2024, Vol. 6, Issue 1, Part B

author(s)
Angela N Okolo, AN Onoh and CE Udensi

abstract
There is no doubt that the Civil Service is as much concerned as business organizations with maintaining a sustainable and current skills inventory through capacity building that engenders employee commitment which translates to effective service delivery. This is readily evident from the regular capacity building initiatives and government reforms such as professionalization, rightsizing and restructuring geared towards improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the civil service. But even with the measures, stakeholder dissatisfaction with the commitment of civil servants continue to resonate. Based on a survey design involving 261 senior civil servants selected from eight ministries in five states of the South-East geo-political zone of Nigeria, this study investigated the influence of capacity building on employee commitment. The study utilized structured questionnaire in data collection and simple linear regression in testing the hypotheses. The findings of the study show that: there is positive and significant relationship between employee training and affective commitment of civil servants; and there is a positive but weak relationship between employee mentoring and normative commitment of civil servants. The study therefore concludes that capacity building influences employee commitment. Even more significantly is the fact that the different strategies for capacity building vary in terms of their relationships with dimensions of employee commitment. It is therefore necessary for the government through the civil service commission to focus on incremental, rather than structural system-wide, reforms that target employee competencies and engagement. This will not only improve employee involvement in the capacity building exercise but will also guarantee a better focus on the behavioural outcomes. This is particularly important for such capacity building methods as informal mentoring that is long-lasting but with less dramatic effect. The government should therefore consider formalizing mentoring in the civil service.