The study is an empirical investigation on the relationship between innovative work behaviour and employee performance of manufacturing companies in Rivers State. This study measured employee performance through work engagement and work design, while the dimensions of innovative work behaviour were given as initiation and implementation. A cross sectional survey which is a form of quasi experimental design was employed with a population of 158 drawn from the association of water producers in Rivers State. The taro yamen formula was applied to arrive at a sample size of 113 employees. Primary date was collected for this work, the spearman rank correlation coefficient with the help of SPSS was used for the hypotheses. The study findings revealed a significant and positive relationship between Initiation and the measures of employee performance. It concluded that table water manufacturing companies in Rivers State that engage and strictly nurture initiation improves and enhances the employee’s performance, and that innovative work behaviour is key for every business and if businesses must compete favourably, enhance their productivity and performance, and or even survive in the consistently turbulent business environment.