challenges facing married sectarial

TITLE PAGE THE CHALLENGES FACING MARRIED FEMALE SECRETARIES IN SELECTED BUSINESS ORGANIZATION IN OWERRI METROPOLIS. BY OBASI GIFT ONYINYECHI A PROJECT WORK SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF OFFICE TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF A NATIONAL DIPLOMA (ND) IN OFFICE TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT AUGUST 2008 APPROVAL PAGES This project report titled the challenges facing married female secretaries in selected business organization in Owerri metropolis, has been read and approved as satisfying the requirements for the award of National Diploma in OFFICE TECHNOLOGY and MANAGEMENT (OTM) FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC NEKEDE. -------------------------------------- ---------------------------- Dr. S. N. OHAKWE (DEAN) DATE (PROJECT SUPERVISOR) ------------------------------------ ---------------------------- Dr. Mr. C. C. IWUOHA DATE (HEAD OF DEPARTMENT DEDICATION This piece of work is dedicated to God Almighty, whom by his inspiration, guidance, protection and mercy have made this work to be complete. I also dedicate it to my Big sister OGECHI and my dear mother CHRISTY may God pour his Blessing on them in Jesus name Amen. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I wish to express my profound and sincere thanks to God Almighty whose grace have shouldered the responsibility of my upbringing and education. My immense gratitude and foremost appreciation goes to my parents Mr. and Mrs. OBASI, more especially my dear mother CHRISTINA OBASI who has been starving and depriving herself of many goodies and convivial ties of life just to see that I scaled through the rigors of this academic career. I also acknowledgement my helper, my one and only sister GLORY OGECHI OBASI who immensely encouraged me to further my study with her finance support to the end. Sister God bless you. I am deeply indebted to my powerful supervisor Dr. S. N. Ohakwe, my H.O.D Mrs. C. C Iwuoha and all the lecturers in the department of OTM who God used in imparting knowledge to me throughout the course of this study. My thanks also goes to my younger brother Maxwell Obasi, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Obasi, my step mother Mercy, my siblings, Chukwuma, Oluchi and all my family members, my uncles, my cousins, Ada, Mama, Chijioke Sonia & relations. I am also grateful to my friends CHIKA, Rosemary Ifunanya onyekachi, Amarachi, Judith, obilo, chineye, chidinma, kc, kendric, MARYJANE, NICOLAS, EZE CHIMA, Bishop, JOY, IFEANYI, CHINAZOR and others. I will not fall to thank my pastors, my Neighbors, my course mates, and host of others numerous to mention. My prayer to them all is that they shall eat the fruit of their labour, livelong and reward then all in Jesus name Amen. (ps.128:6) ABSTRACT The major purpose of this study was to determine the Challenges Facing Married Female Secretaries in their work places in Selected Business Organization in Owerri Metropolis. The population of the study consisted of 40 Married Female Secretarial Staff from the selected Organizations. The entire population was used for the study. The research question were posed to guide the study A-30 items structured questionnaire was developed and validated percentage was used to answer the research questions. The major facts of the secretaries were Confidential and personal secretaries were only the type of secretary in the elected Business Organizations who were married female secretaries. The married female secretary’s staff has ignored to put in practice their duties, responsibilities and qualities of a good secretary and this posed to affects them in their work places. Family problems have reflected to the challenges that confronted them in their work places, which makes them not working as expected. It was recommended that secretaries should reaffirm their duties, responsibilities and qualification should not be overlooked in their tenor. Finally, employers should device a means of training their secretaries in all areas, giving adequate motivation to them and ensuring genuine human relation respectively. TABLE OF CONTENT TITLE PAGE II APPROVAL PAGE III DEDICATION IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENT V ABSTRACT VI TABLE OF CONTENT VII CHAPTER I 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 1-5 1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 5 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 6 1.4 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY 7 1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 8 1.6 SCOPE AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY 9 CHAPTER II 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW 10 2.1 CATEGORIES OF SECRETARIES 10-18 2.2 CHALLENGES OF DISCRIMINATION 18-19 2.3 CHALLENGE OF MODERN OFFICE EQUIPMENT 19-20 2.4 CHALLENGE OF FAMILY PROBLEM 20-21 2.5 CHALLENGE OF HUMAN RELATION WITH THE BOSS 21-22 2.6 CHALLENGE OF DUTIES OF SECRETARIES 22-25 2.7 SUMMARY OF RELATED LITERATURE 25 CHAPTER III 3.