Personality Traits as Predictors of Work Efficiency Among Nigerian Oil Company Workers

Abstract

This is a correlational research designed to establish the relationship between personality traits and work efficiency of oil company workers in Rivers State of Nigeria. The population covered all the one thousand, two hundred and twelve (1212) staff of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and ELF Petroleum of Nigeria Limited, comprising seven hundred and forty-three (743) staff of Shell Petroleum Development Company and four hundred and sixty-nine (469) staff of ELF Petroleum of Nigeria Limited. The sample was made up of 528 staff drawn using disproportionate stratified sampling technique. Three research questions and hypotheses guided the study. The instruments used for data collection were adopted from The Conscientiousness and Agreeableness Inventory (CAI) with validity coefficient of 0.85 and reliability co-efficient of 0.85 and Job Performance Appraisal (JPA) from Oliver, 1999 and University of Houston (2005) respectively. The Pearson’s product moment correlation statistics was used to answer the research questions, while z-test was used to test the null hypotheses. Results indicate that there is a very strong relationship between conscientiousness of workers and their work efficiency in oil companies and conscientiousness is significantly related to work efficiency. Also, agreeableness of workers and work efficiency of workers in oil companies was found to be relatively high and agreeableness of workers is significantly related to work efficiency. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations were made on assigning individual workers to critical or unique task based on their personality trait to ensure optimum performance of every worker in the oil companies. Also recommendation was made for the use of counselling psychologists in secondary schools and should serve and prerequisite for guiding student to choosing their future career.