Retrenchment-Borne Factors and Employees’ Performance in Selected Commercial Banks in South-East, Nigeria

Abstract

The unintended consequences resulting from retrenchment in the banking sector in Southeast Nigeria necessitated this study to examine retrenchment-borne factors and employee performance of selected banks in Southeast Nigeria. The work was anchored on Agency Cost Theory propounded by Jensen and Meckling in 1976. The study made use of a survey research design. The total population of the study consisted of 4414 staff of the 8 selected banks in the region of the study. Krejcie and Morgan (1970) sample size determination formula was deployed in getting a sample size of 353. The primary source of data was deployed for the study, and a Likert scaled structured questionnaire was used for this purpose. The method of data analysis deployed was Simple regression analysis and hypotheses were tested at a 5% level of significance. The findings showed that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between longer working hours and employee’s job burnout (R = .979; R² = .958; P-value < 0.05). The findings also revealed that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between depression and employee’s emotional exhaustion (R = 929; R² = .863; P-value < 0.05) and that there was a statistically significant positive relationship between job insecurity and employee’s turnover intention (R = .989; R² = .977; P-value < 0.05). Following this, it was concluded that retrenchment-borne factors had a statistically significant relationship with employee performance in the selected banks in Southeast Nigeria. Sequel to this, it was recommended among others that while restructuring workforce to adjust for retrenchment, the management of the banks need to take cognizance of the job preference and competence of the staff, and that they need to examine the carrying capacity of each employee to know the level of workload to assign to them to avoid work overload and job stress.