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 employee’s 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 problem of this study “an assessment of the influence of training on employees’ performance in MTN Buea Cameroon”.

The objective of this work is to see the influence of training plans, methods, programs and evaluation on employees’ performance. 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.  15 questions were designed and administered to the employees of MTN Buea Cameroon. 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 MTN Buea Cameroon needs to improve on its training plans from time to time. The management of MTN Buea therefore needs to ensure training strategies are not only aligned to performance but also to enhancing employee motivation for superior performance.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

The advent of modern technology coupled with changes in the business environment has perjured business organisations with more severe challenges and competition pressure. Organisations now compete both nationally and internationally.

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 job performance, growth and the ability to the rapidly changing economic environment for the organisation to remain competitive.

The management of Human Resource in Africa in general and Cameroon in particular is rather challenging even though human resource saw a major evolution by the post industrial revolution of 1850. But Africa still has difficulties finding proper human resources. According to Kamache (2002), this may partly be a result of the different kinds of problems like political instability, corruption, poor infrastructure, diseases and famine known to prevail.

The question that may arise in many instances is why human resource are important, bearing in mind that human resource is the intellectual property of the firm, employees prove to be a good source of gaining competitive advantage. This is supported by Houger (2006), that training is the only way of developing organisation intellectual property through building employees’ competencies.

Growth has not only been brought about by improvement in technology nor a combination of factors of production but increased efforts towards development of organisational human resources. It is therefore in every organisations responsibility to enhance the job performance of the employees and certainly implementation of training and development is one of the major steps that most companies need to achieve this. Afshan et al (2012), therefore calls for managers to an adequate supply of staff. Abdul H. (2011), explain that employee is considered as the major element of every firm their success or failure mainly based on their performance.

There are different ways of defining the term training. According to Shaheen et al (2013), it may be defined as a systematic development of the knowledge, skills and behaviour required by employees to do adequately on confirmed task orAmin et al (2013), noted simply that learning that is provided in order to improve performance on the present job.

On the other hand, Elnaga et al (2013) define employee training as programs that provide workers with information, new skills, or professional development opportunities. It can take place in numerous ways, on the job or off the job; in the organization or outside organization. Regardless of the view, the term training draws elements of acquiring new knowledge to help manage both current and future situations.

During and after the First World War, in-service training by employees became a common practice. The rapid changes over in the industry from peace to war led to training schemes for semiskilled workers.

Thereafter the rapid contemporary advance of technology change made training a necessity in almost all work life. At the operating level in the industry and public utilities, key aspect of training practices like training plans, training methods and training programs and increase uses of automation have brought extensive changes in the past decades and increases as time goes on.

All of this brought about a new approach to training. Great emphasis is now placed on a good start through initial job training supplemented by orientation session or by attractively produced printed material describing the nature and objectives of the employment and the condition of work. Since changes are frequent with technological advances, refresher training has become common in clerical as well as in industrial work.

This widespread of interest in training has led to considerable innovation in method. Formal lecturers have given way to group discussion, for instance the case study method has become popular and also sensitivity training has been introduced to help individuals to study their own behaviour and reactions to one another by means of group discussions in which there is frank analysis of interrelationship between members of group and hence commitment to one another and the organisation.

Initiative in training lies with the organisation rather than with industry and the large corporate tends to develop a variety of training projects and adequate administration of training. In a large organisation, the individual employees need to be introduced to his task and to identify himself with it so as not to be lost in its complexity and he needs to have subsequent periods of training to keep abreast with development. In small and medium sized concerns, some management are interested in training, while some tend to regard it as luxury but it depends on the initiative management.

Training to management has become acceptable as a necessity in both the public and private sectors. Reason why different training programs are introducing every year because of changes in technology, increase completion and change in customers taste.

So for this purpose employees are prepared with the right sort of aptitudes, information and capabilities to carry out their allocated responsibilities and training is considered to have a massive impact on employee’s efficiency.

1.2 Problem Statement

There is almost a general agreement in management theory by Taylor et al (1990) that employees are a strategic resource of an organisation. Human capital is the knowledge, skills and experience of an organisations people. Overall training impacts organisational competitiveness, revenue and performance. This is supported by Panagiotakopoulous (2011), that improving human capital is therefore essential to strategies for increasing productivity, innovation, competitiveness and high performance in the organisation.

The effect of training on employees and the organisational performance may be both direct and indirect. Sahinidis et al (2008), note that directly the role of training programs is seen as a measure of improving employee’s capabilities and organisational capabilities. While indirectly employees will be able to handle both current and future issues.

But not everyone buys the idea of employees being a strategic resource of an organisation. King et al (2013), noted there is a belief that small firms are poor or reluctant trainers. This is because training entails cost which is long-term investment. Usually no one can predict what can happen in the future for example death or illness, thus it is better to employ already trained and experience employees.

Also we could have instances of risk of brain drain, the purpose of an enterprise to invest in training so as to increase its human capital strategy and create economic benefits and employees flowing out of the organisation after being trained will certainly make the enterprise unable to get back its investment and create a heavy loss of manpower and physical resources.

Long training programs turn to be a wastage of time and we all know that time is money and also a wastage of resources. This could also develop loss of interest and reduces satisfaction in the training program. This might cause them to lose important or new information that is being added. Thus making training ineffective.

In all these studies reviewed, though the 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 all classes of employees which present a gap. Hence it is on this note that the researcher seeks to find out an assessment of the influence of training on employee’s performance in MTN Buea Cameroon. Thus, the researcher came out with the following research questions

1. How does training plans play a role on employee’s performance?
2. How does training methods influence employee’s performance?
3. How does training programs influence employee’s performance?
4. How does training evaluation play a successful role on employee’s performance?

1.3 Objectives of the study

1.3.1 General objectives

An assessment of the influence of training on employee’s performance in MTN Buea.

1.3.2 Specific objectives

1. To determine the role of training plans on employees’ performance.
2. To determine the influence of training methods on employee’s performance.
3. To determine the influence of training programs on employees’ performance.
4. To determine the success of training evaluation on employees’ performance.
5. To provide recommendations to MTN.

1.4 Hypothesis

Ho1: Training plans does not play a significant role on employee’s performance.

Ho2: Training methods has no influence on employee’s performance.

Ho3: Training programs has no influence on employee’s performance.

Ho4: Training evaluation does not play a significant role on employee’s performance.