# Introduction Author: Department of Business Management University of Mkar, Mkar Benue State-Nigeria. e-mail: ayangedays@gmail.com that is socially and technically capable and talented career development into high-quality departments or management positions (Sultana, Irum, Ahmed & Mehmood, 2012). The interrogation that may originate in many instances is why human resources are significant. Having in mind that human resources are the intellectual property of the firm, employees prove to be a serious beginning of acquiring competitive advantage, according to Houger (2006), training is the sole mode of developing organizational intellectual property through building employees' competencies. In parliamentary law to succeed, organizations have to obtain and apply human resources effectively (Houger, 2006). Organizations, therefore, need to design its human resources management in ways that fit into the organization's structure as this will make the organizations achieve their ends and targets. Moreover, it is too important for governing bodies to assist their work force in obtaining the necessary skills required and increase loyalty. The management of human resources in Africa in general and Nigeria in particular is quite challenging as most systems have difficulties seeing the correct gauge of human resources. This may partly be a consequence of the different kinds of problems, for instance, political instability, corruption, bureaucracy, inadequate infrastructure, low level of education and purchasing power, diseases and famine known to predominate in the African continent (Kamoche, 2002). Most companies need to accomplish this. As is evident that employees are a crucial resource, it is important to optimize the contribution of employees to the organisation aims and goals as a means of maintaining effective public presentation. This demand for managers to confirm an acceptable provision of staff that is socially and technically capable and talented career development into high-quality departments or management positions (Sultana, Irum, Ahmed & Mehmood, 2012). To build up the desired knowledge, skills and abilities of the employees, to perform well on the job, requires effective development plans that may also affect employee motivation and commitment (Asaju, 2008). In lodge to prepare their workers to perform their tasks as desired, organizations provide training so as to optimize their employees' potential. Most firms, by O applying long term planning, invest in building new skills by their hands, enabling them to cope with the changeable conditions that they may confront in the future, therefore, improving the employees' performance through superior level of motivation and dedication. When employees know that their organization takes in interest in them through providing training programs, they in turn apply their best endeavors to accomplish organizational goals, and express high performance in their tasks. Employees are the most valuable asset of any society or institution as they can establish or break a company's or institution's reputation and can adversely affect profitability or the accomplishment of set goals. Employees often are responsible for the large volume of the necessary work to be performed as well as customer satisfaction and the quality of products or services and events. Without proper development, employees, both novel and old do not receive the information and grow the skill sets necessary for achieving their jobs at their maximum voltage. Employees who undergo proper development programs tend to preserve their jobs longer than those who do not. Without development, employees do not hold a solid grip on their obligations or obligations. Employee development are plans that provide workers with information, new skills, or professional development opportunities. According to Byrne (2011), managers are trying their very best to develop employees' capabilities, ultimately creating a good working environment within the organization. The management is involved in developing effective training and educational plans for its academic staff members to outfit with the desired knowledge, sciences and abilities to accomplish institutional goals. This line of action by the top management would not only improve the academic staff performance, but also create positive image of the institution. Thus, effective staff development programmes at Benue State University help the employees to get acquainted with new technological advancements, and to gain full command of the competencies, knowledge and skills required to perform a particular job and to avoid on the job errors and mistakes. Amongst the important functions of human resources management, is employee development through proper training and development programmes. iii. Examine the effect of mentoring on employees performance at Benue State University a) Conceptual Clarification Talent development in this competitive and dynamic business environment learning and development has become a backbone of success, without continuous learning maintain performance may become impossible because of that strategy makers and HR practitioners are moving their focus towards learning and development of the talented employees to enhance company performance, Talent development is the process of improving the skills and attitude of the employees (Williamson, 2011). As the business continuously keep on changing the technologies business models and new strategies to cope up with these changes company needs to enhance and improve the knowledge of their employees and making strategies for development practitioners must keep in mind the integration and strategic fit between the current talent and the skills of the employees (Mendez & Stander, 2011). Based on the researcher's view, Talent development is the process of helping talented employees to acquire the skills and knowledge they need to succeed and improve performance. In today's challenging business environment of going global and competition becoming intense, organizations have mounting pressure to perform better than before. Over the years, creation and preservation of knowledge has become a key tool in accelerating competitiveness and enhancing