ABSTRACT

This study aimed at establishing the Impact of Employees’ Training and Development on
organisational Performance of First Bank, Nigeria Plc and also to establish differences between
productivity of employees before and after the training. The study adopted descriptive survey
design which was of ‘expos-facto design. Three hypotheses were postulated to guide the study.
Four Hundred and Twenty Four (424) samples were selected for the study through random
sampling techniques. Researcher’s self designed questionnaires tagged “Training and
Development Questionnaire (TDQ)”; and “Organisational Performance Evaluation
Questionnaire (OPEQ)” were used for the study. Data collected were analysed using Pearson
Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient(r) and t-test statistical tools tested at 0.05 level of
significance. The result shows significant relationship between employees’ training and
development and organisational performance; the result also shows significant relationship
between the provision of training and development and employees’ skills acquisition.
Furthermore, the result shows significant differences between productivity of staff before and
after the training. Based on these results of the finding, the study recommended that management
of First bank organisations should make it a point of duty to establish a well structured policy
for their staff’s training and development; also, training of staff should be followed strictly by
motivation, consistent supervision and freedom for trainees to practice their new skills so as to
ensure maximum job satisfaction and labour stability.

Key words: Employees’ Training, Employees’ Development, Organisational Performance, First

Bank of Nigeria.

INTRODUCTION

The commercial banks in Nigeria are replete with tales of change. There was a time when

customers would spend the whole day in the bank before any successful transaction could be

made. In fact, customers dreaded going to the banks. During that era (1970s – late 1990), a tally

number would be issued to customers who queued to take their turns. In most cases, customers

would wait for the working hours of the day without successful transaction and by 4:00pm, all

banking businesses would have ended. Today, the story has changed due to technological

revolution and development that has greeted banking industry (O. A. Adenuga, personal

communication, August 20, 2014). The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on July 6 2004, reformed
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the financial system by increasing the capital base of banks to N25 billion. The reform led to

merger and acquisition which reduced the number of banks in Nigeria from 89 to 25. In reality,

new banks have emerged that have either sent older ones out of business or made them

unproductive with the reality of time. With the recent reforms, Nigerian banks are undergoing e-

banking operating 24hours daily. An investigation revealed that some banks were considering

the establishment of more e-branches where transactions would be made electronically; the e-

branches will have only one bank official, who will assist customers that are not literate. This

new reform calls for training bank employees in the use of different electronic gadgets so as to

cope with the present challenges in order to enhance their organizational performance.

Organization performance has been the most important issue for every organization be it

profit-making or non-profit making one. It has been very important for managers to know which

factors influence an organization’s performance in order for them to take appropriate steps to

initiate them. However, defining, conceptualizing, and measuring performance have not been an

easy task (Dwirantwi, 2012). Organizational performance has suffered from not only a definition

problem, but also from a conceptual problem. This was supported by Hefferman and Flood

(2000) which stated that as a concept in modern management, organizational performance

suffered from problems of conceptual clarity in many areas. The first was the area of definition

while the second was that of measurement. The term performance was sometimes misunderstood

to be productivity. According to Ricardo (2001), there is a difference between performance and

productivity; productivity is a ratio depicting the volume of work completed in a given amount

of time while performance is a broader indicator that could include productivity as well as

quality, consistency and other factors. In result oriented evaluation, productivity measures were

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typically considered. Ricardo (2001) argued that performance measures could include result-

oriented behaviour (criterion-based) and relative (normative) measures, education and training,

concepts and instruments, including management development and leadership training, which

were the necessary building skills and attitudes of performance management.

Previous research had used many variables to measure organizational performance. These

variables include profitability, gross profit, Return On Asset (ROA), Return On Investment

(ROI), Return On Equity (ROE), Return On Sale (ROS), revenue growth market share, stock

price, sales growth, export growth, liquidity and operational efficiency (Gimenez, 2000).

Although the importance of organizational performance is widely recognized, there has been

considerable debate about both issues of terminology and conceptual bases for performance

measurement. No single measure of performance may fully explicate all aspects of the term.

According to Kotter & Heskett (1992) there was also inconsistent measurement of

organizational performance-although most researchers measured organizational performance by

using quantitative data like return on investments, return on sales and so forth. The definition of

performance has included both efficiency-related measures, which relate to the input/output

relationship, and effectiveness related measures, which deal with issues like business growth

and employees’ satisfaction. Additionally, performance has also been conceptualized using

financial and non-financial measures from both objective and perceptual sources. Hence, from

these few literature reviewed, the term “performance” should be broader based which include

effectiveness, efficiency, economy, quality, consistency behaviour and normative measures

(Ricardo, 2001).

Employees’ performance depends on many factors like job satisfaction, knowledge and

management but there is relationship between training and performance (Khan, Khan, & Khan,

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(2011). This shows that employees’ performance is important for the performance of the

organization and that training and development is beneficial for the employees to improve their

performances. This can only be possible if the employees are effective on their job therefore,

training and development of employees is inevitable.

