CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The phenomena of career development is seen to be important by academics,

researchers, policymakers, and human resources specialists. These human capital
development stakeholders work to address difficulties arising from career
development, including hiring, selecting, training and development, and promotion.
Additionally, companies, in particular, work to address challenges related to career
development and how they impact organizational development. A career development
program, on the other hand, is described as a continuing, organized effort by an
organization that focuses on growing and enhancing the company's human resources
in light of both the workers' and the organization's needs (Byars and Rue, 2004). As
obtained in the definition, both the employees’ and organization’ needs are factors
into career development. Therefore, the concept of career development can be
regarded as a platform that aids employees look beyond their present jobs and prepare
for brighter future positions within organizations and sometimes outside the
organizations. This process enables organizations to have adequate, required, and
formidable human resources for their growth and relevance in the industry. It is
worthy to note that some challenges such as restructuring, mergers, acquisitions, etc.,
have great impact on the approach in which employees and organizations view career.

Organization growth is the study of thriving organizational change and

performance. One of the core values underlined in organizational growth is that it
provides opportunities for each organization member, as well as for the organization
itself, to develop to their full potential (Ajila and Awonusi, 2004). Individual
development covers activities that improve consciousness and uniqueness, develop
talents and potential, build human capital and facilitate employability, improve the
quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations Akintayo
(2010).

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 Career development is not a new issue, but the controversial aspect of it, is who
should be responsible for its implementation? Should it be sole responsibility of
employees or the employers? However, in the recent past, individuals engage in
personal career development (Hall, 2002) by getting involved in personal educational
advancement and professional training; which may or may not align with their present
organizational goals. On the other hand, organizations may choose to training or
develop their employees in alignment to their present needs and also prepare them for
future organizational needs (Humphries and Dyer, 2001). Essentially, employers may
not be able to retain their trained and developed employees in this present competitive
labour market having exposed them to various training and development
opportunities, which could be detrimental to the organizational growth.

The business competition requires the company to make innovation not only on
product produced but also on services quality provided. On the other hand, the
company also must be able to defend human resources who owned by the company
because they are a component of main resources in the company operational activities.
One of ways to maintain the human resources is giving a chance to the fairly career
development. Activities in career development can be sponsored by human resources
development, the manager and been made individually without depending on
company (Ivancevich and Glueck, 1989). Career development looks at the long-term
career effectiveness and success of organizational personnel (Decenzo &Robbins,
2010). Career development need the involvements of organization and individual
efforts. Human resources department and manager efforts related to the organization
efforts like held training and development programs and give promotion opportunity.
According to Leibowitzet al., (2006), training is used for technical skill taught, while
development usually refer to programs that try to improve human relations and
conceptual of manager. Human resources department often hold training and
development programs for the employees because they are very beneficial of the
organization and employee. While, Simamora (2003) said that, “promotion is
transferring employee from one job to another job that has higher level in terms of
payment, responsibility and the level of organization.” So, when an employee has a
good promotion chance, he has done the development of his career.

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 Today an individual's career is no longer tied to a single organization, as career
changes and job mobility have become common phenomena. To be successful in one's
career, employees today have to balance the relationship between their desire for
career growth and their attitudes toward their current organizations. Recent research
has shown career growth opportunities to be an important determinant of employee–
organizational relationships. Organizations that provide mechanisms for employee
career growth create a mutual investment type of relationship with their employees
(Tsui, Pearce, Porter, & Tripoli, 1997), a relationship that ties career growth to
important outcomes such as organizational commitment (Weng, McElroy, Morrow, &
Liu, 2010). However, one would expect that any relationship between career growth
and employee outcomes would depend on whether the employee is committed to
pursuing a career, rather than simply holding a job, in the first place.

Weng's (2010) multidimensional conceptualization of career growth model

suggests that career growth consists of four factors: meeting career goals, developing
one's professional abilities, and receiving promotions, and compensation
commensurate with those abilities. In essence, this view of career growth is an
individual-level, organization specific, concept. That is, he argues that career growth
is a measure of the degree to which an individual perceives that their current
organization creates an environment in which the employee is able to meet his/her
career-related needs and reinforces those accomplishments through promotions and
compensation (Weng et al., 2010). Therefore, this study focuses on the importance of
career development as a determinant of organizational growth, a case study of United
Bank for Africa (UBA).

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Long-term success of any company depends heavily upon the quality of its
workers. The importance placed on how employees are valued and rewarded can
make a considerable impact on the effectiveness and productivity of staff within the
organization and consequently the performance of the organization. Many
organizations are suffering from high turnover rates and down falls because they do
not apply non-monetary rewards that may only need little effort. Despite organizations

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channeling resources to boost organizational performance, there is still unawareness
on how employee performance could increase when leaders together with the Human
Resources Teams use non-financial incentives, the link between these incentives and
employee performance as well as how they can be utilized effectively in the
organization.