organizational capabilities to respond to market changes (Bryan, 2004), wherein employees' skills and personalities are appropriately deployed to optimize performance, is a critical and difficult task. Identifying and developing executives who have leadership potential, like every other vital strategic function, is a demanding process that is equal parts of Arts and Science (Klein and Miles, 2003). Talent (Robbins & Coulter, 2002). Career is the constant progress, experience and skill acquisition of a person in a specific work field. Even though career in the general sense, is defined as the total of the jobs a person undertakes through his or her entire life, it has a meaning beyond and wider than this definition. The career of individuals is not only the jobs they have, but their training for fulfilling the expectation, goal, emotion and desires related to their job role and as a result, progressing in that workplace with the knowledge, skill, quality and desire to work (Yalç?n, Akbin & Oral 1994). As noted by McMahon, Patton and Tatham (2003), career development is the series of activities or the ongoing/lifelong process of developing one's career. It usually refers to managing one's career in an intraorganizational or inter-organizational scenario. It involves training on new skills, moving to higher job responsibilities, making a career change within the same organization or moving to a different organization. Career development is an ongoing process of formalized effort by an organization that focuses on developing and enriching the organization's human capital in light of both the employee's and organization's needs (Byars and Rue, 2008). According to the National Strategy for the Development of the social service workforce in Scotland (2005), employee development is the foundation on which the confidence and competence of individual staff is built. Aswathappa (2008) contends that individual interests, values, competencies, activities and assignments are essential for developing employees' talent and skills. Employees are no longer satisfied with a job in the traditional sense of having a salary and benefits, but rather, a job that develops their talents for career growth. Unfortunately, most employers have failed to recognize this need and the tools and experiences they provide do not enable workers to develop in their career. Career development programs enable all the workers to make progress in the organization from the beginning. It also helps to determine career paths and remove all the obstacles against the progress of the workers. Additionally, it accelerates workflow in the organization by providing training for the personnel that go through a career stability and increasing work mobility. According to Armstrong (2008), career development is of great importance to both the individual employee and the organization. This is so because there is interaction between the organization for which he/she works and the development of the organization through the employee's career. An employee develops his/her career through a continuous acquisition of managerial or professional skills and experience. Career development opportunities is one of the most important variables as employees are more conscious about their career so they prefer a job where they can get more opportunities to develop their skills. A company that wants to strengthen its bond with its employees must invest in the development of their employees (Zheng & Kleiner, 2001). To ensure that the talent pool supports the company's overall strategy, the abilities of promising individuals should be shaped to correspond with the emerging leadership needs of the future (Fulmer, Stump & Bleak, 2009). Ongori and Agolla (2009), contend that lack of personal growth in organizations results in career plateau which in turn leads to increased employee intention to quit. Career development is an approach of an organization ensuring that people with the qualifications and experience are available when needed (Zheng & Kleiner, 2001). Using career development approach employers can coach the employee in his individual career planning and by realizing the plans of employees can plan the allocation of human resources. Thus, the career development is perceived like joint effort between the individual employee and the organization and often used to close the gap between current performances and expected future performance. When organizational career management practices meet employees prejoining expectations (Sturges, 2008) this will enhance commitment, satisfaction and motivation. # c) Effect of Coaching on Employees Performance Learning and performance improvement are the important parts of talent management. Because, employee training provides an organization has a skilled, motivated, and competent workforce. To develop the workforce of the organizations also implemented in different forms: formal educations and projects, coaching and mentoring (Frank & Taylor, 2004 Hawkins and Smith (2013) defined the coaching "It is the focused application of skills that deliver performance improvement to the individual's work in his or her organization, through robust support and challenge" (p.29). A coach takes a role to motivate employees and encourages them for developing skills. The best coaches are supposed to be empathetic, supportive, practical, and self-confident (Noe, 2012). Managers are allowed to set high standards and expectations, support development of employees, and manage performance by coaching. Once the expectations are clearly defined and employees are hold accountable, it makes the improvement of performance and interpersonal requirements (Manion, 2004). In order to have a successful talent management, it requires having effective communication and this can be ensured by coaching. One of the important activity in coaching is feedback. To pursue an effective feedback system, managers are supposed to observe and identify behaviors of the people (Mccauley & Wakefield, 2006;Sparrow & Makram, 2015). # d) Effect of Mentoring on Employees Performance Developing a talent pool is a continuous process and it includes several practices as it was mentioned above. One of the best practices for