Influence of Training and Development Programs on Employee Performance and Retention in Alhassan Plastic Industry, Kano State

Over the last few years, manufacturing organisations in Nigeria have been struggling with a decreasing employee performance and high labour turnover rate that is greatly influenced by insufficient and ill-organised training and development activities. The issue of retaining skilled, committed, and productive employees at Alhassan Plastic Industry, Kano state has cast doubt on the relevance of the training and development programmes currently in place. It is on this backdrop that this conceptual paper reviews the role of training and development programmes in the performance and retention of employees. The general purpose of the research is to examine how the main aspects of training include on-the-job training, off-the-job training, career development programme, training needs assessment and training evaluation and feedback are able to boost employee performance and retention within the organisation. The research questions presented in the study are associated with the level to which prestructured training investment is converted into better performance rates and low staff turnover. The paper takes a conceptual research design based on secondary data methodology using a hand load of scholarly journal work, textbooks, conference papers, newspaper and other pertinent historical and empirical literature. The analysis demonstrates the similar patterns of theoretical and empirical nature of trends which show that proper training and development programmes lead to substantial improvement of skills of employees, performance at workplace, commitment to the organisation and retention. The research suggests that systematic training needs assessment, ongoing assessment and career development programmes need to be institutionalised by the manufacturing companies. The paper finds that long-term investment in employee training and development is a strategic need in enhancing employee performance and a competent workplace in the manufacturing organisations.

Keywords: Training and Development, Employee Performance, Employee Retention, Manufacturing Industry, Human Resource Management.