This study focused on the comparative analysis of staff recruitment, retention
strategies and performance of public and private organizations in Nigeria. For any
organization to experience enhanced performance, a competent workforce is
required. Competent workforce on the other hand, required appropriate staff
recruitment and adequate retention strategies to bring into the organization the
needed workforce and retain them for performance. The challenge facing
organizations irrespective of the sector, however, was that of frequent labour
turnover and the inability of organizations to achieve their goals arising from
inadequate competent workforce. This is in spite of “quality structure and well
packaged incentives” put in place to recruit and retain the staff. The purpose of this
study was to identify the unique role under-taken by competent personnel in bringing
about the realization of the goals and objectives of organizations whether in the
public or private sector. The objectives of this study therefore, were to comparatively
examine staff recruitment, retention strategies, labour turnover, job satisfaction,
reward systems and performance of six selected public and private organizations in
Nigeria. The organizations are the Federal, Delta and Lagos State Civil Service
(public sector); and Nestle Nig. Plc, Nigerian Breweries Nig. Plc and Zenith Bank
Nig. Plc (private sector). The study adopted the Chi-Square (X2
) (two-tailed)
analytical technique (error, ? = 0.05 percent) to test the significant relationship
between the independent variables of staff recruitment, retention strategies, labour
turnover, job satisfaction and reward systems; and the dependent variable –
performance in the public and private organizations in Nigeria. In addition, the study
adopted Cramer’s V analytical technique to determine the degree of association
between the dependent and independent variables. Furthermore, the Mann Whitney–
U (two-tailed) analytical technique (error, ? = 0.05 percent) was adopted to compare
the views of respondents in public and private organizations on the impact of staff
recruitment and retention strategies on organizational performance. The study
revealed a significant relationship between staff recruitment, retention strategies and
performance in the public and private organizations. The study among others showed
that private organizations institute better strategies to aid staff retention hence their
enhanced performance, which was manifested in increased profit. Consequently, the
study concluded with a prognosis for management across the two sectors in their
desire to recruit and retain competent workforce for enhanced performance.