the high-potential employees in most organizations is mentoring (Friday & Friday, 2002;Stahl et al., 2012). Mentorship is an activity based on the interpersonal relationship includes encouragement and support. A mentor can be an experienced employee or a manager helps to the less experienced employees and those who labeled as talents (Noe et al., 2012). Even the feedback is needed, the mentor should also be capable to encourage and advise on how to develop themselves through the feedback (Brandt & Brundin, 2007). This type of practices in development process may improve and simplify the development opportunities. A major issue with nurturing talent is that organizations must have the right training and mentoring plans in place (Khatri et al., 2010). Michaels et al. ( 2001) states the importance ofmentoring in their research, and argue that is valuable for the development of talent. Although mentoring ensures the benefits for the organizations, the number of the companies is not adequate which nominates mentors for their talents. Coaching and mentoring are the closely related terms and important managerial skills. Dessler (2013). clarifies the confusion between these terms by defining Coaching as educating, instructing, and training subordinates and Mentoring refers advising, counseling, and guiding?. He also states that while coaching focuses on teaching short-term job-related skills, mentoring concentrates on helping employees discover their long-term career objectives (Dessler;2013). # e) Employees Performance Employee's performance is critical to the success of the organization. Organizations should therefore endeavour to invest resources into programmes in order to increase job satisfaction and their employee's performance. Where there is employee job satisfaction, the tendency is to have low turnover, employee commitment and loyalty. The turnover intention is the degree to which the employees leave the organization. Employees' Performance, according to Mathis and Jackson (2009), is the presence, timeliness, efficiency, effectiveness, the quality and quantity of the work done. Employee performance, according to Huselid, (1995) is the enhancement of the knowledge, skills, and abilities acquired by employees so that they can perform their duties to achieve organizational goals. Deadrick and Gardner (1997) also intimate that it is the output of an employee for performing his job within a certain period of time. Training and development is an effective tool to equip or propel employees to improve upon their performance. According to Pfeffer (1994), employees that are trained by their organization are able to deliver well and gain competitive advantage. Katcher and Snyder (2003) are of the view that training and development of employees leads to efficient use of new equipment, enables them to deliver better, can be used to replace their supervisors when they retire and become loyal to the organization, thereby reducing employee turnover. In addition, when employees are trained, there is the likelihood that the organization will find it easier to adapt to change and enhance growth of both the employee and the organization. Nel, Van Dyk, Hassbroek, Schultz and Werner (2004) posit that the organization will benefit from training and development of employees because there will be reduction of project failures and defects and there will be minimum supervision as well. # f) Theoretical Framework The human capital theory emphasizes talents as an exceptional asset to an organization and based on that relevance, it was chosen as an underpinning theory for the current study. Training development and education are two major successors in human capital theory. It underlines that information, experience, and knowledge employee obtain from training development is a form of valuable capital and a great investment that produces returns (Shultz, 1971;Becker, 1962). There are many studies about the talent management field that uses human capital theory apart from the resourcebased view theory. Besides that, human capital theory generally supports and stimulates human capitals or talents to operate freely. According to Becker (1992) "all workers are intrinsically identical" as he attempts to prove that "greater knowledge tends to raise the benefits from specialization, and thus tends to raise the optimal division of labor" This study is anchored on the human capital theory by Becker (1964). This theory postulates that human capital -the composition of employee skills, knowledge, and abilities -is a central driver of employee performance. The theory has been widely used in the field of human resource management (Crook, Todd, Combs, Woehr, & Ketchen, 2011;Fisher, 2009;Lepak & Snell, 1999;Nafukho, Hairston, & Brooks, 2004;Strober, 1990). This theory views human capital as a competitive resource that organizations can invest in and is valued by the organization since it increases productivity (Kessler & Lülfesmann, 2006;Lepak & Snell, 1999;Nafukho, et al., 2004;Strober, 1990). The relevance of this theory is that if organizations pursue goal congruence, and focus more on retaining top performers, the huge amount invested in top performers pays off with long term benefits to the organization. If employees are adequately invested in, well managed and retained, they will be innovative and creative, readily useful and available to the organization to do the right job for all the right reasons, and goal achievements becomes glaring and tangible. # III. Methodology This study adopted survey design since it involves the field enquiries by collecting data using questionnaire from the target population. The target population of this study consists of 1,974staff of Benue State University (comprising of 718 academic, 631 nonacademic senior staff and 623 junior staff). Using Taro Yamene's formula, 333 respondents made the sample size for the study. The questionnaire was used as the major instrument of data collection. A pilot study was conducted to test the accuracy and the consistency of the research instrument. The result shows that all the constructs were reliable (consistent). Data were statistically analyzed after being collected from the field using Multiple Regression