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 26 3.1 DESIGN OF THE STUDY 26 3.2 AREA OF THE STUDY 27 3.3 POPULATION OF THE STUDY 27-28 3.4 INSTRUMENT FOR DATE COLLECTION 28 3.5 SAMPLE AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUES 28- 29 3.6 DESCRIPTIVE OF INSTRUMENT 29 3.7 METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION 29 3.8 METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS 30 CHAPTER iV 4.0 PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA 31 4.1 RESEARCH QUESTION I 31-33 4.2 RESEARCH QUESTION II 33-35 4.3 RESEARCH QUESTION III 35-36 4.4 DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 37-40 CHAPTER V 5.0 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 41 5.1 RESTATEMENT OF PROBLEM 42 5.2 CONCLUSIONS 43 5.3RECOMMENDATIONS 44-45 REFERENCE 46-48 APENDIX 1 49 APPENDIX 50-53CHAPTER I 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY In every profession, there is lot of challenges facing the staff depending on their professional fields. To every profession, there is lot of challenges facing them from one department to another. In higher institutions or in universities, the challenges facing them both male and female workers are the workers or lectures feel cheated, when the are talking about the hierarch, people that are controlling them feel they are higher than they are by either profession or qualifications. In the banks, there are a lot of challenges facing the workers, some managers feel that those who are under their care have no good profession, they feel the other workers are not qualified to work with them. In a lay main language, a secretary is one who assist the boss in taking down the minutes of the meeting, writing letters, filling incoming and outgoing correspondences of an organization. A secretary should relate the functions of the office to the whole organization. she should appropriate action independently when accurate records of proceedings and relieves executive of various administrative details, co-ordinates and maintains effective office procedure set by employer, establishes and maintain harmonious working relationship with superiors, co-workers subordinates, customers and clients and suppliers. (Ohakwe 2004). According to( Njoku 2006) a secretary’s effort alone cannot help to improve your relationship with your boss. As a secretary, he or she should show concern to the staff of the organization, a secretary must show the typewriting and this new inventory competencies required of secretaries. According to (Ezinwa and agumo 2000) a secretarial staff in an office with the professional qualifications of secretaries and equipped practice, mainly shorthand and typewriting that is the reason why a good secretary is an officer whose work is under women with the work of every other person in the organization (Ani 2001). According to him in the business world and essential link in the diversified duty activities of an organization, the pivot around which organizational activities rotate, the contact between the various aims are or variable goods and services to customers. This challenges encountered by married female secretaries staff in their work places varies from one business organization to another or even the employer’s policy toward employment, promotion, training and advancement discriminate to customers. In some business organizations, promotion policy of private and other business organization, and other minatory affects them because some employers believes that women are efficient without effective because of one biological problem or another. Some of them experience sexual harassment from their supervisor to avoid dint on their married status and reputation may lead them to quit their job where as it is obliged those secretarial staff must cordially relate to their supervisor to maintain their jobs in movement of the official duties. Despite this, some employers abuse this honor and expose thee staff to problems. A secretary who works with her boss dismisses late from her work because her special duty in business organization. This can affect the female married secretaries though the attitude or the reaction of the boss and junior staff or their executives. This can be because of official duty, which might lead to travel outside Owerri, but through the condition of their married status and the biological career, they could not be chanced range of ways in which gender discrimination is manifest in the world within the departments. Therefore, it is against this background that this study was undertaken to determine the challenges that face married female secretarial staff in Owerri municipal local government area. 1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Modern office machine and equipment: Automation I always a threat to most secretaries these days. A secretary who was trained with manual typewriting is face with the word processor and the computer in a modern office. This is the greatest challenge a beginning secretary will face if she is to understand and co-operate with the boss. The female married secretary should cope with the office procedure or else she will loose her job. The female married secretarial staff think they get frustrated when they set back to ask question to the junior staff 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS The following questions will help in solving the research problems: Which secretarial functions posed challenges to married female secretaries in selected business in Owerri metropolis? How the human relation competencies do posed challenges to married female secretaries in selected business organization in Owerri metropolis? Does marital status of female secretaries affect occupational decision and performance? 1.4 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY The main purpose of the study is to evaluate the challenges and problem faced by married female secretaries in selected business organization in Owerri metropolis specifically, the study will find out: Whether the secretarial function of married female secretarial staff in selected business in Owerri metropolis pose a problem to them. Determine whether their human relation competencies are affected by marital obligation in selected business in Owerri metropolis. Determine the factors responsible for these challenges. To proffer solutions to the problems facing married female secretarial in selected business. 