Human Resource Management and Organisational Performance in Rivers State Waste Management Agency, 2019–2025

Abstract

Effective human resource management constitutes one of the most critical yet institutionally under-resourced determinants of organisational performance in Nigerian public sector waste management agencies, where the capacity to recruit competent personnel and sustain their technical proficiency directly shapes the quality of service delivered to citizens. This study examined recruitment and selection practices and training and development programmes as determinants of employee performance and service delivery quality in Rivers State Waste Management Agency (RIWAMA) between 2019 and 2025. Anchored on Human Capital Theory, the study adopted a survey research design with total population sampling, covering all 139 staff of RIWAMA. Structured questionnaires were administered to 134 junior employees, of which 128 were returned and analysed (95.5% response rate), while structured interviews were conducted with five senior employees. Descriptive statistics with a criterion mean of 2.50 were used to answer the research questions, while Pearson Product Moment Correlation and simple linear regression at the 0.05 level of significance were used to test two null hypotheses. Findings revealed that recruitment and selection practices have a significant positive effect on employee performance in waste collection operations (r = 0.742, R² = 0.551, p < .05), and that training and development programmes have a strong significant positive influence on the quality of waste disposal and environmental sanitation service delivery (r = 0.819, R² = 0.671, p < .05), the latter constituting the strongest relationship in the study. Qualitative findings confirmed that RIWAMA has not conducted a merit-based recruitment exercise since 2006 and provides no regular staff training. The study concluded that recruitment and training deficiencies are foundational constraints on RIWAMA's organisational performance and recommended the institutionalisation of an independent, merit-based recruitment framework and a comprehensive, needs-based training programme for all staff categories.