Employee Wellbeing and Job Performance: Moderating Effect of Work-Life Balance in Nigeria

Employee well-being has become a cornerstone of contemporary organisational behaviour research. Yet, its relationship to job performance in the Nigerian labour market remains underexplored, particularly when work-life balance is introduced as a moderating variable. This study examines the relationship between employee well-being and job performance among Nigerian workers, interrogating the extent to which work-life balance moderates this association. Drawing on a large-scale cross-sectional survey of 7,740 respondents drawn from diverse sectors of the Nigerian economy, and controlling for marital status, age, and educational level, the study employs cross-sectional regression analysis to test three hypotheses derived from Conservation of Resources Theory, the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model, and Social Exchange Theory. Results indicate that employee wellbeing exerts a significant positive effect on job performance (β = 0.421, p < 0.001), while work-life balance positively and significantly moderates this relationship (β = 0.183, p < 0.01). Married employees and those with higher educational attainment demonstrate differentially higher performance outcomes when their wellbeing is supported. These findings have profound implications for human resource management practice and public policy in Nigeria, where systemic labour pressures, economic volatility, and weak institutional support frameworks continue to erode workforce productivity. The study contributes to the growing body of literature on wellbeing economics in sub-Saharan Africa and offers an empirically grounded framework for enhancing organisational performance through intentional wellbeing investment.