Skill Improvement Needs of Secretarial Staff for Effective Job Performance in Tertiary Institutions in Anambra State

Abstract

The study determined the skill improvement needs of secretarial staff for effective job performance in tertiary institutions in Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study and four null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 alpha level of significance. Survey research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 245 secretaries at the Central Administration of the six tertiary institutions in Anambra State. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire. The instrument was validated by three experts. Cronbach's Alpha method was used to obtain the reliability co-efficient internal consistency. The values obtained were 0.91 and 0.93 for clusters B1 to B2 respectively, with an overall coefficient value of 0.90. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while t-test and ANOVA were used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level. The findings of the study revealed that the majority of office automation control systems and office management software needs of secretarial staff, and those they possessed revealed that, secretarial staff in tertiary institutions in Anambra State need improvement for effective job performance. Age, ownership of institutions and years of work experience of Secretarial staff do not differ significantly in their mean ratings on the skills improvement of office automation control system and office management software needs for effective performance in tertiary institutions in Anambra State. The study concluded that office automation control systems and office management software are much skill improvement needs of secretarial staff for effective performance in tertiary institutions in Anambra State. It was recommended among others that secretarial staff can also improve their use of office automation control system and office management software skills by attending  seminars and conferences to be kept abreast of the latest development in the world of work and technology, training and retraining of secretaries on the use of new technologies, reading journals and periodical that will educate them on appropriate office skills needed by secretaries for effective performance in tertiary institutions.