IMPACT OF
RECRUITMENT METHOD ON THE NIGERIAN CIVIL SERVICE
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria">INTRODUCTION
mso-fareast-font-family:Arial">The concept of personnel management is a common
term to mean management of staff in an organization. The conceptual approach
refers to the administration of staff matters in organizations. The operational
approach deals with what personnel officers naturally do. The major functions
of personnel management deal with the general administration performed by
personnel officers such as staffing, training programs, salary, administration,
motivation of workers, integration of the worker force and separation matters.
Personnel management is also responsible for handling staff matters such as
recruitment, selection and placement of employees in their various places of
work in organization, compensation, fringe benefit, integration of workers or
brings together the interest of the worker with that of the organization
objectives, so that worker don’t pursue their personal goals, motivation or
understanding the needs of the workers which brings better integration and
separation of workers through retirement, termination, dismissal of appointment
and death. It is much easier to describe what personnel officer do than it is
to define difference between an effective and an ineffective one. The personnel
officers often conduct his operating function without yardstick of excellence
and merely rate himself/herself against certain checklists of activities which
are carried on my many personnel officers have been excessively concerned in
recent years with activity and somewhat less about input. The system of
management by (MBO) proposes that the first step in managing would be a clear
definition of output expected. This would then followed by taking count of
limited resource available to achieve the objective and then the conduct and
control of activities. Because of the importance to personnel management in an organization
especially the teachers have choose this topic with a case study of Kaduna
State Civil Service Commission and also that their various instruments of data
collection will be explored and these includes, the questionnaire, interview
and documentary method.
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria">HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE CIVIL SERVICE
COMMISSION
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The
civil service in a developing country like Nigeria occupies the core position
in the business of planning and development of society, hence, Lewis (1966) refers to it as a crucial part of the
infrastructure, since the quality of all other public services depend upon the
quality of the civil service. He opines that development planning is hardly
practicable except a country establishes a civil service capable of its
formulation and implementation.
"Times New Roman"">
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"">The
quality of the civil service depends on the human resources and its careful
recruitment. A careful recruitment must hinge on a merit system. Unfortunately,
this has not been the case in Nigeria. This must have been in the minds of the
Udoji Commission (1974), who did not hesitate to point out that part of the
problems of the Nigerian Civil Service is due to its style of recruitment. The
commission was quick to observe that in Nigerian Civil Service vacancies were
not normally advertised, recruiting bodies relied more on unsolicited
applications, interviews were “education qualification-oriented” and its
duration is usually short and, as a result, no determined attempt was made to
discover traits, interests and abilities. Till date, nothing has changed.
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Eleanya
(1990) agrees with the observation of the Udoji commission in his (Eleanya’s )
view that, a policy on recruitment should be on the recruitment of the best
possible personnel for all job positions, the reason being that management has
found people to be the decision variable between the success or failure of an
organization.
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Continuing,
Eleanya blames the issue of not using merit in the recruitment process on
Federal Character when he posits that, the assessment of intellectual merit or
genius on the basis of geographical spread or Federal Character is not absurd
but reveals a mind that is diseased and fermenting with sectional bigotry. At
best such ideas are infantile, retrogressive and ludicrous in the extreme. The
weighing of area of origin above merit and competence cannot be divorced from
Nigeria’s present economic and political calamities.
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"">This
assertion also agrees with Achebe’s (1983), position on the effects of ethnic
base or “wrong and right” tribe in the recruitment process in the Nigerian
Civil Service when he observes that, the greatest sufferer is the nation itself
which has to contain the legitimate grievance of a wronged citizen, accommodate
the incompetence of a favored citizen, and more important and of greater scope,
endure a general decline of moraic and subversion of efficiency caused by an
erratic and corrupt system of performance and reward (recruitment).
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"">Emerging
from the above is the fact that, geographical spread or quota system breeds favoritism
as “political stakeholders” are asked to nominate candidates of their choices
for civil service positions. The effect is that personnel vetting of would be
personnel and the existing staff are sacrificed. It is self-evident that when
personnel are assigned responsible positions to areas they are not competent;
there will be absence or weaknesses in the internal control thus creating
opportunity for fraud, waste and unintentional errors to occur.
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria">LITERATURE REVIEW
mso-fareast-font-family:Arial">There are a number of resources that contribute
towards the success of any organization, such as manpower, money, machine,
material, information, idea, and other inputs. This analysis involves compiling
a detailed description of tasks, determining the relationship of the job to
technology and to other jobs and examining the knowledge, qualifications or
employment standards and requirements (Jain and Saakshi, 2005). After the job
analysis process, the recruiter sources potential applicants by creating
awareness for the existence of vacancies in order to attract the right kind of
people to be recruited from the right places and time. There are basically two
sources of recruitment where applicants can be drawn in any organization. When
using internal sources of recruitment 144 Afr. J. Bus. Management, the
organization turns to existing employees to fill open positions.
mso-fareast-font-family:Arial">The employees recruited internally are either
seeking lateral moves (job changes that entail no major changes in
responsibility or authority levels like transfers), or promotions (Jones et
al., 2000). Internal sources of recruitment are not expensive and are less time
consuming, compared to external sources. Another merit of internal sourcing is
that the employees are already familiar with the system, and the organization
also has information about their skills, abilities and actual behavior on the
job. When recruitment is conducted externally, the
organization looks outside for potential applicants. External recruitment is
likely to be used especially for lower entry jobs in periods of expansion, and
for positions whose specific requirements cannot be met by present employees
within the organization.
mso-fareast-font-family:Arial">There are multiple means through which an
organization can recruit externally, such as advertisements in electronic
(including internet) and print media, private and public employment agencies
(Prasad, 1979). The major requirements of the civil service are that it should
be impartially selected, administratively competent, politically neutral and
imbued with the spirit of service to the community (Gladden, 1948). The civil
service is indispensable to the functioning of the modern state (Basu, 1994),
that is why the condition of a society is largely determined by the performance
of the public service (Phillips, 1990). The civil service is the major
facilitators for implementation of the will of the state as expressed through
public policy. The key to most recruitment process in the civil service is the
notion of position classification, which is arrangement of jobs on the basis of
duties and responsibilities and the skills required to perform them (Denhardt
and Denhardt, 2006).
mso-fareast-font-family:Arial">This classification is derived from a thorough
job analysis. The use of position classification system is important in the
civil service recruitment process because it maintains an objective inventory
that connects positions to the tasks and skills required to fill them. Once it
has objective statements about positions, a civil service is able to source
potential applicants by creating awareness of the existence of vacancies. The
recruitment process into the civil service involves a number of problems
because of diversification of the civil service functions and the growth of
democratic and egalitarian principles. Some of these arise from the location of
the recruiting authority, methods or sources of recruitment, qualifications of
the employees and methods of determining qualifications (Basu, 1994). These and
other problems arising from the environment are monitored and appropriate
corrective measures taken in order to ensure the ability to recruit the right
type of persons for the right jobs based on the principles of merit and equal
opportunity for all.
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The research work is aimed at examining critically the procedure or policies
that might exist during the course of exercising the recruitment, selection and
placement exercise in Akwa ibom State Civil Service Commission and also to
enable know the system they are operating on:
mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">1. To identify the problems concerning
recruitment, selection and placement in Nigeria Civil Service.
mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">2. To explain recruitment, selection and
placement according to finding from civil service commission.
mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">3. To distinguish between recruitment,
selection and placement.
mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">4. To discover whether civil service
commission Akwa ibom is making use of quota system or fair representation among
their local government in state civil service
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria">DEFINITION OF RECRUITMENT
mso-fareast-font-family:Arial">Recruitment is a positive process of searching
for prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for the jobs in the organization.
When more persons apply for jobs then there will be a scope for recruiting
better persons. The job-seekers too, on the other hand, are in search of organizations offering them employment. Recruitment is a
linkage activity bringing together those with jobs and those seeking jobs.
mso-fareast-font-family:Arial">According to Edwin B. Flippo, defined
Recruitment as the “of searching for prospective employees and stimulating and
encouraging them to apply for jobs in an organization.” He further elaborates
it, terming it both negative and positive. He also says, that “It is often
termed positive in that it stimulates people to apply for jobs, to increase the
hiring ratio, i.e. the number of applicants for a job. Selection, on the other
hand, tends to be negative because it rejects a good number of those who apply,
leaving only the best to be hired.”
mso-fareast-font-family:Arial">According to Kempner says, that “Recruitment
forms the first stage in the process which continues with selection and ceases
with the placement of the candidates.” In personnel recruitment, management
tries to do far more than merely fill job openings. As a routine the formula
for personnel recruitment would be simple i.e., just fill the job with any
applicant who comes along.
PROCESS OF
RECRUITMENT
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria">Recruitment Process Passes through the
Following Stages:
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">I.
Searching out the
sources from where required persons will be available for recruitment. If young
managers are to be recruited then institutions imparting instructions in business
administration will be the best source.
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">II.
Developing the
techniques to attract the suitable candidates. The good will and reputation of
an organization in the market may be one method. The publicity about the
company being a professional employer may also assist in stimulating candidates
to apply.
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">III.
Using of good
techniques to attract prospective candidates. There may be offers of attractive
salaries, proper facilities for development, etc.
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">IV.
