ABSTRACT

 This study examined equal employment opportunity and employees engagement ofsenior staff in Federal I ■ niversities in South-East. Nigeria. Specifically, the study investigated the effects of equal access to organizational benefits on emotional engagement of employees in federal universities in South-East. Nigeria; determined the effects of diversity management practices on the cognitive engagement of employees in federal universities in in South-East, Nigeria; evaluated the influence of compliance to affirmative action on the physical engagement of employees in federal universities in in South-East, Nigeria; and examined the effect offair labour right protection on the retention of employees in federal universities in South-East, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey design as its research design; and the data used for the study were elicited from primary and secondary sources. The population for the study was 23,126 senior staff of the universities under study while 430 senior staff of the universities was sampled as respondents using simple random sampling technique. Simple percentage was used to analyze respondents’ profile, the research questions were also analyzed with Spearman’s rank correlation statistics while the hypotheses were tested with Theil-Sen regression estimation at 5% (0.05) level ofsignificance with the aid of the 28.0 version of IBM statistical package for social sciences (IBM-SPSS). The findings of the study showed that equal access to organizational benefits, diversity management practices, and compliance to affirmative action have very high significant effect on physical engagement of employees while fair labour right protection has significant effecton retention of employees in the federal universities under study. The study therefore concluded that equal employment opportunity has significant effects on employees’ engagement in federal universities in South-East, Nigeria. Consequently, the study therefore recommended that it is imperative for federal universities in South-East, Nigeria to guarantee equality in the access to organizational benefits to all employees by offering equal opportunity for career advancement through career progression, mentorship programmes, training and development initiatives. Also, federal universities in South-East, Nigeria should adopt and foster an inclusive culture as a diversity management practice which recognizes, promotes and rewards an inclusive workplace culture.Furthermore. management of federal universities in South-East, Nigeria should be intentional in the monitoring and auditing of affirmative actions during their human resource management practices to identify and address potential disparities in the organization by ensuring that the ethos of industrial democracy are respected and labour rights are protected unbiasedly in order to enhance their equal employment opportunity contributions to employees’ engagement.