THEEFFECT OF EMPLOYEES TRAINING ON ORGANIZATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY CASE STUDY BUEA P&T COOPERATIVE CREDIT UNION

ABSTRACT

The emergence of modern technology and fierce competition among businesses is now a major threat to organisations. This has led to companies spending huge sums of money in training their employees, with the hope that it will increase their productivity, profitability and employees performance. Hence, making it possible for the company to compete in the very fierce business environment. Training according to Shaheen et al, (2013) is a systematic development of the knowledge, skills and behaviour required by employees to do adequately on confirmed task. It is very important for companies to train their staff from time to time because of continuous change in the business world. They need employees who can adapt to the rapidly changing economic environment and still meet the companies’ objectives. Although companies now spend huge sums of money on training their employees, it still remains uncertain as to whether these training really increase employees’ performance. Hence, the problems of this study “The Effect of Employees Training on Organizational Productivity Case Study Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union”. The objective of this work is to see the effect of coaching, simulation and job shadowing on organizational productivity. In this work, the primary data was used; the data was collected with the use of questionnaire. Stratified random sampling was used to collect the individual respondents.  50 questions were designed and 30 were administered to the staff and members of Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union. Mere descriptive statistics was used to analyze the demographic information and percentages were used to analyze the data and the result showed that although most of the employees come back with extra skills, others come without skills. Therefore, the management of Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union needs to improve on its coaching from time to time. The management of Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union therefore needs to ensure simulation and job shadowing is not only aligned to productivity but also to enhancing employee motivation for superior performance. Keywords of this report are on employees training and productivity.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

General Introduction

The study is made up of five chapters. The chapters are each organized as follows; Chapter One is the introductory chapter. It introduces the study stating the background of the study in relation to earlier researches, the problem to be addressed, and the research questions, objectives of the study and the significant of the study. Chapter Two deals with literature review and focuses on review of past research work on same topic. It reviews concepts and related theories and then an empirical review of the findings of other researchers. Chapter Three describes the research methodology. It focuses on the background of the study area, the methodology adopted, description of the population, sampling and sampling techniques, research design and method of analysis. Chapter Four dwells on presentation and discussion of the results of the analysis. It presents the data and shows its analysis using charts and tables which finally interprets the results. Chapter Five contains the summary of findings, recommendations based on the findings, and conclusion of the whole work.

1.1 Background of the Study

Across the world, organizations have sought to rely on improved skills, knowledge, and capability of the talented workforce to create competitive advantage. To develop the desirable skills, knowledge, and capability of employee and position them to perform their responsibilities, managers in charge of human resource training design different training programs (Lakra, 2016). Such training programs not only target to improve the familiarity of employees about their responsibilities, but it also helps to encourage employees to develop more commitment towards their job. Organizations design training programs to prepare their employees to perform their jobs correctly and according to the laid down standards. Organizational personnel design training sessions to ensure that they optimize the potentials of employees. Khan & Baloch (2017) opined that majority of organizations prefer to invest in different programs that create new skills through long-term planning. This is to enable them adapt to any current and future uncertainties. Therefore, they ensure that they improve the performance of their employees through superior levels of commitments and motivation.

Therefore, many organisations spend money annually on training and developing their workforce with a strong belief that this will lead to innovation, increase in productivity, profitability and improvement in employee performance. This is supported by Amin et al (2013), that business environments change from time to time which calls for continuous upgrading of employees skills and capabilities to improve on their organisational productivity, growth and the ability to the rapidly changing economic environment for the organisation to remain competitive.

Training and development are very necessary for this era of entrepreneurship were every business thrives to gain a competitive advantage over the other. It is in this stance that Haque et al (2017) opines that every business that focuses on survival and profitability ensures that their performance and business efficiency remains at the top by ensuring their higher level of competitiveness. It is on the same page that Alo (1999) states, in a knowledge economy most organisations rely heavily on their employees for survival. They can only achieve a competitive advantage through their workforce.

Globally, organizations have been enrolling their employees in training programs to enhance their skills, knowledge, and capabilities. Most of them facilitate the training through the development of programs with the ability to meet their employee’s needs. However, Khan et al. (2011) stated that some firms provide their employees with opportunities to enroll in training programs established by another firm. Accordingly, the previous studies have shown that if well implemented, the internal programs are more effective than the external ones. The difference emanates from the fact that the internal programs are designed in such a way that they respond to pre-determined training needs (Jehanzeb&Beshir, 2013).

The Success or failure of modern business organizations depends on the quality of their human resources. Well trained and highly developed employees are considered a cornerstone for such success. The employee is a blood stream of any business. The accomplishment or disaster of the firm depends on its employee performance. Hence, top management realized the importance of investing in training and development for the sake of improving employee performance. An ever rapidly changing business environment demands for a lifelong learning as an essential coping strategy. Business environments change from time to time which calls for continuous upgrading of employee skills and capabilities to improve on their job performance, growth and the ability to adapt to the rapidly changing economic environments for the organization to remain competitive (Amin et al., 2013).

Elnaga and Imra (2013) further argue that in order to prepare their workers to do their job as desired, organizations provides training so as to optimize their employee’s potential. They note that most of the firms, by applying long term planning, invest in building new skills by their workforce, enabling them to cope with the uncertain conditions that they may face in future, thus, improving the employee performance through superior level of motivation and commitment and when employees recognizes their organization interest in them through offering training programs, they in turn apply the best efforts to achieve organizational goals and show high performance on the job. Hence training is therefore critical in achieving an elastic workforce which is motivated and committed (Amin et al., 2013). Thought, most professionals agree that employee training is a complex human resource practice that can significantly impact a company’s success.

The effect of training on employee and organizational performance may be both direct and indirect. Sahinidis and Bouris (2008) notes that directly the role of training programs is seen as a measure of improving employee capabilities and organizational capabilities i.e. when the organization invests in improving the knowledge and skill so fits employees, the investment is returned in the form of more productive and effective employees. While indirectly they highlight that as companies train their employees so as to enable them to handle both current and future issues, the training can lead to high levels of motivation and commitment by the employees, who actually see the opportunity they are given hence the appreciation of the investment their organization is making in them and is shown in their hard work and their contentment in being a member of such an organization. Most development specialists emphasize on the implementation of capacity building programs, policy projects for a better performance of both the public and private institutions. In Italy, the average amount of time devoted to training sets off from 20 hours in 2005 which was 16 hours in 1999. The participation rate in this country is about 16% in 2005. Thus, we conclude that employees training are an important strategy in most developing countries which explains the high level of the human capital of employees in these countries. Capacity building and development is one of the peculiar methods most organisations use to invest in the workforce for a greater return today and a better future (Williams 2007). In Denmark unemployed employees are given an ‘activation offer’ this could be used to gain private job training, classroom training, public job training. The private and the public job training occur at the workplace as a form of work-integrated learning. This program aims at building general skills, labour management skills and job-specific skills.

In Africa, notably in Kenya, on the effectiveness of training programs, it was gathered that organisations engage in job and refresher training programs and trainers are selected as the situation demands. Also training is given to staff anytime there is a change in technology to help employees possess the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to handle the new processes and also when there is a skill gap. Most of the staff who has ever participated in training do not know how they were selected for the training. This led many of the respondents to conclude that training in most organisations is unplanned and unsystematic (Koryo, 2012). Koryo also revealed that sponsorships for further studies (career development) does not exist in most cases and even when staff upgrades themselves, it does not offer them with any opportunity for career growth, thus you can find people with lower qualifications occupying higher positions than those with higher qualifications and also equally good on the job.

In Lesotho, there are some empirical studies in the literature, which established that many organizations (including commercial banks) drain because employees usually leave such organisations in search of greener pastures elsewhere but also consequently increases costs for the organizations as they have to find replacement of such employees (Elnaga& Imran, 2013; Adnan, 2014). This is corroborated by a growing concern among the majority of government, international organizations and private sector (including the banking sector) employees in Lesotho, who claim that their organizations seem not to realize the importance of employee training on employees’ performance because they generally curtail or squeeze training budgets every year. This situation not only negatively impact on employees’ performance as employees must always update their skills, knowledge and competencies in order to cope with the ever-changing working environment, uncertain conditions and changes in technology but also demotivates employees, increases job dissatisfaction and job turnover, and consequently increases the costs of hiring new employees with resultant slowdown in organizational profitability.

In Cameroon, with its rich natural resources and financial support, one can also experience such economic success if the appropriate attention is given to the development and training of her human resources. Every aspects and activities in an organization involves people. For instance, a manager will not be successful if he has subordinates who are not well equipped with skills, knowledge, ability, and competence. Each new employee must be properly trained not only to develop technical skills, but to make them an integral part of the organization. Training and development is an aspect that must be faced by every organization, and its major aims to improve the employees’ competencies such that the organization can maximize effectiveness and efficiency of their human resources. It can be an advantage for an organization if they win the “hearts and minds” of their workers, getting them to identify with the organization (Armstrong, 2009). For workers to be equipped to perform well there must be an investment in the training processes. These processes are part of the entire human resource management approach which results in employees being motivated to perform. However, only a few organisations in Cameroon offer training programs and privileges to their employees (Ntsinuet al.2020).

This study therefore focuses on the current practices being followed by organizations in Cameroon for training and development of employees and their effects on employees’ work performance.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The recognition of the importance of training in recent years has been heavily influenced by the intensification of competition and the relative success of organizations where investment in employee development is considerably emphasized (Sultana, et al .2012). Training is necessary to ensure an adequate supply of staff that is technically and socially competent and capable of career development into specialist departments or management positions. There is therefore a continual need for the process of staff development, and training fulfils an important part of this process (Sultana et al.2012).

Despite the strong assumptions that workplace training influences employee out comes (e.g. motivation, commitment, and withdrawal behaviour and work performance), there is a limited number of studies in field settings addressing these issues empirically. These sentiments are supported by Burgard and Görlitz (2011) who argued that non-monetary returns to training are less often examined in the empirical literature. Similarly Agyemang and Ofei(2013) argue that despite employee engagement and employee commitment and their determinants received a great deal of attention in the last decade in academic circles, the concepts remain new with relatively little academic research conducted on them especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore most studies on the subject of the effect of employees training on organizational productivity are majorly confined to the developed world within the context of individual countries and organizations raising the question on whether their findings can be generalized to other sectors, countries and the developing world.

More explicitly, Dysvik and Kuvaas(2008) based their study which explored alternative relationships between training opportunities and employee outcomes in the Norwegian service organizations. The study showed that the relationship between perceived training opportunities, and both task performance and citizenship behavior were fully mediated, and that the relationship between perceived training opportunities and turnover intention was partially mediated by employee intrinsic motivation. In East Africa, most scholars have focused primarily on established commercial institutions as case studies in an attempt to highlight the relationship between staff training and employee performance. Jagero, Komba, and Mlingi (2012) used DHL and FedEx courier companies that operate in Dar es Salaam Tanzania as their case study. According to Wachira (2013), there lacks sufficient empirical evidence regarding the impact of staff training on the international civil servants based in Kenya.

In all these studies reviewed, the estimation framework does not allow taking time variant and unobserved factors into account. Though their findings might matter in a crucial way since the findings may apply in some situations, it is not clear whether these results would uniformly persist for other countries and sectors as well as all classes of employees which present a knowledge gap.

The main research question relies on what is the effect of employees training on organisationalproductivity in Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union, Buea Town. The specific research questions are:

1. How does Coaching affect the productivity of Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union?

2. To what extent does Stimulation affect the productivity of Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union?

3. What is the effect of Job Shadowing on the productivity of Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union?

   • Objectives of the Study

1.3.1 Major Objective

The main objective of this study is to examine the effect of employees training on organizational productivity in Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union, Buea Town.

1.3.2 Specific Objectives

1. To investigate the effect of Coaching on the productivity of Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union.
2. To evaluate the effect of Stimulation on the productivity of Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union.
3. To assess the effect of Job Shadowing on the productivity of Buea P&T Cooperative Credit Union.

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