Work Ethics Practices and Employee Retention Towards Economic Recovery in the Brewery Industries of Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria

The study investigated work ethics practices and employee retention in the manufacturing industries in Lagos, Nigeria with focus on the Nigerian Breweries, Lagos as the unit of analysis. The study identified work ethics practices found operational to include integrity accountability, professionalism, and respectfulness. The corresponding relationship between these work ethics practices and employee retention was also evaluated with the view to providing information on how work ethics practices influence employee retention. The study made use of primary data with the aid of a structured questionnaire administered to 300 respondents randomly to elicit information from the selected respondents. It was found that integrity as a practice was prevalent among other practices found to be operational in the area of study and also found that there exists a significant positive relationship among all the variables of work ethics practices and employee retention where accountability practice with employee retention (r = 0.546, p < 0.05), respectfulness practice with employee retention (r = 0.677, p < 0.05), professionalism practice with employee retention (r = 0.658, p < 0.05) and integrity practice with employee retention (r = 0.748, p < 0.05). it was concluded that work ethics practice is a good cost control strategy to sustain employee retention without incurring additional costs, especially in the wake of economic recession and recovery. Thus, recommended that the management of the Nigerian Breweries should institutionalise work ethics practices and educate employees of the organisation on the essence of the practices.