WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION AND TALENT RETENTION IN UNIVERSITIES IN OGUN STATE, NIGERIA 

ABSTRACT

All around the world, retaining talented employees has been established to be a serious challenge to organisations in the face of hyper-competition, corporate failures, employees’ turnover, and workplace discrimination. This concern grew from the philosophical assumption that talented employees are instrumental to organizational success. The study examined workplace discrimination and its effects on talent retention.

The study adopted survey research design through the use of questionnaire as data collection instrument. Stratified sampling technique was adopted by dividing the entire universities’ population in Ogun State into four strata. The study covered three private and three public universities located in Egba, Ijebu, Remo, and Yewa/Awori.  Slovin (1992) formula for calculating sample size for finite population was adopted with sample size determination of 1282 respondents. A validated survey questionnaire was employed for collection of data. The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients for the constructs were: Talent Retention (0.737), Managerial Skills (0.839), Career Development (0.790), Institutional Policy (0.778), Workforce Diversity (0.839), Work Climate (0.677) and Religion Affiliation (0.786). Quantitative method of data analysis was adopted to draw inferences about effects and relationships among variables.

The study provided both theoretical and statistical evidences to show that managerial skill has positive and significant effect on talent retention in Universities in Ogun State, Nigeria (β=32.177,  t=21.897). Career development has positive and significant effect on talent retention in Universities in Ogun State (β=0.478, t=18.362, p=0.000). When the moderating effect of work climate was individually tested, it had significant moderating effect on the relationship between workplace discrimination and talent retention (β=0.004, 29 R²=0.041, p<0.05).  Also, the individual moderating effect of religion affiliation on the relationship between workplace discrimination and talent retention in Universities in Ogun State was negative and statistically significant (R²=0.002 or 0.2%, p<0.05). However, the combination of work climate and religion affiliation had no significant combined moderating effect on the relationship between talent retention and workplace discrimination in Universities in Ogun State(β=2.827E-6,R²=0.000). There was also a significant difference in respondents’ opinion by religion affiliation on workplace discrimination in universities in Ogun State (F=1.838, 36 P=0.00). Meanwhile, when the combined influence of the variables of workplace discrimination were  tested on talent retention, the results showed that institutional policy, managerial skill and career development had significant combined influence on talent retention (R²=.552, .581, .598), but workforce diversity was statistically excluded. It was finally established from the findings that workplace discrimination had combined significant effects on talent retention in universities in Ogun State (R²=0.358, F=181.158, p<0.05).

It was concluded that workplace discrimination truly exists in universities in Ogun State, Nigeria, and its dimensions; managerial skills, career development, institutional policy and workforce diversity affect talent retention. Furthermore, when religious affiliation and work climate were combined together, workplace discrimination became explicit in decreasing talent retention.  It was therefore recommended that workplace discrimination that fuels low talent retention should be discouraged.

Keywords: Talent Retention, Workplace Discrimination, Managerial Skills, Career Development, Institutional Policy, Workforce Diversity, Religion Affiliation.