PRIORITIZING ORGANIZATIONAL TRUST DRIVERS FOR SUSTAINABLE EMPLOYEE RETENTION: EVIDENCE FROM NIGERIAN ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract

Employee retention remains a critical challenge for organizations across Nigeria, as voluntary employee turnover consistently undermines organizational productivity, competitive positioning, and human capital development. Organizational trust encompassing trust in leadership, trust in organizational processes, and collegial trust is theorized to be a foundational driver of employee commitment and retention intentions. However, the relative importance and structural influence of these trust dimensions in Nigerian organizational contexts remain empirically underexplored. This study examined the relative importance of organizational trust dimensions leadership trust, process trust, and collegial trust in predicting sustainable employee retention intentions across 35 Nigerian organizations. A quantitative cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Structured questionnaires were administered to 420 employees drawn from 35 organizations spanning public universities, private universities, banking, manufacturing, healthcare, and public service institutions, including Clifford University, Owerrinta, and Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo. Data were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics, employing descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation analysis, multiple linear regression, and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Instrument reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, while construct validity was established through exploratory factor analysis. The results revealed that leadership trust was the strongest predictor of employee retention intention (β = 0.441, p < .001), followed by process trust (β = 0.287, p < .001) and collegial trust (β = 0.198, p < .01). Collectively, the three trust dimensions explained 61.4% of the variance in employee retention intention (R² = .614, F (3, 416) = 220.47, p < .001). The ANOVA results further revealed significant inter-sectoral differences in organizational trust levels (F (5, 414) = 18.73, p < .001). The study hypothesis was fully supported. The study concludes that organizational trust, prioritized in the order of leadership trust, process trust, and collegial trust, is a statistically robust and practically significant predictor of sustainable employee retention in Nigerian organizations. These findings have important implications for strategic human resource management, leadership development, and organizational policy design aimed at enhancing employee retention in the Nigerian context.