Extent of employee turnover in Nigerian SMEs: Employees’-owner/managers’ standpoint
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the magnitude of employee turnover (E-turnover) in Nigerian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with particular focus on the manufacturing and service firms adjudged as central to the growth and development of Nigerian economy.
Design/methodology/approach
Data from 602 employees and 94 owner/managers of SMEs located in three Southwestern Nigerian states were collected through survey questionnaire and analysed quantitatively.
Findings
Employees’ and management’s responses indicated that E-turnover still pervades the Nigerian SMEs surveyed with most employees leaving their jobs in less than a year of employment. Multiple exits also occurred; additionally, employees were more prone to exiting if they were male, older, had a smaller family size and/or worked in the manufacturing rather than service SMEs.
Research limitations/implications
More needs to be done to comprehend owner-managers’ apparent deliberate disguise of employee over-casualisation in the SMEs studied, an act that appeared to limit the interpretation of status-related turnover extent among employees.
Practical implications
Twenty-first century businesses need to stimulate sustainable cost-effective employment relationship capable of thwarting the threat accompanying high E-turnover in businesses.
Originality/value
Through this research, extant global E-turnover literature (largely on western businesses) is enriched by dedicated empirical data on Nigerian SMEs that this study offers.
Keywords
Citation
Siyanbola, T.O. and Gilman, M.W. (2017), "Extent of employee turnover in Nigerian SMEs: Employees’-owner/managers’ standpoint", Employee Relations, Vol. 39 No. 7, pp. 967-985. https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-02-2016-0046
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited