CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the study

Over the years, the value of workforce has become an important element in

the productivity of most companies. As a result, organizations strive as much as

possible to compete with other companies in the global economy by differentiation

in terms of basic skills, knowledge and motivation of their workforce. This has

made knowledge and skills to be seen as an important factor to the performance,

competitiveness and innovation of these companies (Lawler, Mohrman, &

Ledford, 1998; Martocchio & Baldwin, 1997). Research by the American Society

for Training and Development (ASTD) has however shown that US organizations

spend more than $126 billion annually on employee training and supervision

(Paradise 2007); making workplace learning and continuous improvement of

workforce essential for an organization to remain competitive (Salas & Cannon-

Bowers, 2001).

Training in effect has numerous definitions but in terms of training in

HRM, it is defined as the systematic acquisition and development of the

knowledge, skills, and attitudes required by employees to adequately perform a

task or job or to improve performance in the job environment (Goldstein, 1980;

Latham, 1988). In a rapidly changing global marketplace, training of the

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workforce has been on the high demand due to increased technological

advancement making competent workforce to be adaptive and to remain

competitive. Thus, the demand for a well-qualified workforce becomes a strategic

objective. In turn, an organization’s human resource training unit is seen to be a

key mechanism in ensuring the knowledge, skills and attitudes are necessary to

achieve organizational goals and create competitive advantage (Peteraf,1993). The

intensification of global competition and the relative success of economies that

give an emphasis to investing in training have resulted in the recognition of the

importance of training in recent years (Holden, 1997).

According to Kraiger (2003), successful organizations are thought to invest

more in training and development than other organizations. The huge cost that

organizations spend each year on formal training and development programs is

made with the expectation that their training investments will lead to

improvements in organizational performance or results (Dolezalek, 2005; Salas &

Cannon-Bowers, 2001).Training is one way by which employee learning occurs

thou the investment made in training is seen to impact the company both positively

and negatively.

Based on research by Salas et al (1999), training should impart new

knowledge and skills if the training is relevant, based on employee and

organizational needs. When training does result in improvements in relevant

knowledge and the acquisition of relevant skills, employee job performance should

improve, provided that the skills learned in training transfer to the job (Baldwin &

Ford, 1988; Salas et al., 1999). Improvement in job performance should however

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be reflected in organizational outcomes or results criteria such as productivity,

quality, and service, if the job is strategically aligned to the organization's needs.

Training has proven to be a parameter for enhancing the ability of the

workforce for achieving the organizational objectives. Good training programs

thus result in conquering of the essential goals for the business. Hence, training is

significant for giving a dynamic approach to the organization. This dynamic

approach is necessary because every organization that adopts a controlled way of

may not be able to deliver consistent results but a dynamic and flexible

organization may do so. There is no doubt that a well-trained and developed staff

will be a valuable asset to the company and thereby will increase the chances of

their efficiency and effectiveness in discharging their duties. Training is a learning

experience which has a capacity to make positive changes and reach up to the

desired objectives of the organization. It improves the ability of the employee to

perform the job efficiently and with excellence.

Training programs are the basic structural and functional foundations for

the development of the employees. These foundations are important for guiding

the employees through different situations. Training programs are the framework

for helping employees to develop their personal and professional skills,

knowledge, and abilities. Hence it can be stated that training imparts knowledge to

the employees regarding different issues in the organization and the proper

execution of these programs result in number of benefits such as development of

profitable, adaptable as well as efficient organization and productive & contented

employees.

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Supervision is a delicate and often misunderstood function that can have a

variety of effects on employees’ productivity. Supervision may also be defined as

a professional relationship between a supervisor and a social worker in which the

supervisor provides evaluation and direction of the services provided by the social

worker to promote competent and ethical services to clients through the continuing

development of the social worker's knowledge and application of accepted

professional social work knowledge skills and value. In some situations,

supervision can help improve results, while in others it can be a distraction to the

effectiveness of the staff.

But, as research clearly demonstrates, it is not only in the best interest of

the employee, but also the business, to pay close attention to the

supervisor/supervisee relationship. This relationship is critical to the success of the

employee and ultimately the organization. Well trained supervisors are needed to

provide the necessary and appropriate guidance, structure, and encouragement to

their staff. It is however important that staff performance are constantly monitored

and reviewed for it to be abreast with changes and developments. Today,

supervision appears to be sporadic and quite often, serves as a token activity that is

unable to achieve the objectives for which it is intended.

Supervision often includes conducting basic management skills, organizing

teams, noticing the need for and designing new job roles in the group, hiring new

employees, training new employees, managing employee performance, and

ensuring conformance to personnel policies and other internal regulations and

many more (Robbins & De Cenzo, 2001).

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Supervision is the ability of superiors to influence the behavior of

subordinates to take a particular course of action (Bernard, 2005). It is the art of

influencing people towards achieving organizational goals. Bernard (2005) further

clarifies that quality of supervision therefore refers to the effectiveness of the

superiors in influencing the behavior of the subordinates in taking a particular

course of action. However, it is mostly a delicate and often misunderstood function

that can have huge consequences on organizational performance. In some

situations, supervision can help improve results, while in other cases it can detract

the effectiveness of the organization. With appropriate supervisory intervention in

the workplace, it can consistently improve the performance of the organization.

History of Cocoa Processing Company (CPC)

The Cocoa Processing Company factory in Tema was commenced in 1963

by the Drevici Group of companies. However, it was never fully completed until

June 1972 when the factory was to hand over to the management of the Ghana

Cocoa Board. It manufactures chocolate and processed raw cocoa beans into semi-

finished products such as cocoa butter, cocoa cake and cocoa liquor. The cocoa

processing factory remained a subsidiary of Ghana cocoa board until it was

granted financial autonomy in 1993. Under the terms of the autonomy CPC was to

source for funds for her operations. Production of chocolate and confectionery was

listed on the Ghana stock exchange on 14th February 2003 following the

successful floatation of its shares.

There are eleven (11) members on the CPC Board who formulate broad

policies for the organization. The management team is headed by the managing

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director with two general managers as deputies, with twelve (12) heads of

department, out of these, the human resource manager, company secretary, audit

manager, public relations manager, chief accountant and marketing manager report

directly to the managing director. The chief engineer, production manager

(Cocoa), whilst the quality assurance manager, research and development manager

and production manager (confectionery) reports to the general manager

(confectionery).

The company’s vision is to be a market leader in processing raw cocoa

beans and their derivatives into high quality semi-finished products marketable at

the local international and export markets. Its mission is to process cocoa beans

into semi-finished cocoa products i.e. cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, cocoa cake,

natural and alkalized cocoa powder thus adding value and market for profit. Later

it would diversify into downstream products like chocolate and confectioneries,

cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and soap production.

Among others the objectives of the company include: To continually aspire

to be the best to ensure an adequate and reliable supply of products at acceptable

quality levels, to develop and maintain local and international markets for its

products as well as research, improve and develop new and diversified products to

meet wider consumer acceptance and also ensure financial autonomy and manage

its physical and financial assets in a cost effective manner for immediate and long

term financial.

Golden tree chocolates are internationally acclaimed for their purity and

quality. In 1980, golden tree chocolates won four gold medals and one silver

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medal in the prestigious monde selection international competition. On the local

front CPC won the product of the award in 1995, best branded marketable product

1996, achievement award for exporter of the year 1998, good corporate citizen

award 1998 and exporter of the 2000 and 2001 and 2002 all from the export

promotion council.

Statement of the problem

Over the years, many companies have seen the importance of providing

training and supervising their employees for the benefit and growth of the

organization. However, it is quite unfortunate that others are known to have failed

to provide these services to their employees with the perception that employees

run off to different companies after being trained. Others also see the training of

staffs as a waste of resources hence tend to employ people with the technical

know-how than employing people whom they are going to train from the scratch.

