Human Capital Development and Employee Retention. A Study of Selected Commercial Banks Nigeria

ABSTRACT The Nigerian banking industry is widely known as one of the highest paying sectors in Nigeria and as such attract a variety of talents that hope to hitch their tent with one of the many banks in the country. It is however, not a secret that most bankers in Nigeria move from one organization to another, never remaining in one place for too long. This high level of turnover in the banking industry have led many to believe that the banking industry is unreliable and fails to take care of the needs of their human capital. It is against this backdrop that the researcher tried to understand the role of human capital development in employee retention and how intervening factors like family, work-life balance and peer pressure might be influencing bankers’ decision to remain committed to a bank. The objectives of this study are 1. To access the relationship between training and development of employees and employee retention. 2. To examine the relationship between employee rewards and employee retention. 3. What are the intervening influence of social factor, work life balance and time flexibility, on the relationship between human capital development and retention Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this study aimed to find out the relationship between human capital development activities and staff retention in the Nigerian banking industry. The questionnaire was validated using face validation and content validity index. The results of the validity tests showed that the research instruments were valid. 10 Nigerian banks were carefully selected as the case study for the study. The study population for this research is 77,690 and 400 questionnaires were used for the analysis, also 20 people from the selected banks were interviewed and their responses integrated into the analysis. The findings showed that there is indeed a significant relationship between training and development and employee retention in the Nigerian banking industry. The higher the presence of training and development in the organization the more employees feel loyal and want to remain in that organization. The second findings also shows that there is a positive relationship between rewards and retention, the better the reward system in place in the organization, both monetary and non-monetary, the higher employee retention. 3. The study also showed that other variables such as work-life balance, peer/family/spouse pressure and public perception about an organization can greatly impact on staff’s decision to remain or leave an organization. This study concluded that staff retention can be improved upon if employees are regularly trained, human resources is advancing and there are a lot of technological changes, when employees are trained based on trends in the industry, employees tend to stay. Objective 2 concluded that bankers are constantly seeking for better pay, hence, to attract and retain the best hands, banks must pay competitive salaries. According to the third findings, it was concluded that factors like peer pressure, family etc. affect employees intention to remain in the industry. This study ends by recommending that banks ensure they carry out proper training and evaluation of staff if they are going to attract and retain suitable hands. It was also recommended that banks should give cognizance to factors like work-life balance, staff welfare, proximity to family amongst other things when making their human capital development plans, as it was shown in this study that these factors can greatly influence staff decision to remain at or leave an organization. The findings of this study will contribute to knowledge in the vii field of human resource and organizational psychology/behavior. The study will help the banking industry and other organizations understand the factors that influences staff decision to leave or remain and will guide them in formulating policies that aim at ensuring employees retention.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION............................................................................................................................. ii

APPROVAL ................................................................................................................................... iii

DEDICATION................................................................................................................................ iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT............................................................................................................... v

ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................................... vi

1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER TWO ...........................................................................................................................11

LITERATURE REVIEW ..............................................................................................................11

2.0. Introduction........................................................................................................................11

2.1. Theoretical Review............................................................................................................11

2.1.1. Human Capital Theory.........................................................................................................11

2.1.2. Theory of Planned Behaviour........................................................................................12

2.2. Conceptual Framework......................................................................................................15

2.3. Review of related literature................................................................................................17

2.3.1. The Relationship between Training and development on Employee Retention ..................17

2.3.2. The Relationship between Rewards and Employee Retention ............................................19

2.3.3 Intervening factors apart from human capital development that affects employee retention.

.......................................................................................................................................................21

2.4. Related Studies...................................................................................................................23

2.5. Research Gaps.........................................................................................................................27

CHAPTER THREE .......................................................................................................................29

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................29

3.0. Introduction........................................................................................................................29

3.1. Research Design.................................................................................................................29

3.2. Study Population................................................................................................................30

3.3. Sample Size........................................................................................................................30

ix

3.4. Sampling Techniques.........................................................................................................32

3.5. Source of Data....................................................................................................................32

3.5.1. The primary data ............................................................................................................33

3.5.2. Secondary data...............................................................................................................33

3.6. Data Collection Method.....................................................................................................33

3.6.1. Questionnaire .......................................................................................................................33

3.6.2. Interviews.............................................................................................................................34

3.7. Reliability and Validity......................................................................................................34

3.7.1. Validity ..........................................................................................................................34

3.7.2. Reliability.......................................................................................................................35

3.8. Data analysis......................................................................................................................36

3.9. Ethical considerations........................................................................................................37

CHAPTER FOUR..........................................................................................................................39

DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION ...........................................39

4.0 Introduction..............................................................................................................................39

4.1. Response Rate.........................................................................................................................39

4.2 Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents ...................................................................39

4.3. Human Capital Development..................................................................................................41

4.4. Employee Retention...........................................................................................................43

4.5. Hypothesis 1: There is a significant relationship between staff training and development and 

employee retention.........................................................................................................................45

4.8. Hypothesis 2: There is significant relationship between rewards and employee retention.....46

4.9. Hypothesis 5: Other factors other than HC development influences employee’s decision to 

stay or leave an organization..........................................................................................................48

DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS...............................................54

5.0 Introduction..............................................................................................................................54

5.1 Discussion................................................................................................................................54

5.2. Conclusions.............................................................................................................................56

5.3. Recommendations...................................................................................................................57

5.4. Limitations..............................................................................................................................58

5.5. Areas for Further Research .....................................................................................................59

5.6. Contribution to Knowledge.....................................................................................................59

REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................61

APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRRE............................................................................................72

APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW SCHEDULE...................................................................................77

APPENDIX 3: MAP OF NIGERIA ..............................................................................................78