Shortage of Human Resources in Government Establishment Problem and Solutions

Shortage of Human Resources in Government Establishment Problem and Solutions: A Study of Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning Enugu State

Abstract

Human resources is a key component of production in economics world. Thus, the shortage in human resource leads to poor delivery and so many other factors. Human resources shortages requires effectives human resource management. Findings from research about ongoing shortage in human resources in government establishment are used to build a preliminary theory of problems and solutions as a appropriate Human Resources Management responses. The research revealed that the best human resource management practices are to attract, motivate, and retain human assets. The key factors responsible for the shortage of human resources as revealed by the research included: withdrawal by death, and through retirements etc. while the ministry of finance and Economic Planning Enugu State human resource shortage leads to drop in the level of productivity, decline inefficiency and delay in the rate of work etc. In conclusion, the research also revealed that productivity is often affected adversely by the shortage of human resources and works are usually delayed so much. Recommendations were made based on the findings and conclusions thus. The government should employ enough and qualified man-power to fill the important vacant positions existing in the civil service. Government should equally minimize the voluntary withdrawal from service by the employee. This can be done by providing good remuneration and enticing working incentives from time to time to make them happy.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Shortage of human resources have been the bane of most establishment. Human resource capacity – a measure to ensure that organization has a sufficient number of qualified people in the right place at the right time to achieve its objectives. A shortage of human resources in government has a direct impact on an organization’s ability to deliver programs and services and perform certain tasks. The study of finance and economic planning Enugu state is to measure the human resource shortage as regard the occupied positions expressed as a percentage of total full-time positions. Hence, the question presented and being asked as a look at the information collected to answer them are:

• What are the workforce of the establishment?
• How many people, with what qualifications, are needed to get the work done?
• Where and to what extent does a gap exist?
• How do certain factors prevent the department from getting the workforce they need to deliver their programs and services?

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Many persons with particular reference to the elite will be wondering why there is shortage of human resources supply. A research in the area of this shortage of human resources supply will sound like asking an obvious question. To give the answer to the obvious question above I will start by emphasizing on the importance of human resource in every economy. Human resources is described as a combination of all individual engaged in any of the organisation activities regardless of their levels, Wental French (2007).

From the above definition of human resources means men and women working for an organisation do belong or do not belong to the human resources. For instance in ministries it ranges from commissioners to messengers. Ministry of finance and economic planning which started during the creation of the eastern region, has the primary function of revenue generation through the board of internal revenue, treasury keeping the releasing of funds for the running of day to day business of the government. This ministry is experiencing shortage of human resources. The research (study) revealed that some of the cause of the shortage includes that the state government stopped employing man power since 1994, without having in mind that even those employed left the service through retirement, voluntary withdraw due to the fact that the salary is not encouraging, state creation, death etc. However, for any organisation to achieve some of it aim, must ensure not only supply of human resource but also ensuring that they are adequately. Because the activities in the organisation from beginning to the end stage is the duty of the human resources. The goal of any organisation can not be achieve only by providing or ensuring adequate supply of human resources. On this Harish Jain C (2008), opined that people will be motivated to perform their jobs effectively to the extent of which they are satisfied doing the jobs. The more workers are rewarded, the more hard they work. Another problem that brings shortage of human resources is revenue, in addition to retirement (voluntary or not) withdrawals (revenue based), death, cum lack of inability of government to recruit since 1985 brought about shortage in human resources, in Enugu State ministry of finance and planning.

Finally, this research is therefore on towards finding the cause and the effects of the shortage and the solutions to the problems.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The problems as stated earlier through the research findings are:

• Inability of government to recruit human resources since 1994
• Retirement (voluntary of by age)
• State creation &
• Death etc

These are factors that leads to shortage of human resources in the establishment. It was established that they do not track or analyze other key information about their employees, such as duration of service, level of education etc. They do not compile sufficient information on their human resource needs. When a position is vacant, the hiring manager indentifies in the job description the qualifications and experience that the position requires. However, this information is not compiled, they do not know how many people they need with specific skill sets. For example, none of the departments know how many accountants they needed. Nor is this kind of information compiled and analyzed government – wise. The gaps, as noted through research findings, is that while they know that there is a lack of qualified people to fill the financial management positions, they have not identified how many people and what qualifications, experience and skill sets are needed to fill the vacant positions. And without this information, they cannot develop plans for filling these positions. Thus, why it is a problem too many.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of the study is to find out the problems and solutions to the shortage of human resources in government establishment.

1. To know what the work force of the establishment are presently.
2. To identify how many people with what qualifications are needed to get the work done.
3. To determine where and to what extent does a gap
4. The challenges that prevent the department from getting the workforce they need to execute her programs.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The significance of the study includes the following:

1. It will to reduce unemployment
2. It will help to minimize the shortage and the suffering of the little employee already in service.
3. It will remind the government and its agencies on the need for keeping information.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The research questions are thus:

1. What are the causes of shortage in human resources in the establishment?
2. What are the workforce of the establishment?

• How many people, with what qualifications, are needed to get the work done?

1. Where and to what extent does a gap exist?
2. What are the factors that prevents the department in getting the workforce needed to deliver their programs and services?

