ABSTRACT
This research study probed the problems of recruitment in Nigerian State Civil Service and to determine the extent of utilization and justifying the recruitment policies in recruitment process. Recruitments as the process of searching for prospective employees and persuading them to apply for employment in the organization. During recruitment only those with the ability attitude and aptitude needed by an organization to achieve its goal will be recruited as those qualified for the job to ensure high productivity. The term Nigerian Civil Service is used in this study work to refer to both the federal and state civil service. Moreover the research work is concerned with the recruitment problems in Anambra State Civil Service. Based on the above statement the study tries to unravel the problems bedeviling the Anambra State Civil Service as it affect recruitment of civil servants. Questionnaire are used to collect data and are analyzed in stratified random sampling method used to draw sample of one hundred and twenty questionnaires from twelve ministries and extra-ministerial departments grouped into the four major categories of grade levels. Descriptive survey design was employed and descriptive statistics used for the analysis. The survey identified factors such as increasing pressure for employment, utilization of informal sources of recruitment, long military era, lack of independence of the service commission and delegation of recruitment functions as the prevalent problems affecting recruitment in the State Civil Service. As results of these problems job description and standard personnel requirement were not adequately used in the recruitment process especially at the lowest category of grade levels. However, the findings, the researcher recommended that the federal government should promulgate laws that will protect employees in the public sector. Subjective and informal sources of recruitment should be emphasized, and instead sources from educational institutions and professional organizations should be encouraged. It was also recommended that remuneration of the state civil servants should be increased to meet with the federal and the public sectors. State Civil Service should utilize job description when embarking on actual recruitment exercise and personnel requirement should be developed to meet position classification in the service. Finally, government should reduce their interference with politicians in the recruitment of civil servants. They should set up a body that will be responsible for monitoring the recruitment exercise in the civil service with a view to ensuring that government policies with regards to recruitment are strictly adhered to
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The word civil service in Oxford Dictionary means the government in a country. The civil service handbooks (1976:15) also defines “Civil Service as a body or an organ of government, which enjoys continuity of existence and they all work on pensionable appointment, it comprises of all servants of the state other than holders of political and judicial officers who are employed in a civil service and whose remuneration is wholly and entirely out of money voted by parliaments. Based on the above postulation, the recruitment into the civil services is vested in the federal civil service commission or State Civil Service Commission as provided by in the Nigeria Constitution. With the civil service rule (1978), direct
appointment to state public service may be made in any of the following as
trainee on pensionable post hold or based on contract against a pensionable or post for specified period etc.
The availability of a competent and labour force does not just happen by chance but through an organized and articulated recruitment exercise. Recruitment is a process or a set of activities used to obtain a sufficient number of the right people at the right time from the right place (Nicels et. Al 1999). Its purpose is to select those who best meet the needs of the work
place, and to develop, maintain a qualified and adequate workforce through which an organization can fulfill its human resource plan. The efficiency and effectiveness of any workplace (whether the private or the public sector) largely depend on the individual in the work. A recruitment process begins by specifying Human Resource requirements (numbers, Skill mix, levels, time and frame), which are the typical result of job analysis and human resource planning that activates the next phase in the recruitment process, which is attracting potentially qualified candidates to apply for vacant positions in an organization (Baid 1999) says recruitment is a process to do with quality of people, a company/organization can attract. This can be done through (internal sources) and (external sources) which is within and out organization. After the phase, the
organization should device means of selection to help sort out the relative
qualification of the job applicants and examine their potentials for being goods performers in a particular job (Jones 2000). Those tools include applications and interviews which go into reference cheeks and test. The essence of these recruitment activities is for the organization to appoint/employ the best applicant with the right ability, temperament and willingness for the job. Recruitment of personnel for civil services is one of crucial tasks of modern government and it les in the heart of the problems of
personnel administration (Basil 1994). The State and Federal Civil Service Commissions serve as employment agents for the Civil Services in Nigeria and they control the recruitment without a fee (Nwachukwu2000). Specifically, the authority for recruitment into the State Civil Service is the State Civil Service Commission. However, the Commission delegates powers to State Ministry and extra-ministerial departments to recruit junior staff to posts graded GL 01 – 06 (Gazali, 2006).
