THE ROLE OF PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT IN MANPOWER TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER TWO

2.0 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Some of the early pioneers on personnel management are:“FREDERICK W. TAYLOT (1968:72), he was the real father and driving force behind scientific management movement. He created important management techniques such as time study, method of study, freemanship, emotion, standardization of good, piece rate differential, cost control system. He preached cooperation between workers and management, he believed that with scientific management techniques, most of the conflicts in the industry(ies) would be removed.Although, he was not against unions and collective bargaining, he believed that the use of scientific methods in industry(s) would bring about settlement of disputes between labour and management. Just as he disliked employees oppression, he actually opposed the arbitrary exercise of authority by management. By applying the scientific management techniques, rules and procedures would be established that would be binding upon management and workers.

In his book “Principle of Scientific Management” he summarized this as:

Science not rule of thumb, Harmony not discord, Cooperation not individualism, and Maximum output, not restricted output.

The scientific management movement has had a great impact upon management, employee relationship.Another pioneer of scientific management is ROBERT OWEN, (1813:30) a Scottish textile manufacturer who wrote a book entitled “A new view of the society” He laid more emphasis on the workers. He advised other manufacturers to devote much attention to their “vital machines” (i.e. workers) as they did in ordinary machines, that workers are like children that need to be guided, pampered and protected.“HUGOMUSTEBERGY” (1913:102) is the father of industrial psychology. He published his book “psychology and industrial efficiency”. He is concerned with impact such as testing the effect of fatigue and bedroom, safety, merit rating and human engineering (human factor analysis and morale studies). Industrial psychologist have pioneered into experimental methods in personnel management.Modern personnel administration has developed in recent decades. The present personnel administration movement, dates back approximately to the period the United States Army developed a psychological examining Corps, this is a trade test section and morale section. All these sections devoted themselves to problems of military personnel; many men trained in these practices by army later became personnel managers in industry(s), applying experiences gained during the war.

In the intervening decades, because of wars, economic and social pressures, further enlightenment on the part of managers, governmental regulations and other influences, the scope of personnel administration has expanded and continued to expand to this day. In fact it is becoming difficult to differentiate between personnel administration and the administrative process of all management. The philosophies, which guide personnel managers have been made view presidents in their respective companies.

Personnel function includes:

Recruitment and selection
Salary(s) and wages administration
Employees welfare, health and safety
Training and development
Manpower planning
Administrative functions

1. Encourage and motivate each employee to develop and realize his true performance, potentials and actively assist him by counseling him periodically on his performance against objective and by recommending appropriate training and personnel development plans.

2. Ensures that his activity is staffed with competent individuals and that any replacement should be capable, trained and developed. In spite of this view of personnel department’s functions and administrative impact, one should bear in mind that there are sometimes variances in some organizations.

2.1 DEFINITION OF PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT

Personnel department is the department in an organization that is responsible for the recruitment, training and discipline of staff in conjunction with other departments in an establishment. It advertises vacant post and consequently appoints staff. It organizes refresher course for serving staff in order to update their skills. At the same time, it organizes induction courses for new staff. The personnel department keeps all records of staff and their performance and it also takes care of the welfare of the staff. The transfer of staff within the organization is one of the roles of personnel department: the department also handles promotion exercises.

Personnel Management

Employees constitute the most important resources of any organization. This is mainly because of the fact that the success of any organization depends critically on the efficiency and effective use of its manpower.In view of this, the management of personnel management is the responsibility of a specific unit called personnel or administration department in most of the business organizations.

While the individual mangers play their parts, the functions of the personnel department is to coordinate the activities involved in personnel management – staff recruitment, training and development and compensation, etc.