SCOPE/DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

My case study is Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning Enugu which is made up of five (5) department that includes: finance and supply, personnel, treasury, plan research and statistics and library. The scope and delimitation is centered on finding out the cause of shortage of human resources in the entire departments.

CHAPTER TWO

RELATED LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter aimed at reviewing how other authors have viewed human resources as regards defining and describing it. But before that, from literal point of view, human resources is been defined and described as consisting o men and women working for any organization.

This means that once an employee is recruited in an establishment he/she automatically becomes a human resources. On that premise, human resources have been described as the capabilities of human to perform task which is the meaning of the term man power, Bevans (2009). Another author Joe, (2010) said that human resources should be viewed as the composition of the strength of all the people working in an organization. Hence, they are of view that any person(s) who are not capable of performing task will not be regarded as human resources. That the “man power” and labor force are often used interchangeably. Secondly, once a person got employed, he becomes immediately a human resources, he does not care if he is performing his task individually or collectively provided he is performing his work. Due to the trend going them, experts predicted that there will be seventy-six million men and women available for employment, James, (2007). Other writers argued that the appreciable expansion in education and training activities in Nigeria will improve the quality of the human resources. From the foregoing, human resources can be categorized, thus; they include: The top-level human resources that includes commissioners, director general etc the middle level human resources belonging to the level includes higher executive and senior executive officers etc. lastly, the low level human resources which includes executive assistant and messenger.

SHORTAGE OF HUMAN RESOURCES IN GOVERNMENT

Human resources shortage in the government establishment means that there are insufficient supplies of human resources in the needed proportion of government establishment. Investigation shows that the issue of shortage in human resource was not a contemporary issue. This means that human resources shortage have been in existence for quite a long time. The shortage of human resources was evident in 1930, when the world first experienced economic depression. This economic depression help to make the world understand the impact of human resource and shortage which have been overlooked in the past. A lot were done to mitigate it, but the problem still exist. Secondly, added to the problem was the effect of Second World War which arguably eliminated the available human resource. In Nigeria, the investigation revealed that the shortage of human resource started after Nigeria Civil war, this help to reduce the available human resources and create a massive shortage of human resource in Nigeria. This was because most of our human resources fought and died in the cause of the action. However, since after the war, Nigeria has been revamping her economical situation of which human resources is one. The research equally shows that, unstable government contributed to the human resources shortage.

CAUSES OF SHORTAGE OF HUMAN RESOURCES

From the research carried out, there are several problems of the shortage of human resources in the Enugu State government establishment which is the case study. It is evidently shown in subchapter 2.2, about the shortage of human resources in government, that the shortage of human resource is caused by many factors. Mean while, in this subchapter I am going to identify some of the causes of shortage in human resources strength in the state government establishments. As revealed by an insider in the finance ministry of Enugu ministry of finance, the immediate and remote cause of the shortage in human resources in the ministry includes:

1. Withdrawal through retirement
2. Voluntary withdrawal
3. Sending employees on a unplanned in service’
4. Refusal of government to employ more human resources.
5. Withdrawal by death
6. Creation of new state
7. Indigenization exercise
8. Incompetent as a result of old age.

1. Withdrawal through retirement: Retirement is the system whereby an employee of organization will be required to go to rest after putting a certain number of year in active service. Retirement age is 35 year of service or 60 year of age. And could be through voluntary or compulsory retirement. However, retirement brings out shortage in human resources.
2. Voluntary withdrawal of employee: This equally contributes to shortage in human resources and it occurs when employee funds a more lucrative job better than the one he or she has.
3. Sending employees in an unplanned in service training his identified to cause shortage in human resources as no one replaces during this period of the training, thus creating vacancy in the position.
4. Withdrawal by death: This normally occurs, when an employee die during the period of service. And when this happens, it affects the strength of the available human resources. This is because government may not replace those that died immediately.
5. Refusal of government to employ more human resources: in most of the third world country unemployment exist, but may have shortage of human resources due to embargo on employment.
6. Indigenization exercise: People are sent packing owing to the fact that they are not from old or new state.

Hence, we can deduce that many factors contributed to the shortage in human resources strength in government establishment in Enugu State.

SUMMARY OF LITERATURE REVIEW

Shortage of human resource is a research work which aimed at examining the shortage of human resources in government establishment, and chapter one contain a general discussion on the shortage of human resource as seen by the different people, it further states the cause of shortage of human resources.

Therefore, from literacy point of view human resources is been defined an descended as consisting of men and women working for any organization. Capabilities of human to perform task; human resources; Bevans (2008) in the like manner, human resources shortage in the government establishment means that there are insufficient supplies of human resources in the needed proportion in government establishment, as was found in the Enugu ministry of finance and economic planning. Through the finding that were made, which include the factors and problem associated with human resource shortage in government establishment and as was revealed, the factors that lead to the shortage were as follows:

1. Withdrawal of workers from service through retrenchment.
2. Voluntary withdrawal from service by employee etc

The effect of the man power shortage were as

1. Drop in the level of productivity
2. Decline in efficiency
3. Delay in the rate of work etc.

In conclusion, based on the findings, the research also revealed that productivity is often affected adversely by the shortage of human resources and work are delayed so much. Hence, recommendations are hereby made. The government should employ enough man-power, they should minimize the withdrawal from service by the employee.

This can done by providing good remuneration and enticing working from time to time to make them happy.