Human Resource Management Skill Required by Business Education Graduates For Effective Management of Small And Medium Scale Enterprises in Adamawa

ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to determine the human resource management skills required by Business Education Graduates for effective management of small and medium scale enterprises in Adamawa State. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The population of the study was 5,722 made up of 5,687 of managers of small and medium scale enterprises registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, Yola, and 35 Business Educators teaching at tertiary institutions in the State. A simple random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 409, comprising of 374 managers of small and medium scale enterprises and 35 business educators, drawn through Yaro Yamane formula for a finite population. A structured questionnaire made up of 45questions designed on a 5 point Likert Scale rating on human resource management skills required by business education graduates for effective management of SMEs was designed. The instrument was face-validated by three experts; one from Measurement and Evaluation, Science Education Department, Modibo Adama University of Technology (MAUTECH) Yola, and two from Business Education Unit, Department of Vocational Teacher Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The reliability index of .76 was obtained after conducting a pilot test in Nsukka Local Government of Enugu State, using the Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient. Data was analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer research questions, and t-test statistic to test null hypothesis 1 – 3 at 0.05 level of significance, with the use of SPSS 16.00 version, and ANOVA was used to test null hypothesis 4 at 0.05 level of significance and 319 degree of freedom. The result showed that there are some human resource management skills required for effective management of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in Adamawa State, namely; employees recruitment and selection skills, employees training and development skills, employees compensation skills and employees relations skills. The study recommended that school administrators should ensure that business educators are sponsored on retraining programmes that border on human resource management development skills at least once a year to ensure that they become conversant with what to teach and how to teach it. It was also recommended that in order to make the art of teaching and learning of business studies responsive, business education students should be exposed to skill training needs in the area of small and medium scale enterprises so as to become self-reliant upon graduations. The study further recommended that institutions of high learning in Nigeria should as a matter of fact partner with the private sectors to create exchange of training programmes and exposures needed to acquire the human resource management skills needed to make small and medium scale enterprises thrive in Adamawa State in particular and Nigeria in general.