Analysis as the main # IV. Results and Discussion # a) Test of Hypotheses Test of hypotheses is done using regression analysis as the major technique, with aid of SPSS version 23. This is presented and discussed under model summary, ANOVA and regression coefficients. The result in Table 1 showed that the regression coefficient, R = .53(53%) has a positive relationship between the independent variables and dependent variable. The coefficient of determination (R 2 The result in Table 2 showed the F-value = 43.555 and the significance level = .000 (F = 43.555, P .000 < 0.05). This implies that over all regression model is statistically significant, valid and fit. The valid regression model implies that all independent variables (career development, coaching and mentoring) are capable of explaining the positive effect on the dependent variable (employee performance in Benue State University). b) Effect of Career Development on EmployeesPerformanceCareer can be described as a series ofpositions occupied by an individual throughout his orher lifespani. Examine the effect of career development on employees performance at Benue state University ii. Examine the effect of coaching on employees performance at Benue State University 1ModelRR SquareAdjusted R SquareStd. Error of the EstimateDurbin-Watson1.53 a.426.416.89538.000a. Predictors: (Constant), Mentoring, Coaching, Career development b. Dependent Variable: Employee Performance Source: SPSS output of field survey, 2021. 2) = .426 3where:Y= Employee PerformanceX 1 = Career developmentX 2 = CoachingX 3 = Mentoring? =Year 2021Volume XXI Issue XII Version I( ) AModelUnstandardized Coefficients B Std. ErrorStandardized Coefficients BetaTSig.Global Journal of Management and Business Research(Constant).1481.1812.663.0081Career development Coaching.148 292.064 .063.155 .3192.292 4.662.023 .000Mentoring.336.064.3425.266.000© 2021 Global Journalsa. Dependent Variable: Employee Performance Source: Field Survey, 2021. © 2021 Global Journals Effect of Talent Development on Employees Performance; A Case study of Benue State University, Makurdi The result in Table 3 established the regression equation as follows: The regression equation established from Table 3 indicated that holding career development, coaching and mentoring to a constant zero, employee performance would be 0.481, a unit increase in career development would lead to increase in employee performance by 0.148 (14.8 %), a unit increase in coaching would lead to increase in employee performance by a factor of 0.292 (29.3 %). Also, a unit increase in mentoring would lead to increase in employee performance by a factor of 0.336 (33.6 %). The significance of the variables was supported by the tvalues whose significance values were less than 0.05 which indicates that the variables were statistically significant in influencing the employee performance in Makurdi, Benue State. ## b) Discussion of Findings Discussion of findings is done according to the three hypotheses formulated and tested in this study as follows: To test the first hypothesis, the strength of the relationship between career development and employee performance was measured by the calculated p-value = 0.023 at a significance level (?) of 0.05. Since the computed p-value is less than the significance level (?) of 0.05 (p-value 0.023< ? 0.05), the null hypothesis was rejected. Therefore, we conclude that there is positive significant effect of career development on employee performance in Benue State University Makurdi. This finding is in line with previous study by Zheng and Kleiner (2001) which found that career development is perceived like joint effort between the individual employee and the organization and often used to close the gap between current performances and expected future performance. This finding also agrees with Armstrong (2008) who stated that career development is of great importance to both the individual employee and the organization. This is so because there is interaction between the organization for which he/she works and the development of the organization through the employee's career. To test the second hypothesis, the strength of the relationship between coaching and employee performance was measured by the calculated p-value = 0.000 at a significance level (?) of 0.05. Since the computed p-value is less than the significance level (?) of 0.05 (p-value 0.000 < ? 0.05), the null hypothesis was rejected and alternate accepted. Therefore, it was concluded that coaching has significant effect on the performance of employees in Benue State University Makurdi. This result supports the findings by a previous study by Zheng and Kleiner (2001) which found that coaching has direct positive effect on employee performance. In order to test the third hypothesis, the strength of the relationship between mentoring and employee performance was measured by the calculated p-value = 0.000 at a significance level (?) of 0.05. Since the computed p-value is less than the significance level (?) of 0.05 (p-value 0.000 < ? 0.05), the null hypothesis was rejected. Therefore, we conclude that mentoring has significant effect on employee performance in Benue State University Makurdi. The finding of this study agrees with Noe (2012) whose finding stated that while coaching focuses on teaching short-term job-related skills, mentoring concentrates on helping employees discover their long-term career objectives. This finding also agrees with Dessler (2013) who found that mentoring has positive effect on performance of employees. ## V. Conclusion and Recommendations The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of talent development (career development, coaching and mentoring) on employee performance .However, the study focused on Benue State University Makurdi. Accordingly, the results of this study led to the conclusion that talent development has positive significant effect on employee performance, but the study is in contradiction with previous scholars who found coaching to be strongest significantly determinant of employee performance and to have positive impact on employee performance which is contrary to this study. 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