Retention Strategies and Employee Performance in Pharmaceutical Firms in South East Nigeria

The study examined effect of retention strategies on employee performance in selected Pharmaceutical firms in South East Nigeria. Specifically, the study sought to: determine the effect of employee career development on employee commitment of Pharmaceutical firms in South East Nigeria and assess the effect of favourable work environment on employee productivity of Pharmaceutical firms in South East Nigeria. Research design was descriptive survey research. The population of this study comprises of 11 registered Pharmaceutical companies in South-East Nigeria with 2,455 total numbers of staff (Manufacturer Association of Nigeria, 2023). The study adopted the Freund and Williams’s sampling technique to get sample size of 388 respondents. The study used structured questionnaire to obtain data. The research questions were answered using mean score and standard deviation. The hypotheses stated were tested with single regression. The empirical results showed that employee career development has significant effect on employee commitment of Pharmaceutical firms in South East Nigeria (t-statistic; 7.238; P-value; 0.000 < Sig-value; 0.05) and favourable work environment has no significant effect on employee productivity of Pharmaceutical firms in South-East Nigeria (t-statistic; 9.516; P-value; 0.000 < Sig-value; 0.05). The study recommended that management of Pharmaceutical firms should place less emphasis on certain monetary rewards, such as bonuses, and consider other non-monetary rewards, such as promotions, recognition, flexible working hours, and career development opportunities. Rewards of this type are likely to boost employee performance and improve overall organisational performance.