Training is important for the employees’ development and the employees’ development

encourage self-fulfilling skills and abilities of the employees, decreased operational costs, limits

organizational liabilities and changing goals and objectives (Donald, 2009). It is very difficult for

an employee to perform well at the workplace without any pre-training (Garavan, 1997). Trained

employees perform better than the untrained ones (Adenuga, 2011). As a result, it is very

necessary for every organization to train its employees in order to meet overall goals of the

organization. Training and development, and on the job training have significant effect on

organizational performance (Khan, Khan, & Khan, 2011). However to improve employees’

knowledge and skills, employees must also develop a greater self-efficacy and confidence in

performing their job. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of training and

development on the organizational performance of First Bank, Nigeria PLC.

Statement of the Problem

To sustain capable, experienced and qualified employees in an organization, provision of

adequate training and development cannot be compromised. The prevailing dynamic nature of

banking sector demands adequate strategy in improving quality, customer services, productivity

and innovations through skills acquisition techniques. Of recent, banking sector faces barrages of

problems ranging from electronic fraud, ineffective performance leading to their merger and

acquisition, which in-turn led to some employees’ retrenchment. These challenges portray the

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sector’s dire need of highly skilled bank employees that are up to the present challenges, hence,

the employees need training and re-training for effective functioning. It is against this

background that this study investigated the impact of employees’ training and development on

organisational performance of First Bank of Nigeria Plc in Lagos, Nigeria.

The main objective of this study is to find out the impact of training and development on

organizational performance.

METHOD

Research Design

The study adopted descriptive survey design which is of ‘ex-post facto’ type whereby the
researcher did not manipulate any of the variables used in the study.

Population of the Study

The target population of this study comprised all staff of First Bank of Nigeria Plc in Lagos

Island, Lagos Mainland, Victoria Island, Ikorodu and Ikeja with a total population of 846 staff.

Sample and Sampling Technique

The sample for the study comprised four hundred and twenty four (424) employees of First

Bank in Lagos Island, Lagos/Mainland, Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Ikorodu and Ikeja. The study

adopted purposive sampling technique to select the banks for the study and simple random

sampling technique to draw the samples (424 employees). Consequently, a total number of

twenty branches and four hundred and twenty four (424) staff were sampled for the study.

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 Table 1: Distribution of Bank branches and sampled employees

No of Average Total No. of No. of

All Branches staff per No of branches staff
Branches branch Staff Sampled sampled
L/Island 6 25 150 3 75
Ikoyi 5 26 130 3 65
V/Island 6 26 156 3 78
L/Mainland 6. 28 168 3 84
Ikorodu 3 27 81 2 41
Ikeja 7 23 161 4 81
Total 33 195 846 20 424

Research Instrument

The instruments used for this study were two (2) researcher’s self-designed questionnaires

namely: Training and Development Questionnaire (TDQ) and Organisational Performance

Evaluation Questionnaire (OPEQ).

Training and Development Questionnaire (TDQ)

This instrument was designed to collect information on training and development from all

cadres of staff in First Bank Plc. It was divided into sections A and B. Section A consists of

items on staff demographic background such as age, gender, employment status, marital status,

year of employment, frequency of training, frequency of attending development programme,

number of training attended in a year, types of training development attended. While section B

consists of 15 items drawn to elicit response from the samples. The items were drawn on a four

point Likert scale of Strongly agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD)

and carried the weight of 4,3,2,1 in that order for positive items and reverse order for negative

items.

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Organizational Performance Evaluation Questionnaire (OPEQ)

This instrument was a self-designed instrument to collect information on the measure of

organisational performance on the training and development of staff. It consists of 15 items

drawn on 4-Likert scale of Strongly agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree

(SD) and carry the weight of 4,3,2,1 in that order for positive items and reverse order for

negative items.

The instruments were subjected to both content and construct validity with the assistance of

psychometrics experts. On the reliability of the instruments, the instruments were evaluated

through a pilot study. The instruments were administered on subjects different from the subjects

of study. Specifically, the instruments were administered twice within a span of two weeks on

twenty Chartered Accountants. The data collected was evaluated through Cronbach’s co-

efficient and alpha values obtained were 0.68 and 0.79 for TDQ and OPEQ respectively.

Method of Data Analysis

The data collected for this study were analysed using simple percentages for the description of

the data, Pearson product moment correlation co-efficient (r), and t-test statistics, tested at 0.05

level of significance.

Hypothesis one

Ho1: There is no significance relationship between employees’ training and development and
organisational performance.

