Impact of Mentoring On Staff Retention through Knowledge Transfer: An Empirical Evaluation of Four Private Universities in the North Central Zone of Nigeria (Published)
This research study explored the impact of mentoring on staff retention through knowledge transfer with specific reference to selected private universities in Nigeria. Mentoring is a natural one-on-one, mutual, committed relationship formed between a mentor and mentee designed to promote personal development beyond any particular institutional goals. However, Knowledge transfer seeks to build, systematize, otherwise distributes knowledge and guarantees its accessibility for future users. In an organizational setting, the goal of employers is usually to decrease employee turnover, thereby decreasing training costs, recruitment costs and loss of talents and organizational knowledge. Employers can improve retention rates and decrease the associated costs of high turnover with the aid of mentoring and knowledge transfer. The material used for this investigation was sourced from both primary and secondary data such as text books, management journals and internet. A well-structured open ended questionnaire was the main tool for data gathering. The questionnaire was designed for all the selected employees of private universities in the North central zone of Nigeria. The data through which responses were given in the questionnaire was analyzed and interpreted with the use of students‘t’ distribution test in the analysis of data. The findings indicate that mentoring improves staff retention in private universities in Nigeria and transfer of knowledge enhances staff mentoring and retention in Nigerian universities. The review of literature suggests that knowledge transfer and conceptualization of mentoring is required for staff retention in organizations. For effective staff retention and knowledge transfer, it was recommended that mentoring should be utterly deliberated and not forced on the participants ‘‘the mentors and the mentees’’ and privacy should be indispensable in this relationship. Conclusively, knowledge transfer encompasses a wide variety of activities to sustain mutually beneficial collaborations between mentors and the mentees, universities, and the public sector. It is all about the transfer of tangible and intellectual expertise, skills and learning between academic and the non-academic community.
Keywords: Knowledge, Mentoring, Retention, Staff, Staff Retention and Knowledge Transfer.
ROLE OF MENTORING IN BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA (Published)
Recently, the death of business organisations in Nigeria is on the increase as business operates in an environment that is embedded with change, risk, high uncertainty, stiff competition, unethical business practices, unfavourable government policies and ignorance of the role of mentors in business development. Mentoring is rapidly becoming recognised worldwide as a highly effective human resource development process. Many organisations have gone through or are currently going through increasing significant change. Generally, people in any organisation react positively to change when they take responsibility for their own development. Mentoring is one way in which organisations can provide this assistance as there is a high degree of trust and mutual regard which will enable the person to become what he aspires to be by realising his or her potential. Mentoring has being identified as an important influence in business development. The major function of mentoring is to promote the mentee’s development in specific areas and to facilitate success in business activities. Mentoring relationship can produce positive development and organisational outcomes and it can sometimes fail due to a variety of causes and problems viz-a-viz lack of participation, absence of leadership involvement, poor planning, setting unrealistic expectation and fuzzy goals. The paper examines the roles of mentoring in business development. It focuses on the stages, forms, reasons, types, roles and characteristics of mentors, fundamental objectives, benefits and keys to mentoring success with a view to accelerate business development through investment in human capital development particularly through mentoring. The paper opines that mentorship and business development offers a wide range of benefits such as welfare, satisfaction, development, progress, feeling rejuvenated in career development, learning how to use new technologies, becoming aware of business issues, methods, strategies or perspectives that are vital to business. Content analysis was used in the writing of this paper. Evidence from the paper on the policies that need to be adopted to improve Nigeria’s business environment includes, the need to address those issues constraining business development. The paper also recommends that mentoring should be based upon encouragement, frank advise, readiness to assist the mentee to acquire needed knowledge, skills and competencies so as to operate functionally in our ever changing business environment, constructive comments, openness, mutual trust, respect, willingness to learn and share ideas and experiences, improve self confidence, job competitiveness and enhanced diversity of the workforce. Moreover, there is need to eliminate negative factors that militate against business growth and development with a view to increase business efficiency. There is the need, therefore for a re-orientation of our businesses because mentoring relationships depends on the people and the character of the organisation concerned. The paper concludes that successful mentoring programs as aid to business development requires proper understanding, planning, implementation and evaluation.
Keywords: Business Development, Career Development, Human Capital Development, Mentoring, Re-orientation, openness