EFFECTS OF MODERN OFFICE EQUIPMENT ON THE PERFORMANCE OF SECRETARIES.
A CASE STUDY OF CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA ENUGU
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Modern office equipment is the introduction of technology of labour saving devices which was brought out through innovation known as revolution in the office. The equipment has become the integral part of a modern machines and equipments used in different offices and different operations in the office equipment. It is also a set of articles, apparatus or physical resources serving to equip a person, thing or enterprises while the effect of the modern office equipment is the success of these equipment on secretarial performance in their daily activities in the office.
Secretary is an executive Assistant who possess of mastery of office skills, who demonstrates the ability to assume responsibilities without direct supervision and also exercise initiative and judgement who makes decision within the scope of assigned authority. A secretary is the office worker who combines the major skills of shorthand and typing with the other competencies of filing, reprography and telephone technique in the performance of her duties.
In the olden days, most office work were done manually but today industrial revolution have brought many sophisticated machines to supplement manual labour. This new innovation has increase the demand for the office equipment. And with this new innovation every offices and business ventures in the world today wants to be efficiently and increase its productivity through the use of these modern equipment.
In the study of this project, the researcher is concern with the effect of modern equipment in relation to the secretarial performance in the office. It is obvious that there are two distinct threads to follow:
One is the technology and the other is organization.
The success of any office depends on how far the set goals are attained. The purpose of the office include: Administration, Clerical work, handling of money, telegraphic and telephone operations etc. but the office is basically ment for clerical duties. And office is seemingly a “monitorial system where the informal personal relations can play an important role”. For these reasons to be implemented fully, the secretary must always be there to organize and run the office completely.
As the executive assistant who possess mastery of office skills she has to be familiar with the manipulation of all types of office equipments which is demanded to enhance her performance in the office. Office equipment such as electrical typewriter that improves the secretary’s duty in speed and accuracy. Telephone call far and near places especially the intercom which saves the secretary from moving up and down in the office like answering her boss, she will only dial the intercom on her table. Also duplicating machine helps a lot in the modern office, instead of you to repeat the typing which is time consuming, you duplicate which is easy and faster means. It may be difficult to capture the contents of jobs in permanent written description but office automation implementers believe that they are routine and dearly, that simply s not true. The various reported task of the secretary’s job can be brought together using factor analysis as:
(a) Duplicating
(b) Typewriting
(c) Stenography (other typical secretarial activities which together with type-writing require a considerable amount of skill acquisition).
(d) Compilation which involves instructed data.
(e) Computation
(f) Processing information (involving inter-personal communication.
(g) Assisting in the employer’s function (such as acting in the employers stead in composing correspondence, supervising others and going to meeting as a representative).
An office automation provides increased productivity through improved access ( in terms of data) faster making. These equipments was as a result of the rapid growth in technological breakthrough. So many offices therefore relies much on sophisticated office equipment in order to cope with ever increasing role in the offices. Although higher levels of management might not make much direct use of technology, the secretary will. The future for office automation, this is providing the secretary with the system that meets the real need identified as being important, rather than the ones of typing and steno graphing that are thought to be important.
Against, the traditional office, the modern office has so many activities to perform with the aid of modern equipment many offices has. These equipments and the secretaries are present to manipulate some of them in the discharging their normal duties efficiently, physical exerted and quality of work done.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The problems that secretaries have in the use of the equipment are as follows:
(a) Non-availability of modern equipment
(b) How current or power failure
(c) Use of out-dated equipment
(d) Lack of knowledge of the equipment
(e) Improper training of the newly introduced equipment.
(f) Lack of materials to work with.
1.3 THE OBJECTIVE AND PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study is to research on the effect of modern office equipment on the performance of the secretaries.
The purpose of this study are:
(a) To determine the extent to which the use of these equipment could assist the secretary in the discharge of her duties.
(b) To determine the extent these equipments could be manipulated by an office worker rather than a secretary.
(c) To determine whether they derive job satisfaction from the use of these office equipment.
(d) To determine the challenges these equipment pose to the secretaries.
1.4 DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY
This study is delimitated to the effect of modern office equipment in improving secretarial performance, specifically those secretaries in the Central Bank of Nigeria Enugu State.
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The following questions designed by the researchers to enable her get precise conclusions,
(a) What are the modern office equipment used in the office?
(b) What are the problems that secretaries encounter in the use of these equipments?
(c) What extent has modern office equipment helped to enhance efficiency in secretarial duties?
(d) Which challenges do these equipment pose to the secretary?
(e) What do they derived form the use of those modern office equipment?
1.6 SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY
It is only when the result of any research is effectively used that the time and resources invested on it can be justified. There are many immense benefits that can be derived from the equipments.
These equipment serves as a means to ease work load of secretaries in offices and bring about job efficiency to the secretaries in the office where there are office automation the productivity of that office is always high to compare to those still on old equipment.
