Project Abstract

<p> This work intends to provide a computer based system for the maintenance of<br>personnel records of employees in organization. The work addresses limitations<br>identified with manual method of handling personnel records of employees in a<br>firm by providing a better platform to eliminate fraud, corruption, file hiding and<br>misplacement, records falsification, duplication, fragmentation, inconsistencies and<br>other vices attendant with manual method of handling personnel records. The<br>Personnel Information System (PIS) software is a user friendly package that gives<br>one the fit to accurately monitor employees’ records effortless. With Personnel<br>Information System (PIS), the personnel records of employees in a firm regardless<br>of their place of assignment are simultaneously integrated and rationalized through<br>the creation of a single system that provides accurate information to all in a time<br>and cost efficient manner. This software is designed for stand-alone windows<br>environment, but has the ability to be networked. The interface is Visual Basic<br>language with the structured query language (SQL). The implementation of the<br>system will provide speedy retrieval of data as well as enhancing effective and<br>efficient data.<br>1 <br></p>

Project Overview

<p> </p><p>1.1 INTRODUCTION:<br>This chapter introduces and presents the baseline of the thesis. It provides an<br>overview of the study and the important issues that will be discussed and<br>investigated<br>1.2 RATIONAL/THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:<br>Personnel Information System is a computer based system for the maintenance of<br>the service registers of individuals in an organization.<br>According to Hicks and Gullet (19974; 316), “An information system may be<br>defined as an organized way of sending, receiving and recording messages”.<br>Traditionally, personnel record for federal public servants of any organization in a<br>country like ours are held in three places namely: Open and secret register of the<br>organization at the headquarters for all the staff of the organization in the nation.<br>The state offices for all the staff in each particular state and local government area<br>offices for staff posted to the local government area where applicable.<br>There are also operational departmental records for staff at the headquarters and<br>states head offices. This, however, led to duplication, fragmentation and<br>inconsistencies in records of staff. Whereas, a firm’s information system should be<br>unified, there should be no contradictions, no overlaps, and no gaps.<br>2<br>Information needed by many departments should be collected by one source,<br>stored and made available to any section of the organization that needs it (Unamka<br>and Ewurum 1995; 329). Therefore, the Data are inaccurate and thus unreliable as<br>a basis for decision making.<br>Unamka and Ewurum (1995; 329) say, “Unless a manager has the correct<br>information at the right time, he is unlikely to make the right decision”.<br>Since the data are inaccurate and unreliable, the information generated therein is of<br>low quality and decisions taken likely to be wrong in confirmation to;<br>“The higher the quality of the information, the better the result of the decision<br>Eating” (Unamka and Ewurum 1995; 329).<br>For instant, the name of a deceased local government area staff may continue to be<br>appearing in the register or nominal roll of the organization at the quarters years<br>after the staff demise, whereas his/her name has been removed from the state<br>register or nominal roll list. Secondly, there are cases where officers obtained<br>additional qualification beside the ones they were employed with, but these<br>qualifications are not accredited to them at the headquarters whereas they have<br>them at their states office files. Another case is where a couple of staff were<br>employed at the same time, place on the same grade level and step and posted to<br>different states, but few years later, the officers started earning different amount of<br>3<br>money as salaries because of one manipulation or the other. Thus data gathering<br>and updating are subject to delay or worse when files are lost. Though the existing<br>manual system of recording information is useful, however, with the development<br>of PERSONNEL INFORMATION SYSTEM (PIS) software, personnel records<br>will be simultaneously integrated and rationalized. It should then be seen as a route<br>to eradicating all the problems of manual method of handling records through the<br>creation of a single system that would provide accurate information to all in a time<br>and cost efficient manner.<br>According to Unamka and Ewurum (1995; 329), “Information that is useful in<br>business should be accurate and timely”.<br>With Personnel Information System (PIS), the details pertaining to personnel<br>postings, qualifications, departmental test passed, training attended, family details,<br>etc are stored in this system. With the help of nice friendly graphical interface,<br>retrieval of information is possible based on any individual or on collective<br>information grouped by certain categories. These categories could be designation,<br>retirement time, length of service, place of work or location, etc. Thus the issue of<br>ghost workers, hiding of files, falsification of records, and other vices that are often<br>associated with manual system will be things of the past.<br>Therefore, Personnel Information System is very much in need for every<br>organization.<br>4<br>1.2.4 BRIEF HISTORY OF NATIONAL POPULATION COMMISSION<br>(NPopC):<br>The present National Population Commission was established in April 1988 by the<br>legal instrument creating it (Decree No.23 of 1989).