1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY This study is significant in its attempt in bringing out the challenges of married female secretaries and additional information that extent the frontiers of knowledge in the secretarial profession as well as Education. It will reveal to the married secretaries how their irregularities affect their performance and the organization as a whole. It will go on a long way in helping the married female secretaries in selected business organization in Owerri metropolis know how the perform their human relations functions. This study will also reveal the cause of poor performance in secretarial functions of married female secretaries in selected business organization in Owerri metropolis. 1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY The scope of this research borders around the challenges facing the married female secretaries in discharging the important duties of a secretary. Why men are scared of following their wives to remain secretaries or proposing marriage to the unmarried. The researcher will investigate the challenge facing the married female secretaries and to proffer suggestion. CHAPTER II 2.0 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE INTRODUCTION In this chapter, relevant literature related to the present study was reviewed and was presented under the subheadings, which include: categories of secretarial staff, the challenges facing female workers in the office, business attribute of the secretaries. CATEGORIES OF SECRETARIES: According to (Austine 2003) a secretary is a person who has acquired the basic secretarial skills of shorthand and typewriting plus enough knowledge and practical experience in office work to be able to cope with filling simple office machinery and receptions duties. She stressed that a good secretary needs also to have accumulated enough knowledge about commercial work in general and office organization in particular to be able to run her chiefs work, as he will like her. She must be able to exercise initiative and diplomacy, she must be able to keep her eyes open and her mouths shut. she must becomes the perfect secretary when in addition to the forgoing list of attributes she is able to add an interest in and knowledge of her chiefs particular line of business, enough experience in her chiefs company to be able to anticipate his requirements, and absolute loyalty to her chief. she added that the secretary is concerned with the public with supervisor and with few employees. THE CATEGORIES INCLUDES (A) PERSONAL / PRIVATE SECRETARY (B) CONFIDENTIAL SECRETARY (C) PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY (D) COMPANY SECRETARY PERSONAL OR PRIVATE SECRETARY According to (kestevan 2003) A personal secretary is an executive assistant.( Azuka and Agumuo2003) see personal secretary as a person for the purpose of conducting correspondence, getting information from him and assisting him on other confidential matter. A lawyer, an accountant, a medical practioner, businesspersons, and a head of an institution, a manager or administrators may employ him. The work of private secretary differs from organization. The personal secretary may also have to perform special functions such as attending meeting with his boss, making travel arrangement and handling other personal matters. CONFIDENTIAL SECRETARY This secretary assistant is attached to an officer or grade level 10 who should provide such secretarial assistance as taking dictation and reproducing them in typescript for an officer, receiving visitors, enquires, and telephone cells on behalf of the duties emanated here under (Harrison 2003) also sees confidential secretary as one who has a through training in shorthand ands typewriting being able to write 80 W.P. In addition, she must possess the following qualities, which is categorized into business attribute and personal attributes. BUSINESS ATTRIBUTES: She should be punctual and always available when needed by his boss and be pleasantly spoken phonegetic in oral and telephone conversation. She should be tactful in dealing with visitors to the organization. Being tactful implies not just being nice to people but doing the right thing at the right time. The text of tactfulness rests in ensuring that visitor is satisfied. Tact, discretion and diplomacy and essential in dealing with enquires, telephone calls and visitors. she must be loyal to his employer or boss, loyalty implies sticking by someone through good and bad times, understanding your boss weakness but failing to reveal them to other staff and depending on your boss, if need be to methods of working “loyalty includes a persons” attitude, his dedication to his duty and giving an honest days work for a day pay. She can keep a secret: The word secretary ordinarily means “keeper of secrets”. The secretary keeps everything that goes on in his office to himself. She is not only avoids initiating such conversation with others but also retrains matters and must not divulge them or even give impression that she knows one way to avoid spillage of information is simply to avoid gossips. She must be cost conscious: The successful secretary must be cost conscious for example when dealing with customers or even when using company stationary, the secretary must use his head. She must be responsible: A secretary is usually responsible for a certain amount of his boss routine work which she shall carry out cheerfully and efficiently. She should be able to communicate efficiently whether conversing with a customer and office caller or the boss’s boss, what the secretary says and how she says it is important. on the telephone, she sparkles when the situation calls for real friendliness and she is firm when firmness is needed. PERSONAL ATTRIBUTE A good general appearance, she should always be neatly and suitable dressed for the office and show good sense honor. Willing to help her employer all times by staying late at night or coming in early in the morning to clear outstanding work. So she must be dedicated, loyalty and conscientious. A desire to add to her general knowledge by reading good books and newspapers, and a reasonable knowledge of all the new