THE APPLICATION OF BENCHMARKING AND TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) AS TOOLS IN GAINING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

THE APPLICATION OF BENCHMARKING AND TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) AS TOOLS IN GAINING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: A STUDY OF MAY AND BAKER PLC AND UNILEVER NIGERIA PLC

ABSTRACT

The Application of Benchmarking and Total Quality Management (TQM) as new technology philosophy is one of the contemporary issues in the mind many management scientists and this is focus of this study. In the past, there was often this confusion in the mind of an average consumer in a developing country like Nigeria regarding the choice of the imported product he preferred, whether it is “the made-in-America” or “the made –in- Japan” especially in the area of electronics. But today, the case is different because he would readily prefer “The made –in- Japan” to “the made-in-America” product. Yet, most of the technologies applied in manufacturing the Japanese products originated in America. The secret behind the Japanese success story is anchored on a common management philosophy which the Japanese called “KAIZEN”, or the Total Quality Management (TQM) and this is the subject of this inquiry. Total Quality Management as a management philosophy is the brainchild of American scholars such as W.E. Deming, Joseph Jorum, Philip Cosby, Armgund and a host of others but it was given a practical relevance by the Japanese.

        Some attempts have been made to define Total Quality Management (TQM). According to Ramsey and Roberts (1992),” TQM is seen as people focused management system that aims at continual increase in customers’ satisfaction at continually lower real cost.”

Also, Ewurum (2001) states that the goals of TQM are to integrate all parts and processes of an organization in order to achieve continuous improvements in quality of goods and services along the line dictated by the customer. TQM aims at attaining a zero-defect products and Services by “doing the right thing first time and every time”.

        Another powerful tool supporting this study is the concept of Bench marking. Benchmarking, according to Mc George and Palmer (1997), is defined as “a process of continuous improvement based on the comparison of an organization’s processes or products with those identified as best practices. The best practice comparison is used as a means of establishing achievable goals aimed at obtaining organizational Superiority”. Bench marking does not end at comparing ones organization with that of the benchmark, it identifies the gap between its products and those of the benchmark and attempts to bridge this gap through a well planned strategy.

        To achieve adequate courage, this project has been divided into five chapters. Chapter one examines the background of the Study, Statement of the study, significance of the study and definition of terms.

        Chapter two covers general review of related literatures, theoretical frame work of the study, research questions and statement of hypothesis while chapter three discusses research design and methodology, research approach, sources of data, research instruments and method of investigation.

        Chapter four continued with analysis of data and data presentation while chapter five concludes the research work with summary of major findings, conclusions and recommendations.

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THE IMPACT OF EFFECTIVE HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICE ON ORGANIZATIONAL GROWTH

THE IMPACT OF EFFECTIVE HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICE ON ORGANIZATIONAL GROWTH (A STUDY OF STAR PAPER MILL LIMITED, ABA, ABIA STATE)

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this study is to know the impact of effective human capital management on organizational Growth. Every organization, no matter the nature and activities being undertaken by it, will not exist. This time, the other factors of production like materials, capital and machines will be meaningless if there are no human beings to harness them. The availability of manpower is not just the issue but its effective and efficient manpower on the organization enhance the need for human capital management. Therefore, this study has tried to unfold the basic functions of human capital management and its impact and effectiveness of organization growth. With references to impact effective human capital management of organizational growth, the impact of effectiveness, extent had quality of human capital management has been carried out at Star Paper Mill Limited Aba, Abia State as a case study. In view of this, the researcher conducted a detailed survey on this subject such as questionnaire, oral interviews and closely looked at the views of other Authors was also an immense help in this project. The result of this study was presented and analyzed using table of the study, recommendations and conclusion were made, and the APA style was used in the bibliography.

 CHAPTER 1                  

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Human capital management is that aspect of management that is concerned with all aspect of managing the human resources of an organization. Human Capital management involves the management of human capital at work irrespective of the type of organization in question, its products, size or structure, philosophy of its management must procure human resources of it to achieve its stated objectives. Human capital management practices spreads all the aspect of co-operate and organization activities. It therefore becomes the responsibility of all those who manage people in the organization as well as being a description of work of those who are employed as a human capital specialist. More especially, human capital management involves determining the organization and the use of human resources, recruiting and selecting the best available employees acting as liaison between the union and the government organization and handling other matters relating to employees will being.