<br>The Commission is made up of the board members headed by the chairman and 37<br>federal commissioners, one each from all the states of the federation and federal<br>capital territory. Also on the board is the Director General (DG) who happens to be<br>the accounting officer of the commission. The board also has appointed secretary<br>called the secretary to the commission, who oversees the secretariat of the<br>commission. The board has the responsibility to formulate policies as directed by<br>the federal government, while the core civil servants are saddled with the<br>responsibilities to carry out the policies.<br>The commission in other to carry out its functions effectively has eight<br>departments and each department is headed by a director. The departments are<br>• ADMIN AND SUPPLY<br>• CARTOGRAPHY<br>• CENSUS<br>• FINANCE AND ACCOUNTS<br>• INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY<br>• PLANNING AND RESEARCH<br>5<br>• PUBLIC AFFAIRS<br>• VITAL REGISTRATION<br>The commission has its headquarters in Abuja and offices in all states capitals of<br>the federation including the federal capital territory. It also has offices in the 774<br>local government areas of the country. Presently, the total staff strength of the<br>commission is about five thousand. The personnel information gathering,<br>processing and management of all the staff of the commission is carried out by the<br>Admin and Supply department.<br>According to Unarnka and Ewurum (1995; 135), “Personnel Management also<br>called human resource management is the management of people at work. That<br>also refers to the functions and operations of a single department of the corporation<br>which has the responsibility and authority to select and train personnel”.<br>This department in order to carry out the complex challenges of managing human<br>resources is subdivided into divisions to enhance efficiency. The divisions are as<br>follows:<br>• ESTABLISHMENT:- Under which we have Open and Secret Registry,<br>nominal roll, salary variations, leaves and disengagement sections.<br>• WELFARE:- Here we have Pensions, Gratuity, Stores, and Loans Sections<br>• TRAINGS:- Here we have Manpower Development and Structure sections.<br>• APD: – Here we have Appointments, Promotions, and Discipline sections.<br>6<br>• TRANSPORT: – Here we have vehicle Maintenance, Communications and<br>Supply sections.<br>• LEGAL.<br>1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM.<br>For the past four decades, manual personnel data management system has been<br>used. This method has its problems and it has been proved to be very ineffective<br>and inefficient, and some of the problems identified are:<br>• Manual method of preparing, gathering and processing data as a personnel<br>management function entails considerable manual efforts. Thus manual method<br>is cumbersome, tiresome, boring, frustrating and time consuming.<br>• Manual method has a lot of discrepancies.<br>• Manual method encourages frauds and corruption. Figures are easily falsified<br>and changed with perhaps some exchange of money.<br>• Manual method inflicts severe hardship on the staff due to avoidable human<br>errors, like misplacement of files. When there are errors, then the reliability,<br>accuracy, neatness, tidiness, and validity of the data would be in doubt.<br>• Since it is the function of the Admin Department to raise variation advice for<br>the use of the finance and account department (pay roll), manual method<br>requires staff that have some numerical background to do the job reliably. This<br>7<br>group of people are grossly inadequate, hence, we have a set of staff that were<br>employed at the same time, place on the same grade level and step, and posted<br>out to different states, but they earn different salaries years after due to<br>variation preparation.<br>• Manual method results in incomplete service records of staff which undermines<br>the personnel management function that depends upon the information<br>gathered from the earliest stages of employee’s career. For instance, additional<br>qualifications obtained after the initial one presented on employment may not<br>be used to place an employee adequately due to lack of updating data or<br>information. Further, management needs adequate information to resolve<br>disciplinary cases fairly, otherwise there may be costly delay in obtaining<br>decision for there is a dictum which says, ” justices delayed is justices denied<br>or unfair decisions may be made in order not to deny justices. Besides, a great<br>deal of staff time may be wasted tracking down missing documents.<br>• Manual method of handling personnel information involves waste of paper<br>materials.<br>• The size of the paper records with attendant management problem has<br>significant logistic implications to the commission.<br>• Manual method encourages waste of man-hour and resources because staff<br>employed to carry files from one point to another do some time use the time to<br>8<br>do something else instead of doing the job they were employed for. To see that<br>this job is done more staff are employed than ordinary should be.<br>• Manual method does not allow for the processing of large volume of data on a<br>regular and timely basis.<br>Given these above scenarios, this study seeks to evaluate the various contributions<br>of Personnel Information System (PIS) toward the improvement of inadequacies<br>accompanying the manual method of handling personnel information issues in<br>National Population Commission (NPopC).