The state civil service system emphasizes uniformity, standardization and transparency (Babaru, 2003) in recruiting competent applicants. Before the military takeover of government in 1966, the civil service has played a Central Role and a very important role that has sustained the system for a very long time
and in that it has given the military that legitimate instrument or instructions it
needed. The military was able to carry all Nigerians along in spite of their weakness and autocratic leadership. For instance, in 1988, the then President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, General Ibrahim Badmosi Babangida carried out some fundamental changes in the civil service in his 1988 Budget speech to the nation. Incidentally, what appeared as a mere budget turned out to a major Structural Civil Service Reforms. The Reforms touches many areas in civil service. Remember the
study should be restricted to recruitment and its allied matters in Anambra State. The Civil Service emphasizes that the recruitment should be in uniformity and transparent in recruiting competent applicants. Despite this emphasis, it is perceived that the recruitment process lacks equity and transparency, making it difficult if not impossible to recruit the best qualified applicants for available job in the service.
1.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The Nigeria Civil Service is one of the means through government in power tries to legitimate itself and support from society. It is a means government exercises their power to the masses. The Nigeria civil service comprises federal, state and local government service and it is this machinery that government give or carries
out its basic objective. In accordance with the civil service general order, rules
and regulation guiding it in the pursuit of its goal and objective are applied to sustain its continuity of existence, professionalism and impartiality. That is to say that civil service forms the true channel through which the government fulfills its budget policies, promises and proposals to the people. Therefore the society sees the civil service as a continuous and indispensable machinery of government. As society grows, so also the burden or government and in turn the civil service but unfortunately, the civil service has been the main target of all critiques of corrupt practices in the country. This is because the civil service is expected to say how they spend the money. The civil service at times involves the critical problems such as low productivity caused by inefficiency, negligence, poor attitude to work, lateness to work, dishonesty, favoritism, official corruption and embezzlement and diversion of public funds and properties with the collaboration of politicians or senior executive officers and these which invariable resulted to some problems in the recruitment exercise in Anambra State Civil Service. Another is when the state government disengaged about three thousand and above civil servants without any reasonable facts making the applicants jobless over night and placed their choice of personality or recruitment of new employees in the state but politically recruiting some
personnel in the service. The Anambra State Civil Service could be attributed to
factors such as inadequate and invalid standards for evaluating job candidate (as a result of absence of job analysis), creating vacancies in various ministries and extra-ministerial departments and source of locating the potential applicants, transparency and independence of the recruiting authority, and the administrative machinery for determination of qualifications. Environmental influences such as technological, social, political and economic demands also cause problems that affect recruitment into the federal and state civil service. With all these the recruitment process requires monitoring these problems and its impact on the recruitment exercise in order to attract broad range of potential applicants, and screen out unsuitable applicants.
1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
This study, therefore aims at identifying the prevalent problems affecting recruitment in Anambra State Civil Service and to find out what the problems is, in order to determine the extent application of job description and job specification in the recruitment process. To ascertain whether the internal and external recruitment remained important in the civil service and to determine various ways and suggestion through which government employment polices
creates problems in recruitment means of minimizing and eliminating problems
in recruitment exercise in the civil service.
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
For proper investigation of the problems of recruitment in Anambra State Civil Service, the following questions are relevant to the researcher and also serve as a guide to the researcher in the quest for answers to the problems being investigated.
1. What are the problems affecting recruitment in State Civil Service?
2. What are the causes of these problems?
3. What are the sources of recruiting/employment used by civil servants?
4. Is there any method/sources of recruitment in the State Civil Service?
5. Is there any mode or pattern of recruitment in utilized and imposed problems in the State Civil Service?
1.4 HYPOTHESES FORMULATION
For the purpose of the study the following hypotheses were formulated in Null and alternative to give a suggestion answer to the problem investigated.
Ho: The Civil Service are there truly recruited through the rightful source
H1: The Civil Service is not truly recruited through the rightful source
Ho: Is there any factors influencing increasing pressures from applicants.
Ho: There are no factors influencing increasing pressures from applicants.
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The objective and importance of this study takes a natural look into problems of recruitment in Anambra State Civil Service which has been a corrupt practices and the concern it has given the past and present government. It is agreed that there has been many of government Reforms and Implementation Guidelines in the past.