development in the particular line of her employers business (Ohakwe 2003). PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY A parliamentary secretary is a secretary appointed by government to undertake secretarial functions relating to parliamentary proceedings, she helps in drafting minutes, official reports reading out motions and amendments, recording the decision of the house and helping the speaker of the house to conduct business. COMPANY SECRETARY (Kesterven 2003) said that company secretary is an executive who attends to the company’s direction meeting and ensures that the affairs of the company are carried out in accordance with the requirement of the company act. According to (Taylor 2004) a company secretary is the company’s chief Administrative officer and as such has apparent authority to act on behalf of the company who will be a member of specified professional bodies. THE CHALLENGES FACING MARRIED FEMALE SECRETARIAL STAFF IN THEIR WORK PLACES: Every profession has it merit and demerit facing it, and the secretarial profession is not left behind. The married female secretaries are faced with enormous challenges in their work places which will ranges a follows: 2.2 THE CHALLENGE OF DISCRIMINATION The secretaries especially the married female ones are always not considered for higher cadres in some business organization. They are stopped at the secretarial section. The married female secretaries are discriminated from the male secretaries even from the unmarried female secretaries, that is why (wether daris 2003) say, the united state civil right act 1964 outlaws discrimination in employment based on race, colour, religion, sex, married status, pregnancy or nation of origin. They said that this challenge is more evidence and pronounced if the women are married than on the grounds of competence and qualifications. The felt that this problem of discrimination on married female secretarial staff by some employers mostly in private business organizations might be viewed on the basis that married female secretarial staff tends to be unsteady on the job and therefore may not justify the cost for bringing them and this will go a long way in reducing their output. Many employers in private organizations have confidently loved to employ the male secretarial staff. This is a challenge to married female secretarial staff in their work places. It linked up with their promotion because they regard married female secretarial staff as being efficiency without effectiveness whereas they believe that effectiveness equal to great output. 2.3 CHALLENGE OF MODERN OFFICE EQUIPMENT: ICT Because of information technology (IT), the secretarial work has been greatly modernized. Therefore, this advent of AUTOMATED MACHINE and COMPUTERS for data and word processing has posed to be a problem for the poor married female secretarial staff that has no opportunity to learn how to operate these machines. Some of these married secretaries who have up to ten kids could not go to private training for this machines because of their children’s up keep, couple with their work at hand unless the organization sends them. These married female secretaries are over look, because of this. One can see that the use of manual typewriting is becoming outmoded but in most business organization such as Government, corporations are still using this dilapidated equipment. Therefore, these married female secretaries are challenge with this situation of things. Because of this, low output and inefficiency emanated. 2.4 CHALLENGE OF FAMILY PROBLEM Married female secretaries have no enough time for official duties due to their family problem. Most of them arrive late in the office because of home chores, taking the children to hospital when sick, and going to anti-natal care when pregnant. This gives them little time to spend with their boss in the office and absolutely makes them ignorant of certain things they ought to have known as a secretary. (Solanke 2000) said” the married female secretaries may be out from work as a results of issues affecting her husband, her children, her parents in-law when they fall sick. When this absenteeism are computed together including the normal three months maternity leaves, a married female secretarial staff only stay on the job for about eight out of the twelve months in a year. 2.5 CHALLENGE OF HUMAN RELATION WITH BOSS According to (Austine 2003) said” a married female secretarial staff in most cases do not enjoy cordial relationship with their employers who are mostly men. This is probably because the male employers prefer working with single women who can dance to their tune “this in effect bride the cash nexus that would have existed between the employer and his married female secretary. As (Denyer 2003) said that a secretary is the closest person to the management at that all confidential matters are entrusted under her care, he maintained that a secretary is the touch bearer of any organization. The married female secretarial staff does not finalize with their employers who are flirts. Because of this, these secretaries are denied of their entitlement her salary might not be reviewed and should not be promoted as well. 2.6 CHALLENGE OF DUTIES OF SECRETARIES Married female secretaries cannot perform the duties of the secretaries because she is married. Duties of secretaries include traveling with the boss, attending meeting outside the state on behalf of the company, attending annual general meeting yearly and it may be abroad. Because of the husband of the married female secretary, she can not perform her duties effectively it must have a limit unlike the unmarried secretaries who can work from day to day or 24 hours a day without complaining about their husband, children and parents in-law because they don’t have none. The husband of the married female secretaries will not allow them to travel