By Wurim, Ben Pam
Human capital is one of the most critical of all resources at the disposal of any organisation, whether, public or private. The right quality and quantity of human capital (employed) is a measure of an organisation’s strength, health, success and security. To remain strong, profitable and effective, organisations have to employ scientific methods of planning human capital. It is a pity that the human capital planning picture painted above is not common in the Nigerian public sector. Most public sector organisations perform below expectation with problems of inefficiency, redundancy and employee bloating. The main thrust of this thesis is to critically and empirically evaluate human capital planning (HCP) in the Nigerian public sector with a view to discovering prospects and challenges inherent therein. Hypotheses in line with these objectives were drawn and tested based on the data gathered through a questionnaire administered to five Nigerian Public sector organisations and filled by 349 respondents. The findings indicated that adherence to human capital planning in Nigerian public sector organisations accounted for organisational effectiveness and reduction in personnel costs. Strict adherence to talent management processes also led to increases in employee productivity. The study found that the human capital forecasting system in the Nigerian public sector organisations is weak and could not be used for the precise determination of employee requirements in terms of number and quality. Also, the study found that a plethora of forces (environmental challenges) exert varying degrees of pressure and influence on the planning of human capital in public sector organisations. The study concluded that human capital planning significantly accounts for improvements in organizational effectiveness and employee behavior in Nigerian public organisations. Also, that human capital planning has positive impact on personnel cost reduction in the public sector of Nigeria; that human capital forecasting does not lead to the accurate estimation of employee needs requirement and that environmental challenges positively impact on human capital planning. It is recommended that planners and managers of human capital in the public sector of Nigeria should be properly educated and trained in scientific human capital planning and talent management if organisational effectiveness and employee productivity must be increased. Advocacy should be adopted by public sector organisations to influence the enactment of detrimental laws and legislations that have direct bearing on the human capital planning processes of their organisations. The study has contributed to knowledge by designing a human capital supply forecasting model and the use of behavioural accounting to measure the economic consequences of certain employee behaviour.