The rationale behind the study is to create a solid basis for Nigeria, State Civil Service and to make standard and objective recruitment decisions by appointing the right applicants into the service and accurately matching them with position classification. A good recruitment exercise enhances productivity. It reduces cost as it reduces labour turnover rate and employee dissatisfaction (Nwachukwu,
2000). The findings and recommendations of this study will help State Civil Service Commission and other recruiting authorities of other nations especially developing countries to select civil servants who best meet the needs of the work place. The study will be significant to business practitioners as it relates to management of people because without managers and employees, there will be no business (Nickels, 1999). Academicians and students especially those in the field of public human resource management will benefit from this study since it
will serve as additional source of information in that discipline. The study will be
of immense help to other people and student who may wish to carry out other researches and it is also significant to the public because it is important to public, nation and society in general.
1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of the study is focused on the inherent problems in the State Civil Service. It is concerned with the problems of recruitment in Anambra State Civil Service, for fact that in the civil service, there are delegation of recruitment of civil servants from grade level 01 – 06 by the State Civil Service Commission to ministries and extra-ministerial departments.
Some ministries and extra-ministerial departments in Anambra State Secretarial were selected for the study:
State Civil Service Commission
State Ministry of Justice
State Ministry of Finance and Economic Development
State Ministry of Education
State Ministry of Health
State Ministry of Commerce and Industry Technology
State Ministry of Information and Culture
State Ministry of Lands and Housing
State Ministry of Works and Transport State Ministry of Women Affairs Department of Budget and Planning Office of the Head of State Civil Service
These are few selected ministries and extra-ministerial department is a very good representative of the State Civil Service. Remember civil service has been before now during the time of colonization, the founder and father of Nigeria Civil Service was laid by Lord Lugard as Governor General of Nigeria (1912-1919). The Nigeria Civil Service is the same as British Civil Service, because they are the people who set up the colonial days. Thus, at that time, the federal civil service is the central of civil service while state and the local government civil service in state level but receives allocation from the federal government for the services in the state
1.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The research work is constrained to some ministries in Anambra State Secretariat. Due to time constraint or limited time given for the study the researcher could not get all the information required for the study from the ministries so the major
impediments that restricted the scope where textbooks, journals, magazines,
internet work and other relevant materials that would provide or aid the researcher with needed information which were not available. Attitude of the respondents is another constraint. Respondents were reluctant to cooperate with the researcher because of divulging official information problem of recruitment in Civil Service in Anambra State. Finance is also another major constraint that withstands the limitation of this work because the researcher has only few months within which to complete the research work which is a very tedious work. The research work is still believed to give a comprehensive overview of the problems of recruitment in the Anambra Civil Service.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Recruitment is the process of looking for the best applicants and motivating them to apply for jobs in any vacant position in any organization. It is also a process of identifying and attracting good applicants to apply for job positions in an organization. It is also a way of selecting the right people at the right time from the right place. This recruitment information can be sourced through advertising, employment agencies, internet, labour unions and recommendations from existing employee.
Civil Service: As we can see, it has been defined as in the handbook (1976: p.15)
as a body or an organ of government which enjoys continuity of existence. Its members are not of short-term office. It comprises federal, state and local government and includes several Ministerial and Extra-ministerial departments, parastatal and corporations.
Government Policies/Regulations – This is rule and regulations that government makes that will guide the civil servant in the civil service. The order come from above to the lower people; the rules, General Order (GO), Financial Regulations, the Budget and Circulars etc these guide the activities of all the civil servants and they must adhere to the rules, regulations and order given to them.
Hierarchy – This is a systematic structure in an organization according to the process of their grade levels, that is, the highest hierarchy is the Minister in all the Ministries, the Commissioner is the highest in the State Ministries of the State Civil Service. So one can see the hierarchy, the chain of command and the line management being highly stated every employee knows who is above who or who is below who, who do you take order from and who take order from you so here everybody knows where he belongs.
This material content is developed to serve as a GUIDE for students to conduct academic research
PROBLEMS OF RECRUITMENT IN THE NIGERIAN CIVIL SERVICE (A STUDY OF ANAMBRA STATE)
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