HUMAN RESOURCE FLEXIBILITY AND PERFORMANCE OF SELECTED DEPOSIT MONEY BANKS IN NIGERIA.

Emerging challenges and opportunities from business environments keep organizations embedded in volatility and unpredictability. Acknowledging the increasing need for organization flexibility, this study examined the influence of human resource flexibility on the performance of selected deposit money banks in Nigeria. To achieve this objective, the variables were operationalized, and models specified. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. Data were gathered from primary sources, and study hypotheses were tested using the Multiple Regression Technique. The findings showed that all the factors used to proxy functional flexibility, except relational flexibility, had a significant effect on customer loyalty; and that functional flexibility significantly affects customer loyalty. The study also found numerical flexibility to influence service innovation positively and significantly in the selected Banks. Based on these findings, the study recommended that in order to achieve a higher level of flexibility in these banks, managers should put in place coordination mechanisms towards generating new forms of collective human capital through the combination of individual capabilities of employees, in addition to maintaining other aspects of their employees' functional flexibility; and that managers should minimize the application of fixed-term contract employments and focus more on contracting external specialists who will introduce fresh ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]