THE RELEVANCE OF SHORTHAND TO BUSINESS ORGANIZATION IN THIS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ERA

Automation of office practice and the trend in the use of computer in the office have filled our business educators with apprehension. The users of shorthand system are not spared the agony caused by the fear that their skills would not be relevant in the nearest future. Hence the focus of this study is to examine the relevance of shorthand in business organizations in view of technological development. A great number of secretaries and executives in various establishments in Delta State and Kogi State were involved in this study. The establishment were stratifies into private business and organizations and government parastatals, educational institutions, industries and media houses. From the whole population 75 subjects were studied. A questionnaire which consisted of 26 items was used for data collection and was analyzed using tables, frequency counts and means. Using a mean of 3.5 for reaching a decision the following were the findings: 1) Secretaries and reporters make use of manual shorthand to a large extent to take dictations proceedings of an interview minutes of meetings and telephone conversations. 2) Executives usually demand that their secretaries should have some degree of proficiency in shorthand skills. 3) There is need to train secretaries in the use of manual shorthand via-a-vis the use of office machines – dictating transcribing machines, dicta-phones, and tape-recorder. 4) Shorthand would remain with us for a long to come especially in the third world countries where low supply of electricity is being experienced. Based on these findings, it is recommended that manual shorthand will still be relevant in the scheme of business operations. It is also recommended that awareness scheme through seminar and workshops should be organized on the relevance and use of shorthand by secretaries.