However, many organizations have paid little or no interest in the effective human capital management which has resulted to how productivity high rate of employee interest and other ugly social menace, thereby hindering the organization growth. The growth of any organization lies solely on the growth and development of his employee. In a case where human capital management is not well practiced in any organization the growth of the employees will not be achieved and the result is that a stunted growth or declining profit will be recorded.

A satisfied work force is the cove strength of an organization and to maintain a satisfied work force the organization must be organized. For human resources that have been acclaimed, it must be vital and must be a useful resource among the organization resources. Any organization that must achieve its objectives must first develop its human factors or resources.

But, it is ironical that many organizations have no plan for growing their human resources. But budget of millions of naira and even Dollars have been spent in the growth of many organization. Billions is been spent on infrastructural capacity building, information communication, technology, but little or none is budgeted on the human resources that will control the infrastructural and the information communication technology. This remains the core reason why the infrastructure and the technologies acquired is not performing the purpose for which they were designed to do.

Comparing the practice of human capital management in both public and private sector, they are nothing to write home about, no structure of policy frame work can be identified, designed, grow and develop human resources in the center of the economy. This has been observed to be the main causes of the fall in the standard and quality of output in the economy and lack of compatibility strength with their foreign counterpart.

Growth and productivity is the only solution to persistence rise in the price of commodities in the economy together with the infrastructural and technological delay. This problem should be avoided by ensuring effective human capital management practice in the organization.

Organizations spend more time needed on infrastructural capital building and information communication technology believing it as the sure way to achieve the organizational growth objective. Infrastructure collapse upon infrastructure and technology failure is no longer news but a normal occurrence in the economy of Nigeria. Allocation of resource from one end to other is now the order of the day with no man to be held accountable for a crime. The entire shareholder in the industries running from pillar to pole asking what the problem is? The question that normally arises is “does effective human capital management practice leads to organization growth”. Like every aspect of human life, human capital management as we have seen did not start today, it has been since decades ago and it presently functions in every organization.

Although the modern theory of human capital has been developed over the past half century. The concept of human capital has been traced at least far back as the 17th century. Around 1691, Sir William Petty placed a value on labourers, estimated the value of human capital to demonstrate the power of England and estimated the cost of life lost in wars and other deaths.

In 1853, William Farr proposed that the present value of a person is not future earnings, which he defined as earnings  less living expenses, represented wealth in the same way as did physical properly and should be similarly taxed.

 

In working at the evolution of human capital management W.F Casio (1989:38), noted human capital management is a combination of a lot of other discipline and listed that it emerges from none related sources. They are as follows;

  1. Rapid technological changes that increase the specialization of labour associated with industrial revolution.
  2. The emergence of collective bargaining with constraints established for both Union and employees.
  3. The scientific management movement.
  4. Every industrial psychology.
  5. The government human capital practices growing out if the establishment of the civil service commission.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT:

Fredrick Taylor was concerned with systematic study of management techniques and procedure. He believes in the philosophy of, “The one best why” of performing each job to achieve maximum efficiency and productivity. Once labour and management understands themselves, the conflicts occurs between them will disappear.

HUMAN RELATION MOVEMENT: Much of the foundation work of this movement was done by How Throne work plant of the Western Electric Company in Chicago during the late 1920 and the early 1980. The research which was headed by Elton Mayor, sought to determine the effect of Illumination and other condition upon which workers and productivity are based. The human relation movement therefore grew out of the reaction against the impression ability of the scientific management school of thought. Human relation movement therefore advocate that workers are human beings and not just ordinary machines, that proper treatment of work force and also function is relatively new in the country as far as the late 1950. The countries wages employment in Nigeria like in many other countries such as Africa was a novelty. Economic activities centered on the family where there was no need for external recruitment of labour. But the advent of Europeans and the attainment of commercial activities gradually altered this picture; wage employment becomes the order of the day. It is through wages employment that human capital function evolved in Nigeria today.

MAN POWER PLANNING: Magginson (1981:121) defined manpower planning as a process of translating overall organization activity plans and programs into an effective work force to achieve a special performance. This definition suggests that there should be plan for them so that the set goals and objectives can be achieved. It also suggests that manpower planning is futurist in nature.

