SENIOR NON-TEACHING STAFF PERCEPTION OF TALENT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN DELTA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study examined senior non-teaching staff perception of talent management practices in public higher educational institutions in Delta State, Nigeria, with specific focus on talent attraction, talent development, and talent retention across a federal university, a state polytechnic, and a state college of education. A survey research design was adopted. The population comprised 2,749 staff drawn from seven public tertiary institutions, from which a sample was derived using the Krejcie and Morgan formula. For the purpose of this study, 74 clearly identifiable senior non-teaching staff from three selected institutions, constituted the effective sample. Data were collected using a structured five-point Likert questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics and one-way Analysis of Variance with Tukey post hoc test in SPSS version 23. The findings revealed that respondents generally perceived talent attraction, talent development, and talent retention practices positively across the three institutions. The federal university recorded the highest mean scores across the dimensions, while the state polytechnic recorded the lowest. The results further showed a statistically significant difference in perceptions of talent attraction across the institutions, specifically between the federal university and the state polytechnic, whereas no significant differences were found for talent development and talent retention. The study concludes that talent attraction constitutes the primary area of institutional variation in talent management practices and highlights the need for context-specific strategies to strengthen attraction mechanisms in public higher educational institutions.