Al-Hikmah University Journal

The Nigerian government places emphasis on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for socio- economic development and employment generation.  Consequently, owners/managers of SMEs in private sector adopt various strategies in order to achieve these set objectives. One of the strategies that can be of immense benefit is the adoption of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) practices. However, existing studies on SHRM are mostly concerned with financial institutions and big companies. This study, therefore, examined the challenges confronted by private investors in the implementation of SHRM on SMEs performance in the North Central zone of Nigeria.The study employed simple random sampling technique in selecting 220 out of 489 registered SMEs in sub-sector of private sector economy of the North Central region using a well-structured questionnaire. Mean ranking test was used to examine the challenges of SHRM by SMEs. The findings revealed that the challenges confronting the private ownership investor in adopting SHRM practices in the North Central zone of Nigeria were most resided in leadership development problem (µ=0.316 p<0.05) and adapting to innovation (µ=0.239 p<0.05). The study concluded that if these challenges are removed it would be of immense advantage to the private investors to imbibe the norms of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) practices in sustaining Small and Medium Enterprises despite other challenges affecting the implementation in Nigeria. It is hereby recommended that approach and procedure for solving challenges confronting the adoption of SHRM should be consistent with the organisational behaviour to increase operational efficiency and SMEs’ performance in the private sector.