Work Environment, Staff Development, Personal Variables and Job Performance of Library Personnel in Public Universities in the South-South, Nigeria

Authors

  • Ekanem B. E. Eyo
  • K. I. N. Nwalo

Abstract

Job performance of library personnel is essential for achievement of library goals and objectives in public universities in the South-south, Nigeria. Previous studies have concentrated on job motivation, ICT skills and use by library personnel with little attention paid to work environment, staff development and personal variables. The study was carried out to investigate work environment, staff development, personal variables (PV – Educational Qualifications, Job Positions, Work Experience and Job Tenure) as predictors of job performance of library personnel in public universities in the South-south, Nigeria. The survey design of the correlational type was adopted for the study. The population of the study consists of 762 library personnel, notably librarians, para-professionals and library assistants working in the 13 public universities in the South-south, Nigeria. A total enumeration was adopted as the sampling technique to cover 762 library personnel involved in the study. The instrument used to collect data for analysis was questionnaire. The research instrument was validated, to consider its suitability for the study. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression. The hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of significance. The findings showed significant relationships among work environment, staff development, personal variables and job performance (F (6,659) = 29.262; Adj. R2 = 0.203) accounting for 20.3% of the variance in job performance. The paper concluded that the level of job performance of library personnel in public universities in the South-south, Nigeria is determined by conducive and appealing work environment, staff development practices for library personnel as well as possession of personal variables. Furthermore, significant relationships exist among work environment, staff development, personal variables and job performance of library personnel in public universities in the South-south, Nigeria. The paper recommended among others that library management should take cognisance of factors such as work environment, staff development and personal variables to improve and sustain the level of job performance of library personnel, regularly develop library personnel on-the-job, particularly, through job rotation of library personnel to expose them, improve their job skills and increase their work experience to get jobs quickly done in any section of the library, federal and state governments as well as public university authorities in Nigeria should improve their funding and budgetary allocations to libraries and upgrade infrastructural facilities necessary for improvement and sustainability of work environment.

Key Words: Job performance, Library personnel, Public universities in the South-south, Nigeria, Personal variables, Staff development, Work environment

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