Mentoring and Employee Innovativeness in Water Producing Firms in Rivers State

The study examined the relationship between onboarding practice and employee innovativeness in water-producing firms in Rivers State, Nigeria. The study adopted quasi-experimental design. The sample consists of 235 water producing companies in Rivers State randomly determined from the population of 615 employees from nine (9) table water producing companies in Rivers State. Data was collected through validated structured questionnaire designed on a five-point Likert scale, was used to measure responses from the respondents. The validated instruments were subjected to reliability test using Cronbach Alpha which yielded reliability coefficients of 0.70 and 0.77 respectively. To analyze the data, both the research questions and hypotheses were analysed using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient, facilitated by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. The results of the study showed that there was a strong positive and significant relationship between on-boarding and employee innovativeness in the water producing firms in Rivers State. The study recommended that Water-producing firms in Rivers State should establish structured mentoring programs that pair experienced staff with new hires to accelerate innovation and reduce onboarding time and train managers in evidence-based mentoring techniques, including goal setting, feedback, and innovation support.