This study will equally be of immense benefit to those planning to open an office and those already existing that they should strive to equip their office with modern office automation for efficiency of job performance. It is hoped that the result of this research would educate the general public to what modern office equipment and the importance attached to in the efficiency performance of the secretaries in the office.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION OFFICE MACHINERY
The expansion of offices necessitated the development of office equipment.
In developing countries like Nigeria where children build things for fun e.g kites, toys etc but while man had already in the past constructed certain equipment. Babara (1986) said long before machine existed, people found ways to calculate with their hands, or arranged stones infected with feathers, tied sticks etc.
All these in order to keep track of quantities. Inspite of the increasing availability of technology as the generation and accumulation of data was made easier and more and more work pile in the offices. Some early pioneers were acutely aware of this potential impart of technology upon the organization. The a fully automated high speed computer was introduced to computers Ltd. 1956 and as a result of this new trend in business world – wide, offices and organizations strive to give better produce and better services so as to remain in business.
Office automation has a technological basis which depends upon developments in information technology. A successful implementation of office equipments requires an understanding of human and organizational setting. The need for more information and circulation transactions distribution book-keeping, exchange payroll, communication records, copies of documents etc. attracted or motivated managers to produce modern equipments which facilitates office work and ultimately had to generate output.
The earliest copies were made by clerks who simply copied out important document promulgations count record in a big round band. The first attempt to replace these human copies with some sort of mechanical copy centred round the use of stencil. He also explained early attempts made by Thomas Alvan Edison and others who used needles to pierce the letters shaped in a paper stencil, but it was really a difficult task.
There has been various opinions by different writers and authors on the effect of modern office equipment on the secretarial performance. It is well established fact that secretaries ahs remained forces to be reckoned with in the world of business but, they need the equipment which enhances their job performances. And because of this, several individuals and many scholars have delved into the issue of office automation and information technology to determine the contribution of these equipment to the effective and efficient performance of the secretaries as well as the realization of the set goals of an organization. In the 80’s, office machines and information processing equipment, made of mechanical devices like manual typewriters, telephones and telegraph were invented deployed for transmitting signal over long distances. These have made a lot of impart on the performance of secretarial duties as well as other organizational duties.
This chapter contains views of some office automation dealing with the research topic and also observations of others who have issues related to this topic.
David Gestiner with the duplicating process invented a wheeled pen with sharp teeth which give the name “Cyclostyle”. This process came about replacing the copy clerks in the offices in 1890’s. Later, xerograph process was invented in 1987, the Xerox 914 was introduced which produced copies at a speed of one per second (Standwell, 1979) Walley, (1968) explained that accounting machines were introduced as a result of problems inherent in the hand written system.
Another development, Standwell (1978) explained that the first automatic machine was the “Auto-typist” made in America in 1932. It was electricity and they type already prepared text in a predetermined display without a typist striking the keys, returning the carriage or operating any of the machine control. Also Warson etal (1978) stated that the automatic typewriter produced copies from the original typescript at the speed of up to 145 words per minutes or above, each of them looks like original copy thus, crediting a good impression when sending letters to a different offices.
This invention did not stop at the earlier mentioned stage. Man still continue in his quest for perfection in the world of business. In the late 1970’s and 1980’s. Bullen (1982) reported the use of existing secretarial work stations at IBM’s San Jose Research Laboratory in various tables, the performances, characteristics and requirements for secretarial work at terminal were recorded. All secretaries reported preferring to use a typewriter for form filing short once-off jobs. Majority preferred to use a terminal unless the system was available. This is another improved office equipment for managers, secretaries and other professionals. On this issue of quality, office equipment Fuari 1977 stated “the advent of the industrial revelational and ever-increasing amount of data to be processed gave rise to the need for faster, cheaper and more efficient method of processing words and data. Owing to the reason mentioned above, word processors were introduced to solve the problem.
Elendu (1985) also gave his own opinion of the accounting machines that they perform routines book-keeping and related task in a single operation.
Johnson (1982) emphasized that during the 20th century, that IBM develop the first electricity typewriter to increase the speed in typewriter. Then the world fastest growing major business, the computer industry has had its phenomenal growth and development since 1950’s. The first generation (1950 – 1951) used vaccum tube and the impute device which consist of punch card and stored programme were limit to magnetic drums and cones. The second generation (1956 – 1964) developed computer uses transistors and dioles, these are smaller unit compact requiring less air conditioning of their vacuum tubes. Most offices made use of their early computer in converting from their existing manual to mechanical accounting systems, so as to obtain savings in the number of personnel required to do the work and to secure increased accuracy to simplify their procedure.
As time goes on the third generation (1964 – 1971) had micro miniaturized circuits in smaller compact units which increased the reliability of operations and reduce cost of maintenance to
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