According to Stainer (1991), manpower planning is defined as a strategy for the acquisition, utilization, improvement and preservation of enterprises in human resources. Manpower planning aims to maintain the ability and improve the organization in order to achieve corporate objective, through the development of strategic and enhance the contribution of manpower at all time in the foreseeable future. The foregoing points show the fact that manpower is a continuous process and should be evaluated constantly because there is always a change in the society and within the organization itself.

Furthermore, Maggison proposed step in manpower planning and stated that, it operates as two organization level where range objectives and plans are made and sent to the sound.

STEPS IN STAFFING PROCESS:-

Studying

Determining

Taking

Training

Development

Long objectives and plan Overall human resources and requirement Inventing of present human resources Human resources required Program recruiting and selection
Short-term goal, plans, programs and budget Work force required by occupational categories of job skills and demographic characteristic Inventory by occupational categories of job skill and demographic characteristic Needed requirement or addition Plan for developing and upgrading the needs

Source: Human capital management, Human resources approach by I.C Maggison, (p: 121)

Manpower planning is an important practice in Human capital management and properly carried out by the organization, the benefits to be derived according to Finnegan (1973:89) include the following;

  • Determination of recruitment needed.
  • Anticipation of surplus to be collected by National Wastage rather than redound acnes or dismissal.
  • Indication of further training needed.
  • Provision of a basis for management development programs.

RECRUITMENT: Once human needs has been determined through manpower planning, recruitment settings is very necessary. Recruitment is part of the staff function which comprises of selection and placement.

It is the process of filling in existing vacancies in the organization. According to Edwin Flip (1980:131), recruitment is a process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for job in the organization. This suggests that recruitment seems to be Positive unlike selection, which is Negative because it rejects some people. Recruiting is usually based on the job need as developed by manpower planning. The view is upheld by Gluck (1980:693), when he pointed out that human resources planning action decision indicates recruiting. He gave his definition of recruitment as that set of activity which an enterprise uses to attract job candidates who has the ability and attitude need to help that enterprises achieve its goal. The method of recruitment by an organization may be generally classified as formal and informal methods.

Under formal methods, we have internal and external sources of recruitment. The Internal source is the means of filling job openings by the organization of the existing staff through the form of upgrading, promotion, transfer and job posting. Internal recruitment tends to increase the morale of the employees, save cost, and time through reducing the hiring and training procedure. It enhances effectiveness because the organization is aware of the productivity, efficiency and attitude of its employees.

According to Gluck’s, source of recruitment include internal job posting and biding friends of present employee and skill inventing. Examples are as follows;

  1. External work in agencies of private and public employment and executive search firm.
  2. Education institution and high school.
  • Vocational technical college and universities.
  1. Other Union Professional association military service and former employee.

In general, each organization recruitment is based on the peculiar circumstance that its face such as the number of vacancies existing and general state of the economy. SELECTION: It is a process of costing individuals who are most likely to succeed on job among those already recruited. The source of selection process depends on the effectiveness of the manpower planning and recruitment process. The essence of selection process helps in making decision as whether an applicant has the personal qualification that matches the job requirements. It must take into account constraint of time, money and the depth of available human resources.

Secondly, in selecting employees, there must be some criteria for measuring the successful candidate.

Thirdly, there must be prediction that can be used to estimate whether an applicant can or will meet the performance expected.

Fourthly, selection technique must be used to gather and evaluate the performance of the prospective candidate/employees.

From the above statement, it could be rightly said that, it is a decision making under uncertainty where one cannot be perfectly sure of an individual performance until he gets in with the job. But, selection enables us to a reasonable extent, how the performance of Individual can turn out to be accurate or not. Therefore there must be need to other vital concerning selection making is based. The view of Maggison, especially the second issue he raised concerning selection in line with Gluck (1981:675), he emphasized that to make an effective selection, managers must establish criteria to use selection as a process undergoes various stages.

