ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND PERFORMANCE OF EMPLOYEES IN SOME SELECTED BANKS IN ONDO STATE

Abstract

Organizational change in the form of structural, technical, functional, and behavioral change most of the time has negative challenges on the employees in terms of adjustment, downsizing, transfer, and rescheduling of duties. It is in the light of this, that this study investigated the nature and processes of organizational change, with a view to clarifying the links between organizational change and performance of employees in the seventeen sampled banks in Akure, Ondo State. Akure town in Ondo State was purposively selected for this study because the town houses the State head offices of all the banks operating in Ondo State. In other to have a representation of each unit in the banks covered in this study, purposive sampling technique was used in selecting respondents in four units/departments namely business development, operations, compliance/audit and security. Questionnaire was administered to elicit information from the selected respondents for this study. Out of the 17 banks selected in Akure, 254 employees were randomly selected as respondents for this study. Secondary data were sourced from banks, journals, internet resources and government documents. Data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results established that the major organizational changes that were witnessed in the selected banks include structural change (78.08%); functional change (79.16%); technological change (85%); and behavioral change (82.6%). The results revealed that lack of a company-wide definition of change (54.4%); lack of a strategic plan for change (72%); view of quality as a quick fix (71.2%); were key major factors that ignited organizational change in the selected banks in the study area. In addition, the study discovered evidence of significant positive relationship between employees’ performance and structural change (r=1,017; ρ=˃0.05), behavioral change (r=10.026; p˂0.05), functional change (r=3.395; p˂0.05), while technical change (r=–5.342; p˂0.05) had negative relationship with innovative performance of employees in the selected banks in Akure, Ondo State. The study concludes that it is important for banks in developing countries particularly Nigeria, to formulate effective organizational change strategies and create more awareness among employees about organizational change to allay the fear of the aftermath effects as these will enhance the outputs of their workforce. The study recommended that the Nigerian banking structure and procedures should be improved upon and made to pay attention to risks and continuously scan the environment in order to consolidate the benefit of change.