HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT AND CORPORATE PERFORMANCES

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

PREAMBLE

There are basically four resources that organizations use to achieve their objectives. These resources are known as the four “Ms” in the vocabulary management. They are; man, materials, money and machines. Of these four, the most important element is unarguably the resources – man. The development of people in an organization will lead to improved performance.

Although business executives believe that people are the most important asset, some of these executive fail to invest in people.

Partial evidence abounds as to the connection between people development and financial performance. Companies that invest in the development of human capital seem to achieve better financial performance than those that do not. Training is one of the ways in which an organization can develop employees for improve performance. It helps to ensure that workers in an organization function effectively, through equipping them with required skills and knowledge and also up date their knowledge as condition changes. Many new employees come into the organization already equipped with skills and knowledge that will help them to start work. Others may require extensive training before they are ready to make such of a contribution to the organization. Majority, however, at one time or the other will require some type of training in order to maintain an effective level of job performance. While training may be accomplished on an informal basis, better results are usually attained through a well – organized formal training program. The question now is – does human capital development drive superior performance or does superior financial performance make it possible to take a more strategic approach to human capital development? The ability for profitable companies to provide better pay and better training opportunities than their competitors may lead employees to “blur engagement” which connotes involvement and superior contribution – with satisfaction, with pay.

The biggest challenge for managers is the ability to create a highly motivated human resource development unit. Modernization of human resource development and the transformation of human capital are efforts essential for the provision of excellent and high quality service to the stakeholders and client.

For years, companies have vigorously treasured key areas of their operations – from the success rates of new product introductions and productivity of manufacturing operations, to direct mail conversion rates and customer retention. The reason is obvious: brining desirable new products to market, squeezing the most from one’s most physical assets and gaining and keeping customers are all critical factors in a company’s success. Without concrete performance measures, effective e management of these areas would be impossible. However, while measurements of supply chain, research and development and sales activities has been common place, consistent and routine gauging of the performance of the work force – as well as the impact of the human capital investments – has been virtually non existent. The fact is that successful organizations today and in the foreseeable future will be those that are able to measure the business impact of the investment in people – whether that investment is employee recruiting, performance management, skills development or benefits administration.

For quite sometime now, attention ahs often been focused almost entirely on financial and physical assets, like cash, stocks, machines, equipment, land and building to mention but a few. However, the resulting human metrics can serve as a catalyst for change, providing a critical missing link for creating and sustaining competitive advantage for organization operating in an increasing knowledge intensive global economy.

Although employees are always treated as both assets and cost for their employers, most organizations have proven to be much more capable at measuring the cost side of human capital than the asset side. At a minimum, this imbalance results in inefficiencies in human capital management. Analysis shows that, in many cases, the imbalance creates a chronic under investment in human capital elative to other forms of investment. The result is sub – optimal performance on the part of most organizations, often accompanied by a sacrifice of long term productivity and portability in exchange for short – lived gains.

Improving the quality and the relevance of human capital measurement enables organizations to better understand their overall “people – related” strengths and weakness and identifying areas for improvement. It is essential to correct this situation. Any organization hoping to perform at highest level need to link investments in people to bottom – line business result.

The rise in human capital management in the 1990’s brought management scholars to debate on the linkage between the management of people and performance. A number of attempts were made to put empirical flesh on the theoretical bones of the resource based view and he specific human resources prescriptions. Some of these studies include; (1) A cross sectional study of U.S owner firms by Huselid, M.A (1995), he was that high performance work systems have an economically and statically significant impact on both turnover productivity and performance.

Huselid, M.A Jackson, S.E and Schuler, R.S (1997), did a cross sectional study on 293 publicly held U.S firms. They discovered that human resource can perform by recruitment, selection, training, performance appraisal and compensational administration.

The system of human resource practice can increase organization performance (Yeung and Ulrich, 1990).

For organizations given the present difficult business environment which is highly competitive, all organizations including banks have come to recognize the importance of having the best type of workers. The value that people can bring to services and products for customers depends on the competence and ownership toward work performance. Developing employees competence and commitment is an investment that would ensure organizations continued business success.

This study is therefore undertaken to show the relationship between human capital development and corporate performance, that is how human capital development will bring about increase/improved performance.

PROBLEM ANALYSIS

A country’s overall economic development and growth can be assumed to be particularly related to how the available human resources are harnessed towards stated goals and objectives. There is no doubt that developing an organization human capital will lead to improved performance.

A successful organization is one which has an effective human resources policy on ground. It is important to note that the task of managing resources is not an easy one especially when it comes to the management of people as resources. Since it is not easy managing people upon whom the growth and efficiency of all organization depend, adequate plans and strategies needs to be put in place which are aimed at acquiring the right personnel, and also fine turning such personnel, so to speak, in order that they may function optimally the realization of organizational goals. The problem here is to determine the quality of human capital development that will lead to improved performance; that is, the human capital initiatives that will help to increase performance.

This research work is aimed at addressing performance management through human capital transformation and development. In the fight of this therefore, the following questions merits serious consideration.

What is the relationship between training and performance of workers in the organization?

What is the relationship between mentoring and performance of employees?

What is the relationship between internship (on – the – job training) and performance of employees?

The above questions are therefore issues which are at the heart of this study

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The following are fundamental objectives of this research:

Ascertain the relationship between training and performance of workers in the organization.

Determine the relationship between mentoring and performance of employees.

Determine the relationship between internship ( on – the – job raining) and performance of employees.

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

In order to realize the objective of this study, the following null and alternative hypothesis have been formulated for testing:

HO:There is nor relationship between training and performance of Workers in the organization.

HI:There is a relationship between training and performance of workers in the organization.

Ho: There is no relationship between mentoring and performance of employees.

HI: There no relationship between mentoring and performance of employees.

HO: There is no relationship between internship and performance of employees.

HI: There is a relationship between internship and performance of employees.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The objectives of this study are stated above. It is important to point out here that this study is aimed at ascertaining performance of employees through human capital development.

It is important to understand the population; it may not be feasible to access the whole population, hence for convenience, a particular size or number is selected. This size is known as the sample size. In order to reduce the problem encounter in sampling organization as a whole; a sample of 30 companies and banks quoted in the Nigerian Stock Exchange were used for this study. These companies were used because of the ease and access to information on them.

This study centers on the development of human capital for improved performance, and it will cover such areas as: recruitment, supporting and investment in people using variety of means including, education, training, coaching, organizational development and human resource management as well as problems that may arise from the attempts at developing human resource in Nigeria organizations.

RELEVANCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

When completed, the findings from this study will apart from advancing academics on the subject of human capital development and corporate performance in Nigeria organizations, it will also be relevant to stakeholders, ultimately in arriving at an appropriate mix for decision to enhance their returns. It will also be useful in the following ways:

It will assist managers in the organization whose task is to sharpen the productive abilities and qualities of employees to achieve corporate goals.

This study will also be of immense importance to the employees in the organization, whose collective task will make or mar the organization.

This study will highlight the different aspects of human capital development and performance.

Researchers in the field human resource generally will also find the study quite useful when completed.

The findings from this study will highlight the problems of human capital development and how such problems can be tackled for sustained organizational achievement of stated goals.

Finally the findings from this study will be of immense benefit to the general public in various ways.

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