Work Values and Attitude to Work in Nigerian Public Service

Nigeria is blessed with abundant and well trained human resources that are capable of piloting the nation's civil/public sector and development projects but the major problem to the optimum productivity is the bad attitude to work of public/civil servants and managers. It is a common belief that a high level trained manpower would lead to increased productivity, and that a well motivated staff with positive attitude to work is required to achieve the goal of an organization. For example, a situation where employee leaves his or her seat without permission for personal interest such as going to the bank, picking up children from the school, attending to one civil responsibility or the other, taking a member of the household to the hospital, etc. at the expense of his/her duty is very bad. This study therefore examines the causes of poor attitude to work, work value and made recommendations on how to spur workers to possess positive attitude to work. In carrying out the research, a descriptive research method was adopted. Relevant literatures were reviewed for the study. The study reveals that lack of motivation, the belief that government work is nobody's work, societal and work value system amongst others lead to poor attitude to work in Nigerian public service. In order to reduce the level of workers non-challant and poor attitude to work, the paper recommends that government should ensure that staff are properly trained and mentored when necessary, workers should be well motivated through adequate provision of fringe benefits and so on.