IMPACT OF RECRUITMENT METHOD ON THE NIGERIAN CIVIL SERVICE

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.
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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.