Human Resource Management and Employee Relation in the Nigerian Manufacturing Industry

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between human resource management and employee relation by targeting the Nigerian manufacturing sector; specifically, Whictech Aluminium Limited and Flight Aluminium Plc in Asaba, Delta State, Nigeria as the case study. The sampling object used for this work comprises of the employees, supervisors and top managers of Whictech Aluminium Limited and Flight Aluminium Plc in Asaba, Delta State, Nigeria; this is done in respect of measures of human resource management (Training and Development (TD), Performance Appraisal (PA) and Reward and Compensation (RC)) (independent variables) on Employee Relation (ER) (dependent variable) and responses from the respondents were collected with the aid of five (5) Likert scale questionnaire. A total of ninety-nine (99) questionnaires were administered staffs of Whictech Aluminium Limited and Flight Aluminium Plc in Asaba, Delta State. Out of the ninety-nine (99) questionnaires, ninety (90)90.91% where retrieved and properly filled while nine (9)9.09% were not returned. Thus, the sample to be used for the study will be the total of ninety (90) respondents. The questionnaire was code with the aid of excel spread sheet, the respondent's profile was analyzed with manual simple percentage, the research questions was analyzed with the aid of descriptive statistics which comprises of the minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation and correlation matrix. The hypotheses of the study were tested using the multiple regression statistical tools with the aid of SPSS version 23 as the basis of testing hypotheses. The findings revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between Training and Development (TD) and employee relation (0.035<0.05), thus the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternate hypothesis is accepted; Performance Appraisal (PA) has a significant relationship with employee relation which is evident with the p-value (0.009>0.05) thus the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternate hypothesis is accepted and finally, finding provides support for result H₃ test which indicated that Reward and Compensation (RC) has significant relationship with employee relation (0.001<0.05), thus the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternate hypothesis is accepted.From the findings of the study, it can be concluded that, overall, the human resource management had a significant impact on the employee relation of the manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study thereby recommends that systematic training should be carried out in the studied companies professionally. Identification of training needs should be done in conjunction with the line managers as well as the individual involved with the human resources development. Everyone involved should agree exactly to what the employees are lacking. For instance, what skill is needed and what attitudes need to be changed towards performance.