CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background to the study

The success of every organization in hinged on its ability to manage five key
resources namely: money, equipment, information, people, and time. Over
the year management scientists have postulated that investments towards
better equipment may speed up production as well as reduce waste.
Information is said to be power, given that it deals with the stage through
which data can be processed to produce information that can inform
decision making processes within an institution. Investment in training and
development of employees can make them more productive and effective
in their jobs, thereby directly contributing to the bottom line (profit).

The quality of Human Resources can be regarded as the most valuable

assets of every organization, thus making strategic decision such as
training, recruitment, research and development a critical component for
the smooth running of all organizations. Investment in such undertaking
enormously varies from organization to organization due to factors such as
the degree of external change, for instance, new markets or new processes,
the adaptability of existing workforce and importantly the extent to which
the organization support the idea of internal career development
(Armstrong, 2010).

Human Resources have played a significant role in the economic

development of most developed countries such as United State of America,
Britain and Japan among others. It can, therefore, be noted that a
developing country like Sierra Leone, with its rich natural resources and the
necessary financial support can also experience such economic success if
the appropriate attention is given to the development and training of her
human resources.

The government has been taken strategic steps to ensure that civil and
public servants acquire the requisite knowledge and skills that can enable
them to improve on their performance in the various ministries,
department and agencies. To this end, Sierra Leone now has a civil service
training college. The training college therefore, has helped to improve the
human capacity of civil servants through training conducted on regular
basis.

Quite recently, there have been several reforms processes going on in

relation to staff training and performance in the public, private and
voluntary sectors. This can be seen in secondary and technical schools,
vocational training institutions and colleges, and professional and tertiary
institution. Further still, most of Sierra Leone’s education sector reforms
currently being instituted in the country are all geared toward skills and
knowledge acquisition to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in every
workplace.

With these efforts by government, it has become necessary for

organization to provide long and systematic training and development
program for its employees. Given that, every aspect and activity of an
organization involve people, thus equipping employees with the skills,
talent, and knowledge required can be fundamental to the success of the
organization. Managing an organization whether large or small requires
competent personnel. The formal education system does not adequately
teach specific job skills for a position in a particular organization. Few
employees have the requisite skills, knowledge, abilities and competencies
(SKAC) needed to work in their environment. As a result, many require
extensive training to acquire the necessary SKAC to be able to make
substantive contributions toward the organization growth, (Barron and
Hagerty, 2001).

Many organizations will have a way of identifying their strategic plans,

needs, for proper implementation in order to measure staff performance
and organizational success in a well structure manner, and finally assess
results to see whether the employees and the institution will benefit from
subsequent decisions.
It is worth noting Sierra Leone has a huge public sector, employing the
highest number human resource with various skills making it very much
significant in the smooth and effective running of the organization. One
such organization in the public sector been the West African Examinations
council Freetown (WAEC) the study intends to investigate the Assessment
of Strategic Human Resource Management On Staff Performance in Public
institution and its effect on organizational performance in the public sector,
especially with the institution that has been charged with the responsibility
by law to conduct public examinations and award certificates that is
comparable to other examining body worldwide on behalf of the
government.
All jobs in organizations are done through people, yet over the year’s
organization have failed to attach the necessary attention to employee
training and development that can lead to staff performance.
Public institutions, in most cases do not see the need to train and develop
their employees. However in an era where public institutions are required
by government to contribute favourably to national development just like
private institutions all public institutions have realized the importance of
developing the capacities of their employees in order to meet there ever
increasing demands and expectations of their institutions..
Employees training involve an expert working with learners to transfer to
them certain areas of knowledge or skills to improve in their current jobs.
Human resource management can be a broad ongoing multi-faceted set of
activities (training activities among them) to bring someone or an
organization up another threshold of performance often to perform some
job or new role in the future (McNamara 2008).
Human resource has been identified as one of the main factors of
competitive advantage by many organizations in today’s economy
(Edvission and Malone, 1997, Stewart, 1997, eveiby 1997, mayo 2001, eti
2003, verma and dewe 2004). This is true not only of knowledge intensive
organization, which are base on services and intangible output, but also
increasingly to more traditional organization, both in the private and public
sectors. Within the context of strategic human resource management
( SHRM) perspective, extensive organization training and team work are
seen as vital to the sustained competitive advantage ( kamal, et al..2008).
consistent human strategic human resource management theory, kamal et.
(2008) found performance benefits from empowerment and extensive
organization training. The rational for an effective and extensive training on
organization performance can be further strengthened by work on learning
organization by Harvey and Denton ( Harvey and Denton, 1999, power and
waddell, they are in a better position to produce high-quality product and
services in the most effective way adapt to change, and contribute to
company competition through product or process innovation.
HR practices work to develop individual knowledge and skills, as well as
employee attitudes and behaviors. If these effects are prevalent enough in
the employee population, then the collective changes in human capital
attitudes, behaviours and associated organizational climate, should be
strong enough to influence organizational Performance (Bown & Ostroff,
2004, Kozlowski & Klein, 2000; Ostroff & Bown, 2000)

In their article that investigated whether human resource management

(HRM) policies have an impact on organization performance in the Greek
manufacaturing context, katou and `Budhwar (2006), indicated that HRM of
recruitment, training promotion, incentive, benefits involvement, and health
 and safety are positively related with organization performance. The study
both contributes to HRM theory and has important implication for Private
and Public sector organization like WAEC.

In a study by Budhwar and Boyne (2004), a comparison between human

resource magement (HRM) Practices in Indian public and private sector
organization were carried out. They reported that in a few HR functional
area such as compensation, traning and development. Indian private-sector
firm have adopted a more rational approach than public-sector counterparts.
The Indian situation reported by Budhwar and Boyne (2004),appears to be
reflective of sierra leone`s public sector organizations such as WAEC do not
seem to have a rational approach for its training and career development.,

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Even though WAEC has a training and development policy, it appears its
implementation has not been properly carried out as the process of selctin staff for
training is not in sync with the laid down procedure in the policy, making it
difficult for nra to achieve its training targets. The majority of nra workerfore sems
not to be aware of the treining and development policy and thereforce do not have
adequate knowledge of the training and development policy of their institution. In
appropriate training facilities at nra countinue to be a problem causing poor
performance which directly hampers its productivily and outputs. the lack of
technological advanced training on modern customs tools like the automated
system for custom data (ASYCUDA++) by some nra staff remains an importent
ponter.

Training initiative and objective are also ot alsigned with the strategic objective of
that government for which the training were instituded in the fist place. This makes
training initiatives irrelevant and having less or no impact at on improvement in
service delivery.

Inadequate financial resources have and continue to affect the budgetary allocation
for training programs especially overseas training on modern costume duties. As a
result of this, the training and development of nra officials has over these years not
been enhanced to enable the custum officials to be on top of what the government
expect them to do. These problems have therefore provoked a study on the training
and development of human resource at nra.

1.3 objective of the study

The purpose of this research was to assess and evaluate the enpact of training and
development initiatives at nra. More specifically, the objectives of this research
are: