CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Time management is about achieving meaning and purpose in life. The life of the small business owner is not the business; it is what the business enables the owner to achieve in life. Now what does the owner of the business want to achieve in life? The answer to the question is the essence of time management.

To illustrate this point, let us take the case of the young man who graduated from the University of Benin with a degree in the liberal arts. For two years after his NYSC, he attempted to get a job. He couldn’t. He had always been interested in the gardening business, but told himself that he could not go into it because he now had a degree. However, after two years of fruitless search for a job, he obtained the permission of the owners to clear a piece of land opposite the University of Benin in which he established a botanical garden. The business did not do very well in the first year but in the second year, performance improved. He began to sell more and more flowers. But at the beginning of the third year and as a result of the influence of his friends, he began to feel that he needed to try other thing, because his classmates were working in the banks and riding flashy cars. Six years after graduation and four years after he established his garden business, he secured a job in the bank, and sold his garden business a month later. Another five months later, he became unhappy man because he wakes up five in the morning and do not return home until 11pm. I am everywhere looking for people to place money with my bank because my target for the first six moths is N200 million. I am not sure, I can meet the target. I love making people happy by adding beauty to their lives in the form of flowers. Marketing in the bank is totally a different ball game. All you think of is the target I thought of leaving the job but I feel trapped. What would I do? Start all over again with my flower business? How would I start? Would it not even mean that I have failed? Some of my friends enjoy the marketing job.

It is clear from the story that the purpose of the young man’s life is, as he puts it, to make people happy by adding beauty to their lives in the form of flowers. Given his current job in the bank, the young marketer can do all the prioritizing of activities and expected results in this world and yet he still would be unhappy. To manage our time is to manage our lives. This also means that to waste our time is to waste our lives. From this perspective, we can never save time because the time that is lost can never be recovered. When time is wasted, it is lost forever.

 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM/ RESEARCH QUESTION

The research problems includes the following research questions;

·                    How does an average Nigerian worker actually spend his/her corporate time while on corporate duty?

·                    What are those factors that actually affect his/her corporate time utilization?

·                    Does corporate time utilization varies directly with set, age, marital status, income and the sector where the worker is engaged? OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The study aims to achieve the followings:

·                    To find out how an average Nigerian spend his/her corporate time while on his/her corporate duty.

·                    To find out the factors that affects his/her corporate time utilization.

·                    To find out whether corporate time utilization is dependent on sex, age, marital status, income and the sector where the worker is engaged.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study will focus on the average Nigerian worker, basically those involved in the shop floor, that is, the junior workers. It will be centered on the locality of Oredo Local Government Area, Benin City.

RELEVANCE/SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The relevance of this study gives a detailed understanding on how the Nigerian workers apend their time while on duty. The conclusion to be reached, that is, the proffered answers to be the research problems will significantly serve as a yardstick on how organization can effectively utilize its workers time.

STATEMENT OF RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

The hypotheses tend to state the expected relationship between the dependent and independent variables.

The hypotheses to be tested include:

Ho:  There is no relationship between time utilization the Nigerian workers and sex.

Ha:  There is a relationship between time utilization by the Nigerian workers and sex

Ho:  There is no relationship between time utilization by the Nigerian workers and marital status.

Ha:  There is a relationship between time utilization by the Nigerian workers and marital status.

Ho:  There is no relationship between time utilization by the Nigerian worker and the sector engaged in.

Ha:  There is a relationship between time spent by the Nigerian worker and the sector engaged in.