PLACEMENT: After the selection process the need to place the employee properly comes to hand. This is very important because if the right man is selected in the wrong position to do or carry out a test, there is the tendency that he will not perform effectively. Therefore if a worker is to be motivated on production, he must be placed in the right position in order to carry out his duty well. The view was upheld by Musclemen and Highed (1969:299), when they asserted that even a right person in the wrong position could have a disturbing effect on the operation of the business. This shows that a wrongful placement of employees can cause less productivity not only to the management but to its workers adversely. It was highlighted by Piggott’s and Myers, that placement is not the trail action to be taken, it is a decision step, which consists in matching what the supervisor has reason to think, and now employee can do with the job demand. It offers among other things, like opportunity for their work promotional possibilities and pay.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT: After the staffing function and employees are placed on the job. Their performance may not be satisfactory because they could not have being perfect at the time of being trained. Therefore, in order to develop them so as to fit adequately into both the job and the organization they need to be trained. Gluck defined training as a means/system process of training the behavioural goals. This implies that employees have to acquire certain knowledge, skills and abilities that will enable them perform effectively in the organization which operates in a dynamically changing environment.

On the other hand, development involves preparing employees; development could be looked at as a process concerned with the improvement and growth of their capabilities within the organization programs and continues throughout the employees working years. The ambiguity of a training and development were classified by Stoner and Freeman (1992:388), when they differentiated training and development program in their words. Training programs are directed towards maintaining and improving current job performance. While Development programs seeks to develop skills for future job.

At this juncture, one may wish to ask how training of individuals can be established. Stoner and Freeman gave a possible answer on how managers can use these procedures to determine the training needs in individuals in the organization. They include;

  1. Performance Appraisals: Each employees work is measured against the performance standard or objectives established for his or her job.
  2. Organization Analysis: The effectiveness of the organization and its success in meeting its goals lies on its ability to analyze and determine where differences exist.
  3. Analysis of Job Requirement: The skill and knowledge specified in the appropriate job description examined and those employees without necessary skill or knowledge become candidate for a training program.
  4. Survey of Human Resources: Managers as well as non-managers are assessed to describe what problem they experience in their work and what action that is believed to be necessary for solving them. After these needs are identified, it becomes imperative and the various methods are open for training purpose. Generally, the methods could be on the job or off the job training. They include the following;
  • On The Job Training: Here the employees are shown how the job is done and they are accounted to do it under skill trade. Under the supervision of an expert, the trainee spends relatively a longer period in order to become perfect on the job.
  • Vestibule Training: These are procedures machines that are set up in his working areas called The trainee under the intricacies of the job at his or her own rate of understanding.
  • Sandwich Training: It becomes practical on the job experience with normal lecture. An example of this is the long vacation on the improvement program in higher institution.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

        Nigeria is one of the most popular country in Africa, with labour force and abounded natural resources. Paradoxically, the nation has witnessed slow economic growth despite presence of these resources. Noting this phenomenon, Udabah (1999:69) stated that although as abundance of natural resources might appear to give a country a head start on development nor does their absence guarantee backwardness as there exist many developing nations with abundant natural resources that comma potential value in the world market but still remains largely undraped. It is clear from this statement that human capital development is highly required for a meaningful economic growth.

1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

        The main purpose or aims of this research study are stated below;

  1. To evaluate the extent of practices of human capital development in the organization.
  2. To examine how effective human capital development practices will affect workers attitudes towards work.
  3. To evaluate the impact of organizational training problem on the workers productivity.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

        Both small and large business enterprises in some area have been abandoned due to their styles of human capital management practices. It is with this background that the study of the history of human capital management practices in Star Paper Mill Limited Aba, Abia State was based. This study will be essential to businessmen and women, lecturers, students, human capital management etc, because, its reference on this topic is a way forward. It will equally help to increase the increase the level of awareness and importance of understanding of human behavior as it relates to increase in the organizations growth.

1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

        In the cause of the research, I wish to provide answer to the following question:-

  1. Does your organization really have problem human capital management effectively?
  2. How does effective human capital management practice affect workers attitude to work?
  3. Does your organization have a training programme that can improve the skill and knowledge of the workers?
  4. Does the management practice adopted by your organization increase productivity?

1.6 SCOPE/DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

This project is based on the impacts of human capital management practices to the growth of organisation. It is only on how a good development of human capital and human resources of the organization good as it relates to the growth and development of such firms in quote.

