisational performance including training, support, effective communication and motivation. This is an important precondition to be overseeing for an organization to be able to competitive in the technologically advancing global markets. In due course the survival of an organization implies the prosecutions of sustainable competitive advantages within the framework high performance, competitiveness and advancement of the knowledge and skills level of employees.

Bank For Africa (U.B.A), a member of the east African holdings, has its well-designed strategic plans to be a major investor in agro business in Nigeria, both in oil and gas products & process industries. The company established during 1995 with an initial investment of 87million birr in a total land area of 870 hectares. Currently, the company has managed to plant about 600 hectares of tea & 200 hectares with fire wood plantation. As the Oil and gas sector is growing fast, the demand for oil and gas product is increasing rapidly as well. Therefore, oil and gas sectors (like Bank For Africa (U.B.A).) require effective and efficient performance to produce competent and consistent quality products. To achieve these main objectives, employees are the most important part of the organization that plays vital roles. Unless employees are capable enough to the job they are assigned to work, the output of the organization will be affected either directly or indirectly. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to assess whether Staff development has effect on performance and organisational performance in Bank of Africa (U.B.A).

1.2. Statement of the Problem

Nowadays, in this globalized world the oil and gas sector becomes profitable, competitive and plays an important role in economic advancement and development of the country. In our country Nigeria also the oil and gas sector becomes competitive and a key for economic growth and development. UBA is one of the leading oil and gas sector. Lack of necessary skills, competencies and qualities to perform oil and gas transactions would result into poor performance that creates customer dissatisfaction. They must have the necessary skills and competencies required to do their jobs through training. Development is the tonic employees need to enhance their performance and potentials that will in turn enhance organization effectiveness. Currently many organizations in Nigeria and indeed the oil and gas sector engaged in staff training. However, for a certain condition staff training effect on organizational performance appears little or negative. Hence, the main reason that the researcher wanted to conduct this research was to investigate the effect of development on organizational performance in UBA.

Understanding the effect of staff development and organisational performance primarily helps to create competent and well performed work force. It will also enable the organization to design effective training system which is fit with the overall vision and mission. so far it also helps to minimize unnecessary costs which can be incurred as a result of less important development. The study, therefore, focused how providing training for employees of UBA would improve their performance. Those organizations which develop a good training design according to the need of the employees as well as to the organization always get good results (Partlow, 1996; tihanyi et al., 2000;Boudreau et al., 2004). It seems that training plays a very vital role in the employee as well as organizational performance in general. Effective training should be systematic and continuous i.e. training must be viewed as a long term process, not just an infrequent and/or haphazard event (Tannenbaum et.al 1992; Wexley et al.,1991). Hence, the aim of this study was to identify the effects of development on organizational performance.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The Purpose of the study is to evaluate Staff development and organisational performance in UBA branches

1.4 Objectives of the Study

The specific objectives of this study are:

To identify the effect of Staff development on organizational performance of UBA.

To identify how the management, measure the achievements gained from Staff development on performance, in accordance with the organizational goal.

Examine the level of understanding of the management and employees about the effect of Staff development on performance.

To identify the major factors that affects the effectiveness of employee development and training in the organization.

1.5 Research Questions

Realizing the greater importance of employee development and training in achieving organizational goals through enhancing performance, this research addressed to answer the following research questions.

Does Staff development affect the level of performance in UBA?

What are the methods used by the management of the organization to measure the effects of Staff training on the level of performance?

Do managers and employees of an organization fully understand the effects of Staff training on performance?

1.6 Hypotheses

H0 there is no significant relationship between Staff development on organizational performance

H1 there is significant relationship between Staff development on organizational performance

1.7 Significance of the Study

This study tried to give us some insight into the effect of employee development in the engagement to pursue their intention in these very competitive markets in the globalized world. The outcomes of the research further serve as an input for business organizations to develop and/or re-examine their human resource management strategy with particular relevance to employee development as a key to success factor for performance.

The findings of the study in the oil and gas business sector under the study to look them in detail and identify gaps with possible remedies to strengthen the performance of their employees. It can also serve as an input for those who want to do further research in the area.

1.8 Scope & Limitation of the Study

This study mainly focuses on employees training component of the human resource development in selected oil and gas sector. It is limited to the data/information obtained from the oil and gas business sector which is UBA and may not represent all oil and gas businesses. Time, resource, lack of access of the right data and up – to – date literature in the study area are the most constraints in the study that limits the scope to the above mentioned business. The study presents an analysis of training & development on organizational effectiveness.

It tries to see the concept of training &development, the linkage between training & human resource development. It also assesses the effects of Staff training & development on perfo

rmance & employee motivation in the context of Bank For Africa (U.B.A).

1.9 Definition of Terms

Staff

All the people employed by a particular organization.

Staff Development

Refers to all the policies, practices, and procedures used to develop the knowledge, skills, and competencies of staff to improve the effectiveness and efficiency both of the individual

Organizational Performance

Refers to how well an organization is doing in reaching its vision, mission, and goals.

1.10 Organization of the Study

The research paper is organized in five chapters, whereas the first chapter contains; background of the study and introduces the research question, elaborates the objectives, indicates its scope and limitations. The second chapter reviews relevant literatures related of Staff development. The third chapter presents the methods employed in the study. It discusses sources of data, methods of data gatherings, techniques of data analyzing and presenting. The fourth chapter presents the major findings of the study by comparing the theoretical literatures with practical and actual data gathered from the target population. Finally the fifth chapter summarizes and concludes the report and suggests the recommended course of actions.