With the issue of supervision, there have been cases of poor supervision from the

superiors due to lack of training of these supervisors, which sometimes contributes

to the poor organizational performance. Supervision is a delicate and often

misunderstood function that can have a variety of effects on your employees’

performance. In some situations, supervision can help improve results, while in

others it can detract the effectiveness of the organization.

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Therefore due to curio, the study seeks to investigate the impact of training

and supervision of the employees of CPC and how it links to the growth and

performance of the company.

Objective of the study

The objective for the study was grouped under two main sub topic:

General objectives

The main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of training and

supervision and its effects on employee performance.

Specific objectives

To find out the lay down steps used to train employees.

To understand how training officers and supervisors assess employee

training needs.

To find out how supervisors and training officers relate to get employees to

perform well in the organization.

To find out the different techniques of supervision in organizations.

To establish the relationship between quality of supervision and

organization performance.

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Research question

In view of the proposed objectives and broad expectation of the study, it is

worthwhile that the following research questions will be considered

What are the steps used in training employees?

What productive ways can officer’s conduct training sessions or training

needs to assess employees?

What will be the effect if direct supervisors and training officers relate well

among themselves?

What methods do supervisors use to supervise their employees?

What is the relationship between quality supervision and organizational

performance?

Scope of the study

This study focused specifically on employees of Cocoa Processing

Company (CPC). The findings of this study will be limited to only CPC. It is

hoped that whatever results obtained would be assumed to be applicable generally.

Limitation of the study

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Any study based on employee survey through a pre designed questionnaire

suffers from the basic limitation of the possibility of difference between what is

recorded and what is the truth, no matter how carefully the questionnaire has been

designed and the field investigation has been conducted. This is because

employees may not deliberately report their true preferences and even if they want

to do so there bound to be differences owing to problems in filters of

communication process. The error has been tried to be minimized by conducting

personal interviews yet there is no full proof way of obviating the possibility of

error creeping in.

The following limitations of the study were taken into account.

1. As the study is to be completed in the short time, the time factor acted as a

considerable limit on the scope and the extensiveness of the study.

2. The information provided by respondents may not be fully accurate due to

unavoidable biases.

3. Since this is a one-person survey, the number of respondents is relatively

small for this kind of survey. However, this could not be helpful due to

constraints on time and money.

4. The technique for collecting the data is purposive sampling due to

monetary and manpower constraints.

Significance of the study

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The significance of this study is to extend knowledge on previous studies

conducted in different parts of the world. It is hoped that the findings will not only

inform the researcher about the impact of training and supervision as a determinant

factor in the performance of the organization but will also help the researcher

know ways in which employees enhance their performance in the best and

efficient way.

The study will help organization to know the importance of supervision

and training which will enable them to appreciate the impact that the quality of

training and supervision on organizational performance.

It is believed that the study will serve as an influential tool in the hands of

trainers, supervisors and manages in organizations to improve its resources and

ways to which they conduct training sessions in the organization to be able to

compete effectively with other competitors.

There is high rate of turnover in organizations because most people are not

versed with the new technologies, policies and strategies adopted by organizations

for employees to use, It is however, hoped that; understanding the impact of

training and supervision and its effect will improve performance in organizations

and also reduce the rate of turnover and redundancy in organizations.

Organization of the study

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The details of this work are divided into five chapters. Chapter one looks

at the introduction of this research, which includes the background of the study,

the statement of problem, the research objectives, the research questions,

limitations and delimitation, and organization of the study. Chapter two, this part

deals with the theoretical and conceptual background of the study. This part

contains the reviews of various literature materials of other researchers and authors

on the concept and theories of training and supervision and also examines the

effects it have on organizational performance. Chapter three which talks about

the research methodology will discuss the research methods to be adopted for the

study and also provide the relevant justifications thereof. It will outline the

methodologies for carrying out the data collections and analysis. The research

methods will cover; the research design, population of study, sample size and

sampling procedure, method of collecting data, data gathering instrument and data

analysis. Chapter four involves data presentation, its analysis and discussions

based on the stated methods in chapter three. Chapter five covers the summary of

the research, as well as conclusion and recommendation based on the findings.

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