Human Relation Skills Required of Office Technology and Management Graduates in Business Organization

Human Relation Skills Required of Office Technology and Management Graduates in Business Organization

Chapter One

Purpose of the study

The purpose of the study is to identify the human relation skills required of Office technology and management graduates as perceived by employers in business organizations in Delta States. Specifically, the study will seek to:

identify the word processing office works skills perceived as required by employers of Office technology and management graduates in a modern
identify the office works communication skills perceived as required by employers of Office technology and management graduates in a modern office.
identify the interpersonal/human relation human relation skills perceived as required by employers of Office technology and management graduates in a modern
identify the management/supervisory office works skills perceived as required by employers of Office technology and management graduates in a modern
Identify the Bookkeeping/Accounting human relation skills perceived as required by employers of Office technology and management graduates in a modern office.

Chapter Two

Literature Review

In Nigeria work setting, most adults are mainly from the private and public organizations while the remaining are in self-employment. The private organizations range from the very small scale/one-man business to the multi- national companies whose ultimate goal is to make profit, provide employment and contribute to social economic development of the nation. Some public organizations still fall into this category, while majority are established to render some categories of services to the society. For example, a public academic institution is not a profit driven organization but has a goal to ensure that the service of producing graduates is efficiently done with minimal waste.

Therefore, organisations’ production, service and profit depend largely on the workers’ performance and productivity because no investor would invest in an organization/company where work culture is poor (Abiola 1992). Organisations, therefore, combine effectiveness and efficiency of its employees to achieve its goals of profit making, growth and survival amongst competitors in a dynamic business environment. To the employer, effectiveness means producing the desired result and efficiency means producing the result with minimum efforts, expense and waste. The customers waiting chairs in our banks have disappeared with a drive towards efficiency of ensuring that no customer is unnecessarily delayed in the banks. Employers frown at such work habits that will impede the effectiveness and efficiency of its services to the extent that they can fire, stagnate, and demote such erring employees.

An office is a place where the administrative functions of an organization are carried out. The word administrative is derived from the word administer. To administer means to oversee, to manage, to control, to supervise in order to ensure that the goals of the office are achieved. The office also renders clerical, executive and all other office functions for which the office was set up. Primarily, the functions of an office entail receiving information, processing information, giving information, recording information, and safe-guarding the asset of the organization.

Office activities may vary like the works department office, the Bursar’s office, the personnel office but the functions are closely related, that they at one time or the other receive information, process the information, record the information, and give out information when required and above all to protect the asset of the organization. A road construction company that spend so much of its time on road sites constructing road projects, still set aside a place where the activities of the company are coordinated. Therefore, working in the office requires some basic skills.

Skill means the ability to do something well. It is also referred to as a type of ability or a particular ability to do something. Human relation skills can, therefore, be referred to mean those abilities required for carrying out the office functions very well. These human relation skills are as varied as the office activities vary too. The various activities in an organization are grouped together or clustered and assigned specific job description like Sales unit, Purchases unit, Technical unit, Medical unit, Transport unit etc. Each of these units is involved in the functions of an office. Therefore, the human relation skills are as varied as the office activities vary too. These office activities form the training of business education programme. Business education is an academic programme obtainable in higher institutions of learning including colleges of education. Osuala (1981) defined business education as a programme of instruction which consists of two parts – office education; a vocational education programme for office careers and general business education, a programme which provides students with information and competencies needed by all managing, personal business affairs, and using the services of the business world. One of the objectives of the Office technology education is to equip students with the right skills that will enable them to engage in a life of work in the office as well as for self-employment. The business education programme involves three broad areas of office education, accounting education and marketing education.

Office education which is a specialized phase of business education prepares students to enter teaching and office occupations as capable and intelligent member of the labour force. On graduation the Office technology and management graduate is capable of being self-employed, take up a teaching job; teaching business subjects or taking up office jobs which form the main focus of this research work. Office education work skills form part of the total human relation skills required for the day to day administrative activities of an office in terms of document creation, copying, editing, recording, transmitting etc. Specifically the human relation skills involve the type of work done in the office and it includes receiving and dispatching mails, receiving and making calls, receiving visitors, holding meetings, typing of documents, copying of documents, duplicating, filing, storing, retrieving receiving cash and issuing receipt, paying cash, bank lodgement, making travel arrangement, bookkeeping etc. Secretarial and clerical workers are in high demand in both developed and developing economies (Garrison 1997). There is hardly any aspect of political, social, economic, and even cultural life activity that does not require the functions of an office. These offices are manned by clerical and secretarial employees (office education graduates) who receive, record and process information required for carrying on the business of such organization. Office skills comprehensively used to cover a variety of routine and non-routine activities in an office.

The growth in technology in business has changed the manpower needs of many businesses as well as the functions in the offices. Many office functions are automated and this leaves the clerical and secretarial employees with non-technical skills to deal with. Therefore, the office employees must be versatile with multi- technical and people-related (psycho-social) skills in order to be relevant in today’s business and the future.

Modern office jobs now require complex and greater skills and knowledge thereby making it imperative for curriculum specialist and vocational education programme developers to adjust their training programmes to meet the challenges of a changing work environment (Aghenta 1982, and Castaldi 1992). Furthermore, the advancement in technology has revolutionalised office functions and obsolescence occurs so quickly affecting occupational structure and specific jobs skills and knowledge. With the office becoming so revolutionized as a result of the advances in information technology where an average executive officer can play with the keyboard, and with the speculation that the advances in information technology will make redundant certain office workers, one wonder if clerical and secretarial employees are still needed in the modern office.

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