ABSTRACT

The study examined the Perceived Influence of Workplace Mentoring on the Job Performance of Administrative Staff of Universities in Abia State, Nigeria. Four research questions were asked and four null hypotheses were formulated to guide this study. 150 sample size was used. The instrument for data collection of this study was questionnaire titled “Influence of Workplace Mentoring on Job Performance (IWMJP)”. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t-test statistics was used to analyze the null hypotheses and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that workplace mentoring influences the quality of work of administrative staff, workplace mentoring affects the understanding of job specifications of administrative staff of universities in Abia State and workplace mentoring influences administrative staff of universities in Abia State on the achievement of their set goals. The findings also showed that there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female staff on the perceived influence of workplace mentoring on the quantity of work of administrative staff (t-cal 2.17 is greater than t-tab 1.07), there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female staff on the perceived influence of workplace mentoring on understanding job specifications of administrative staff (t-cal 2.17 is greater than t-tab 1.2), there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female staff on the perceived influence of workplace mentoring on the achievement of set goals of administrative staff (t-cal … is greater than t-tab 1.89). Based on the findings of the study, the researcher concluded that administrative staff of universities in Abia State perceived that workplace mentoring enhanced the quality of work of their output. The respondents also perceived that workplace mentoring will help in providing the needed guidelines of their job specifications and in identifying specific tasks to be completed and the achievement of such set goals. Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations are hereby made that university Management should organize seminars/workshops periodically for the administrative staff to educate and orientate them on the need for them to submit themselves to mentoring programme in order to consistently increase the quality of their work and that Management of universities  should  adopt  a structured  formal  mentoring  programme to enhance the quantity of work ouput of administrative staff in universities in Abia State.