Employers’ Perception on Extent of Utilization of Technical Skills by Office Technology and Management Graduates for Contemporary Office Functions Within Polytechnics in Taraba State

Abstract

This paper examined employers’ perception on extent of utilization of technical skills by Office Technology and Management (OTM) graduates for contemporary office functions within polytechnics in Taraba state. The study adopts descriptive survey design.  Two research questions guided this work and one null hypothesis. The population for the study comprised of 30 employers from Federal Polytechnic Bali and 30 employers from Taraba State Polytechnic, Suntai in Taraba state, making the total number of 60 employers as the population. All OTM graduates from both polytechnics were used for the study, hence there was no sampling technique adopted for the study. The instrument was face-validated by two experts while reliability was established using Cronbach Alpha reliability techniques which yielded a coefficient of 0.89. Mean and Standard Deviation were used for analyzing data from the research questions while t-test was used to test the null hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. There was no significance difference in the mean responses of employers of labour from Federal Polytechnic and State Polytechnic on the extent of utilization of technical skills by OTM graduates for contemporary office functions. The finding revealed the relevance of social media and technical writing skills of OTM graduates for contemporary offices, and these skills are highly relevant for the survival of any modern office today. It was concluded that contemporary offices today in which OTM graduate’s works cannot function effectively without the combination of social media and technical writing skill. It was recommended among others that good communication and proofreading skills are tools that sustain contemporary offices, hence OTM graduates should made deliberate effort to improve in that aspect as they are seen as the image makers of any organizations.