with the boss because the may think that the boss will harass them during the traveling. This has been backbone of challenge faced by the married female secretarial staff in organization. This incident has allowed the mind of some married female secretaries in the organization to create limitation of their cordial relationship with their boss to avoid such harassment. Husband resentment has coulees to cause problem to their wives in their work places. Lack of training has posed to be the cause of problem, married female secretarial staff in their working places as seen by authors and others sort is related to what obtains in our country. The qualified secretary was dictated as been important and personnel who handles the management and operational functions of the company and who can within the scope of her authority decide on her boss behalf. There is also the need for proper training and qualifications of secretarial staff so that she could be more efficient in the job and above all have good sense of humor and responsibility. The married female secretarial staffs do not relate well with employers who prefers single women to them in order to satisfy their selfish needs. According to (Ejimba 2005) said in a society ridden with probe of men being the epitome of everything, it takes more than sheer ability for any women whatsoever the emerge out of the lives. According to her, married female secretaries are by this sex discrimination being kept away from achieving their full measures of societal rewards based on their sex. In this opinion, he said that any situation where men are formed at the top of division level they do not often allow women to rise up in authority or to give them a challenging position higher skills of management and qualifications. Ejimba saw women as responsible kind, trustworthy and efficient being who are deprive of the opportunity to emerge and achieve their aims in the society. 2.7 SUMMARY OF RELATED LITERATURE In this review of related literature, the qualified secretary was dictated as been important personnel who handle the management and operational functions of the company and who can within the scope of her authority decide on her boss behalf. There is also the need for proper training and qualifications of secretary so that she could be more efficient in the job and above all have good sense of humor and responsibility. CHAPTER III 3.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This chapter described the design of the study, area of study, the population, sample, instrument used for data collection, validation, distribution and retrieval of the instrument and method of data analysis. 3.1 DESIGN OF THE STUDY The study utilized descriptive survey research because the study sought opinion of secretarial staff regarding the challenges facing married female secretarial staff in their work places. Survey instrument was deemed the most appropriate for gathering the data required for the study since survey design centers on people their belief, opinion, attitude and behaviors. 3.2 AREA OF THE STUDY The study was carried out in selected business organization in Owerri metropolis the area studies include OWERRI NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, OWERRI MUNICIPAL COUNCIL, FIRST BANK OF NIGERIA PLC (FBN), UNITED BANK OF AFRICAN PLC (UBA),ZENITH INTERNATIONAL BANK. 3.3 POPULATION OF THE STUDY The population of the study was of 40 married female secretarial staff in five selected business organizations in Owerri metropolis. They are as follows Owerri North Local Government Area 6 15% Owerri Municipal Council 10 25% First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) 8 20% United Bank of African (UBA) 10 15% Zenith international Bank 6 15% Total 40 100 These were used because the researcher wants to reduce sample bias 3.4 INSTRUMENT FOR DATA COLLECTION The main instrument used for data collection was questionnaire. The questionnaire will be developed from the review of literature from textbooks and journals and the research questions. 3.5 SAMPLE AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUES The sample will be drawn on the population, which will be 80% of the population. Similarly, the random sampling techniques will be used. This would provide a true representation on which to generalize the findings of the study. 3.6 DESCRIPTIVE OF INSTRUMENT Primary data were collected from the respondents using a linker scale questionnaire. It was a four (4)-point opinion survey questionnaire structure as follows: Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree and strongly disagree. 3.7 METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION The researcher with the permission of the head of departments administered copies of questionnaire by hand to married female secretaries in the selected business organization. 3.8 METHOD OF DATE ANALYSIS For the analysis of the date collected the researcher made used of the mean scores. For the mean, any factors equal to or greater than mean, means scores of 3.00 was accepted as significant. CHAPTER IV 4.0 PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA This chapter deals with the data collected through the distributed, questionnaires to the respondents. Forty (40) questionnaires were collected and it represented 100% of the population under study. The data was analysis bearing in mind the research questions. 4.1 RESEARCH QUESTION 1 Which secretarial functions pose as challenges to married female secretaries in selected business organization in Owerri metropolis? Questions 1-6 of the questionnaire were used in analyzing the above research question. TABLE: MEAN SCORES OF MARRIED FEMALE SECRETARIES FUNCTIONS THAT POSE AS A CHALLENGES TO THEM. S/N FACTORS TOTAL SCORE MEAN REMARK 1. Going on business trips with your boss 195 4.88 Accepted 2. Writing and transcribing shorthand 173 4.33 Accepted