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Table 2: Relationship between the Employees’ Training and Development and
Organizational Performance.
Variable N Mean SD Df Calculated Tabulated Remarks
(r) (t)
Employees’ 424 76.25 6.54
Training and
Development
18 0.671 0.468 Sig.
Organizational 424 62.45 7.13
Performance

P< 0.05

The above Table 2 shows that the calculated r- value of 0.671 and the tabulated r- value of

0.468 with 18 as the degree of freedom at 0.05 level of significance. Since the calculated r- value

is greater than the tabulated r-value, the null hypothesis, which states that there is no significant

relationship between employees’ training and development and organisational performance is

therefore rejected. Therefore, the alternate hypothesis was upheld; that is, there is significant

relationship between employees’ training and development and organisational performance.

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Hypothesis two

Ho2: There is no significance relationship between the provision of training and development
and staff skill acquisition.

Table 3: Relationship between the Provision of Training and Development and Staff Skill
Acquisition
Variable N Mean SD Df Calculated Tabulated Remarks
(r) (r)
Training and 424 68.33 5.7
Development

18 0.576 0.468 Sig.

Staff Skill
Acquisition 424 54.51 6.3

P< 0.05
The above Table 3 shows that the calculated r- value is 0.576 and the tabulated r- value is

0.468 with 18 as the degree of freedom at 0.05 level of significance. Since the calculated r- value

is greater than the tabulated r- value, the null hypothesis, which states that there is no significant

relationship between the provision of training and development and staff skills acquisition, is

therefore rejected. Thus, alternate hypothesis was upheld; that is, there is significant relationship

between the provision of training and development and employee skill acquisition.

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Hypothesis three

Ho3: There is no significance difference between the productivity of staff before and after the
training.
Table 4: Difference Between the Staff Productivity Before and After the Training
Variable N Mean SD Df Calculated Tabulated Remarks
(t) (t)
Training and 424 64.52 10.4
Development
(Before)
19 1.812 1.729 Sig.
Staff 424 56.81 8.2
Productivity
(After)
P< 0.05

The above Table 4 shows that the calculated t-value is 1.812 and the tabulated t-value is 1.729

with 19 as the degree of freedom at 0.05 level of significance. Since the calculated t-value is

greater than the tabulated t-value, the null hypothesis, which states that there is no significance

difference between the productivity of staff before and after the training is therefore rejected.

Thus, alternate hypothesis was upheld; that is, there is significant difference between the

productivity of staff before and after the training.

Discussion

The finding of this study shows that there is significant relationship between employees’

training and development and organisational performance. This finding is in support of Saks and

Haccoun (2010) who explained that goal of all organizations is to prosper and survive and

therefore training and development can help organizations achieve these goals. Also, Akanni

(2007) stressed that training provide opportunities for acquiring job related skills, attitudes,

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knowledge and ability which result in a relatively permanent change in behaviour. He went

further to observe that training and development is an act designed to increase the skills and

effectiveness of the employees.

Also, it is revealed in this study that there is significant relationship between the provision of

training and development and employee’s skills’ acquisition. This result corroborates the

findings of Hammed (2009), who found that training and development increase employees’ skills

and competence. It increases supervisory and organising activities, employees gain the

theoretical and practical training which enable them to understand and cope satisfactory with

their occupational problems, and acquire more and varied approaches and skills which increase

their efficiency in disposing of their working problem. Furthermore, Ojule (2004) observed that

without a logical systematic approach, some training may be given which is not necessary and

vice versa, or the extent of the training may be too small or too great. In addition, the finding

agrees with Halloran (2008), who claimed that training should not be seen only in terms of the

acquisition of general skills and knowledge but should be concerned with developing the

individual’s potentials. It should also enable the individual acquire the relevant skills,

knowledge, attitudes and behaviour for effective and efficient functioning in the work

environment and in the larger society he/she might find himself/herself at later day. No doubt,

training enables individuals acquire some specific and specialised knowledge required for some

jobs. It also, provides them with a body of general knowledge sufficient enough to enable them

understand and discharge their responsibilities individually and collectively within the system.

Finally, this study records significant difference between the productivity of staff before and

after the training. This is what is advocated by various scholars as stated above that every

training and development must be able to examine or determine the difference in performance of
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workers before and after training. Kerr and Jackfsky (2004) asserted that one means of

developing human capital is through training and development programmes. Management

development programme can help build skills and inculcate core values and a systematic view of

the organization. Development programmes facilitate communication among employees by

providing a common language, building employees networks and constructing a common vision

for the firm. This is because development programme socialises and helps inculcate a common

set of core values in the trainees; thereby promoting cohesion among the employees.

Conclusion

It has been established from this study that employees’ training and development is the

hallmark of organizational performance. Therefore, for any organization to stay afloat in the

competitive market environment especially the banking sector, employees’ training and

development should be their cardinal focus.

Recommendations

Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made.

 The management of First bank should make it a point of duty to establish well structured

policies for their staff training and development and implement the policy to the latter.

 Also, the organization should design their training programmes according to the needs of

the organization. To this end, the management of First bank Nigeria, PLC should re-

adjust their roles in effective training and development programmes so as to ensure

maximum performance of their staff.

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