<br>1.4 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY<br>This project seeks to design and develop an efficient and effective Personnel<br>Information System (PIS) using National Population Commission as a case study.<br>It also aims at identifying the importance of Personnel Information System in<br>handling personnel records against the manual method. Specifically, the following<br>are the objective of the study.<br>• To identify the various problems of manual approach towards handling<br>Personnel Information System in the Commission.<br>• To identify and eliminate the major problems encountered through the use of<br>manual method of processing personnel information like falsification of<br>records, ghost workers among others.<br>9<br>• To develop an integrated and rationalized Personnel Information System in<br>NPopC.<br>• To suggest other measures that will help in eradicating the problem associated<br>with manual method of handling personnel information matters.<br>1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS.<br>Three Null (Ho) hypothesis though not tested are proposed to strengthen the<br>concept of the project work.<br>• HI Personnel Information System will enhance significantly the processing<br>of staff records in the National Population Commission.<br>• HO Personnel Information System will not enhance significantly the processing<br>of staff records in the National Population Commission.<br>• HI Personnel Information System will significantly affect adversely the staff<br>strength of the Commission.<br>• H0 Personnel Information System will not significantly affect adversely<br>the staff strength of the Commission.<br>• HI Personnel Information System will eradicate fraud, corruption and other<br>malpractices in the Commission.<br>• HO Personnel Information System will not eradicate fraud, corruption and other<br>malpractices in the Commission.<br>10<br>1.6 SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY:<br>This study is significant in the sense that it determines the benefit accruable to the<br>staff of the Nation Population Commission through the use of Personnel<br>Information System against the manual method. These include:<br>• It supports large volume of data processing and storage; promote<br>information retrieval, addition, deletion, as well as other database updating<br>activities.<br>• It provides relevant, complete, accurate and timely information to the<br>management and staff.<br>• It exposes and equips the staff of the Commission to the field of<br>information technology by sending them to training to acquire necessary<br>skills in Information Technology (IT).<br>• It evaluates quickly the establishment and payment changes.<br>• It demonstrates the importance of modernization of information and<br>communication.<br>• It improves the quality of information communication by making it<br>available to all the staff of the Commission at the time of their need.<br>• The system will enable the managers of the Commission discharge their<br>managerial function easily on any staff at any level due to availability of<br>information.<br>11<br>• It demonstrates how business needs could be met efficiently and effectively<br>through the application of information tools made available by the advances<br>in the field of science and technology.<br>• The software will be able to compliment personnel database with payroll<br>database. Hence, enhancing the Personnel Management Information<br>System and tighten the control of the payroll database.<br>1.7 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY:<br>In the course of carrying out this project some factors tried to hinder the free flow<br>of the work. These factors include:<br>FINANCE: Finance constituted major problem as there was no sufficient fund to<br>round for the required materials, visit library, and cybercafẻ.<br>LACK OF MATERIALS: It was not easy to get written text on the subject matter<br>from libraries and internet.<br>ACCESS TO PERSONAL FILES OF STAFF: It was not easy to have access to<br>personal files of staff. A lot of persuasion and conviction was applied before the<br>management could grant permission for us to have access to the staff files, where<br>we extracted the form, format we used as a model in this project.<br>TIME: Time was not at my liberty being a student| who is fully engaged with my<br>studies, it was not easy for me to squeeze out time for me to out the project.<br>12<br>1.8 SCOPE OF THE STUDY:<br>This project seeks to design and develop Personnel Information System. Our focus<br>is on National Population Commission. Our major area is to identify and<br>modernize the specific function of Admin and Supply Department as regard to the<br>management of personnel information. The software will be able to complement<br>personnel database with payroll database. The sample size will be the staff of<br>National Population Commission Enugu state office. The design will have three<br>levels of users. They include:<br>• AN INDIVIUAL USER: Here an individual is able to view his records.<br>• THE ADMINISTRATIVE USER: Here the administrator has access to all the<br>users’ record of the department.<br>• THE SUPER USER: Here the officer has access to all the users of all the<br>departments. The individual user can login and access their data/records only.<br>1.9 OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF SOME TERMS:<br>Application:<br>An application is the executable file and all related files that a program needs to<br>function which serve common purposes. The word is sometimes used<br>synonymously with program.<br>13<br>ASCII:<br>This is an acronym for ‘American Standard Code Information Interchange’. It is<br>used to describe the byte values assigned to specific character. For instance, the<br>letter ‘a’ has ASCII code of 65.