Meanwhile, workers in contemporary society are expressing a strong desire to

pursue more than just a job. They are looking for employment opportunities that
promise an extension of their interests, personality and abilities. They want a variety
of things from their jobs besides a pay cheque and a few fringe benefits, and their
loyalty to the organization depends upon the degree to which their employer satisfies
these wants. With improved living standards, workers are no longer satisfied to have
just a job and the usual fringe benefits. They want a career that expresses their
interests, personality, abilities and that harmonizes with their total life situation.
Unfortunately, most employers have failed to recognize this need, and the tools and
experiences they provide do not enable workers to develop in their career.

Some organizations still apply the traditional rewards systems that were mainly
monetary because they lack enough knowledge regarding how non-monetary rewards
relate with employee performance, how these rewards can impact on the performance
as well as organizational competitive advantage, and most importantly, how effective
they can be if used in boosting employee performance in the workplace. These
problems necessitates the need to carry out a study on the importance of career
development as a determinant of organizational growth, a case study of UBA.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The general objective of this study is to examine the importance of career

development as a determinant of organizational growth. The specific objectives
include the following:

1. To find out the extent to which management show interest in the career
development of its employees.

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 2. To ascertain the relationship between career development and employees’
commitment.
3. To investigate the impact of career development on the productivity of workers
in an organization.

1.4 Research Questions

The relevant research questions related to this study include the following:

1. What is the extent to which management show interest in the career

development of its employees?
2. What is the relationship between career development and employees’
commitment?
3. What is the impact of career development on the productivity of workers in an
organization?

1.5 Statement of Hypotheses

The under listed null hypotheses were tested in this study.

Ho 1. Management does not show interest in the career development of its

employees

Hi 1. Management shows interest in the career development of its employees

Ho2. There is no significant relationship between career development and

employees’ commitment

Hi2. There is significant relationship between career development and employees’

commitment

Ho3. There is no significant impact of career development on the productivity of

workers in an organization

Hi3. There is significant impact of career development on the productivity of

workers in an organization

1.6 Significance of the Study

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 The focus of the study is primarily on training development of workers in
United Bank for Africa (UBA) as they contribute towards the realization of the set
objective of the organization and various ways through which training and
development were conducted for the workers. How worker a being selected and what
factors should be satisfied in order to enable them improve their productivity.
Generally therefore the study focuses on how training and development can help in
solving the problem of low productivity.

Additionally, this study will reaffirm some prior understanding and current data
from research linked to career development and how it affects performance standard
in organizations. Other researchers and authors, especially those working in subjects
like the personnel management that are relevant to this one, will be able to access this
work and utilise it. The findings of this study will also be a reference material for
future researchers. It is hoped that the effort and time put into this study would be
valuable for the aforementioned reasons.

1.7 Scope and Limitations of the Study

The study will focus on critical examination of career development of
employees in UBA and the consequent effects of such on its workers’ productivity.
The study shall cover the personnel management and administrations of the bank. It
will cover the motivational incentives provided by the administrations and the level of
workers’ performance within the period under review. The study will also cover the
various means of career development as they impact on employees’ productivity in an
organization.
A study of this nature cannot be effectively carried out without certain
constraints. However, these constraints do not have any prejudice on the result of the
findings in the course of the study. The major limitations of this study include
inadequate resources; the unwillingness of some respondents to give all necessary
information required. This work is not conclusive on its own; it is still open to further
research studies.
1.8 Definitions of Key Terms

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Organizations - This is a system of coordinated activities of a group of people
working co-operatively towards a common goal, under authority and leadership.
Performance: Performance is the manner in which an organisation functions,
operates, or behaves in the society.
Productivity: Is the ratio of output or production capacity of the workers in an
organization. It is the relationship between the amount of one or more inputs and the
amount of outputs from a clearly identified process.
Employees: are the workers in an organization, working for the accomplishment of
the organizational goals. In this study, the employees are those staffs of the
organization.
Motivation: Motivation is a decision-making process, through which the individual
chooses the desired outcomes and sets in motion the behaviour appropriate to them".
Career development: refers to the process an individual may undergo to evolve their
occupational status. It is the process of making decisions for long term learning, to
align personal needs of physical or psychological fulfillment with career advancement
opportunities.

Organizational growth: is a stage a company reaches when it can consider expansion
and may look for additional options to generate more revenue.