1.7 DEFINITIONS OF TERMS

        Some terms used by the researcher perhaps to ease tension could pose some kind of difficulties to an average manager and their meaning are as follows:-

  1. Impact: – This is the powerful that the practice of management has created to the employee, organization, society and the country in Diaspora.
  2. Effectiveness: – This is a useful result that is wanted toward the implementation of this practice of human capital management of the organization.
  3. Human Capital Management Practice: – It is defined as the aspect of management is concerned with the recruitment development, utilization and accommodation of human resource.
  4. Economic Growth: – This is simply a sustained increase in the output of goods and services over a period of time. It serves as the yard stick by which the economic performance of a country or different nations measured.

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ANALYSIS OF MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT AMONG ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS

ANALYSIS OF MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT AMONG ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS

ABSTRACT

This study focused on the analysis of manpower development among administrative staff of tertiary institutions in Delta State. . The objectives of this study are; To analyse the benefit of on-the-job training and development programmes on administrative staff of tertiary institutions, to find out the benefit of off-the-job training and development programmes on administrative staff of tertiary institutions, to identify the challenges to effective manpower development of administrative staff of tertiary institutions, to determine the measures  for effective manpower training and development of administrative staff of tertiary institutions, to determine the extent manpower development has affected job performance of administrative staff of tertiary institutions.  Data for this study were obtained from both primary and secondary sources. The study has a population size of 6680, out of which a sample size of 377 was realized using Taro yamane’s statistical formular. Survey research design was adopted. Chi-square distribution table () were used to test the hypotheses. To ensure that the research instruments are valid, a conduct of a pre-test of every question in the questionnaire was carried out. For reliability of the research instruments, a test-re-test method was adopted using the crobach alpha reliability method the result and the result gave reliability coefficient of 0.61, which showed an evidence of internal and external consistency of the instrument. Findings indicate that; on-the-job training increased employees capacity to adopt new technologies and methods; off-the-job training enhanced employees chances of promotion; management inability to send employees for training is a challenge to effective manpower development; establishment of training centres is a measure for effective manpower development; manpower development  help increased employees output. Based on the findings, the study recommends that Statutory orientation programmes should be organized for all newly recruited administrative staff; Seminar, workshops and conferences should be organized periodically for administrative staff so as to equip them with the latest work methods and technology, Administrative staff should be encouraged to participate in international conferences, seminars and workshops and contribute articles to international journals by way of financial incentives, sponsorship, reimbursements and grants etc; Merit-based pay salary be introduced for administrative staff who have distinguished themselves in work performance and displayed excellent productivity; Each department/unit should float financial grant/loan for the departmental unit members, this will encourage high performance within the department /unit and healthy competitions between other departments and units;the state government in collaboration with the National Universities Commission, National Council for Colleges of Education and National Board for Technical Education should enhance administrative staff training grants and other needed resources.Download Full Material-N5000

Consequences of strike action on Nigerian universities

Consequences of strike action on Nigerian universities. A study of university of Benin Edo state

Abstract

The history of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)’s strike can be traced back to 1978, the period of the beginning of the decline in the oil boom, when the country faced the consequences of the failure by its rulers to use the oil wealth to generate production and a social welfare system. Military dictatorship had eroded deeply the basic freedoms in the society. Academic freedom and university autonomy were casualties of military dictatorship. The funding of education, and so of universities, became poorer. The factors required a changed orientation of the union of academics. However, questionnaires were administered to seek the opinions of the students in University of Benin (UNIBEN) and in Benson Idahosa University (BIU), Edo States and one thousand and fifty four staff and students were randomly selected. Nine hundred and seventy one respondents validly returned their questionnaire. From the analyzed data, it was observed that frequent strikes had adverse effects on the academic performance of students. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations were made that adequate measures should be put in place by government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) etc to check incessant strike in the educational system; and conclusively that government owned Universities should emulated private school owners by avoiding strikes and intensify efforts to convince ASUU on the evils of strikes to see that students would have enough time to study so that they can be able to face challenges in the Labour Market. This paper painstakingly appraised several of these issues and concluded that all stakeholders in the education sector and federal polity should  thread softly, be objective, rational, altruistic and magnanimous in order not to make the existence of true federalism (social, political, educational and economic cohesive existence of the people, peace and tranquillity) a fleeting illusion and a mirage.

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