<br>CLIENT:<br>1 Is anything that requires the service of something else. Example, in Object<br>Pascal, a client is any code that uses one or more features of an object or unit.<br>In windows, a client is the code that makes use of windows Application<br>Program Interface (API).<br>2 Is a database system, in which a workstation connected to a server can request<br>for data from the server. The client workstation can process data locally and<br>write it back to the server.<br>COMPILER:<br>This translates a program source written in a high level language to an object<br>code which consists of instructions that the computer can understand.<br>COMPONENT:<br>The element of visual basic application ionized on the component palette in<br>the visual basic programming environment. Component including forms are<br>object one can manipulate. It is always self contained and provides access to<br>its features through properties.<br>14<br>DATA ACCESS COMPONENT:<br>Data objects are based within a visual basic program to manipulate database<br>as well as the tables and indexes within the database. The data objects are<br>the representations (in program code) of the physical database, data tables,<br>fields, indexes and so on.<br>DATABASE:<br>A collection of operational data of organization stored in related tables.<br>DATA CONTROL COMPONENT:<br>Data control component means a visual basic component that enables a<br>developer to create the interface of a database application.<br>DATA SET:<br>This is a collection of data determined by a Ttable or Tquery component. A<br>dataset defined by Ttable includes every row in a table and dataset defined<br>by a Tquery contains a selection of rows and columns from the tables that<br>meet the condition specified in the query.<br>END USER:<br>This is a member of an application’s intended audience synonymous with<br>user but emphasized the fact that the programmer is not the user. According<br>to Delphi document, end user is referred to as the users of application<br>developed in a programming environment such as Delphi.<br>15<br>EXCEPTION, EXCEPTION-HANDLER:<br>An exception is an event or condition that if it occurs, breaks the normal<br>flow of execution. Code assigned to resolve the situation in run-time<br>environment that raises the exception and/or restores the environment to a<br>stable state is called exception handler.<br>EVENT, EVENT-HANDLER:<br>Event is a user action such as a button click or a system occurrence such as a<br>preset time interval recognized by a component. Each component has a list<br>of specific events to which it can respond. Code that is executed when a<br>particular event occurs is called an event-handler.<br>FIELDS:<br>These are rows of information that stores data of particular records.<br>FILE:<br>This is a group of related records.<br>INFORMATION:<br>This is a processed data/facts obtained by assembling them into<br>meaningful form.<br>LOOK-UP-TABLE:<br>This is a secondary table that enables database systems to use a small code<br>field to enable many records in a primary table to referring to information<br>16<br>stored in another. This can be used as a means of ensuring that values<br>entered in a primary table are legitimate values, thus safeguarding data<br>integrity.<br>METHOD:<br>This is a procedure or function associated with a particular object.<br>MODEL, MODELESS:<br>This represents the run-time state of a form designated as a dialog box in<br>which the user must clear the form before continuing with the application. A<br>model box restricts access to other areas of the application. If the user can<br>switch focus away from the dialog box without first closing it, then the runtime<br>state is called modeless.<br>NON-WINDOWED CONTROL:<br>A non windowed control is a control that can not receive focus, that cannot<br>be the parent of any other control and which does not have a window<br>handler.<br>OBJECT LINKING AND EMBEDDING (OLE):<br>OLE is a method of sharing complex data among applications. With OLE,<br>data from a server application is stored in a container application using the<br>OLE object.<br>17<br>PRIMARY INDEX:<br>Primary index is an index on the key field of a database table. An index<br>performs the following tasks:<br>• Determine the location of the record<br>• Keeps record in sorted order<br>• Speed up search operation<br>A primary index typically has a requirement of uniqueness that is no<br>duplicate key can exist.<br>PROGRAM:<br>Set of coded instructions written in any of the programming languages to<br>perform a specific task.<br>RELATIONAL DATABASE:<br>This is a database management model in which data is stored in rows and<br>columns and which the data in one table can access the data in other tables<br>by means of common data field. The database assigned to specific<br>characters. For instance, the letter V has ASCII code of 65.<br>SOFTWARE:<br>This is a procedure in machine-readable instruction called program that<br>directs the activities of the computer.<br>18<br>SQL:<br>Structured Query Language (SQL) is a relational database language used to<br>define, manipulate, search, and retrieve data in database.<br>WINDOWED CONTROL:<br>This is a control that can receive focus, that can own other control, and<br>which does have a window handle.<br>WINDOW HANDLE:<br>This is a number that is assigned by windows to a control that must be used<br>to request services for that control from the windows’ Application<br>Program Interface (API).<br>VISUAL COMPONENT:<br>This is a component that is visible or can be made visible on a form at run-time.</p><div><div></div></div><br> <br><p></p>