CHAPTER 1

                            INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Manpower training and development must be based on a need analysis derived from a comparison of actual performance” and behavior with “required performance” and behavior. Manpower training and development is one of the major ways organization invests in the workforce for greater return today and even in the foreseeable future.

        Organizational effectiveness rests on the efficient and effective performance of workforce that makes up the organization. The efficient and effective performance of the workforce in turn, rest on the richness of the knowledge, skills and abilities possessed by the workforce. Manpower training and development in most organizations is a continuous act/exercise. The inexorable march of time and the ceaseless glamour for social change combined to make adaptability and continuing preparation of the workforce as inevitable as the initial acquisition of knowledge and skills.

This cannot happen if employees training and development do not occur in an enterprise. In order to maximize the productivity and efficiency of the organization, every executive, manager or supervisor in a public or private organization has the responsibility and indeed the bounding duty to ensure the development of their employees who have requisite knowledge and expertise.

        Training is like sharpening an existing skill in order to reflect the trends in technology and other social cultural environment changes of an organization. Productivity is the goal of today’s competitive business world and training can be a spring board to enhance productivity. The aim is to enable them contribute their full measure to the welfare, health and development of the organization (Onah 1993). The main objective of training and development in public sector organization is to increase efficiency of employees with the resulting in corporate productivity. This account for why large number of fund and time is expected by organizational one period of the other in the improvement of the skills of their employees at various levels. 

        The principle intention of training according to AKPAN (1982:128), is to equip people with the knowledge required to qualify them for a particular position of employment, or to improve their skills and efficiency in the position they already hold.

        Manpower development on the other hand implies growth and the acquisition of wide experience for future strategic advantages of the organization.

        Manpower training and development, therefore improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the employee. therefore, the aim of this research is to know the current state, nature, procedure and method of training and development used by the Nigeria Port Authority (NPA) for their employees and let’s not forget that any organization that has no plan for the training and development of its staff is less that dynamic, for learning is a continuous process and acquired skills gets absolete when the environment changes. Also, a popular caption in the field of personnel management says “if you think training and development are expensive try ignorance”. While training and development prosper organization, ignorance destroys it. Therefore workers like machines must be updated on constant basis or else, they end up becoming absolute or misfit.