By Fortune Eromosele, Abuja
Experts in Human Resource Management, have opined that Nigeria can curb the ‘japa’ syndrome by having more flexible hours during work and also how the government can invest unapologetically in creative minds.
Addressing newsmen shortly after a breakfast meeting organised by the ITM Services Limited with the theme: “Business Sustainability; Employment Diversity, Talent Management and Staff Retention,” in Abuja, the Country Manager, ITM, Bukola Oyinlola-Anuwe, said Nigeria was a bit rigid when it came to working hours.
She said, “During our panel session, we spoke about innovation, what you need to do is to have industry best practices and move with the times. We know that nowadays, we’re looking at more flexible hours, Nigeria is a bit rigid when it comes to working hours. So now we’re looking at all these things that we’re going to start doing and start doing them differently and hopefully, this will curb the ‘japa’ syndrome. Also, we looked at compensation, making sure people are compensated rightly.
“Which will also include additional benefits apart from the normal compensation and one of the panellists did speak about having a package structure such that it’s not just the employer that gets the benefit. Some go to his family members, their children’s school fees are being taken care of, wife gets a percentage.
“We hope that all that was discussed today, a lot of the organizations that are present will take it and begin to apply it in their workplace and hopefully we’ll get to see some changes coming up.”
She noted that the organisation is looking to partner with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour to push a better narrative adding that they would also conduct job fairs and more conferences.
In the same vein, Product and Business Development Director, ITM Africa Ltd, Rwanda, Lys Mwiza, said the federal government especially the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour, would need to include in their programs, employability skills.
She said, “I think especially the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labor, they need to understand how to incorporate some skills in their programs as well like employability skills. Partnering with organizations such as ours, we can show you how to come up with employability skills programs for fresh graduates from the university, because even the UN employment report shown, shows that there’s a huge gap between what was the curriculum from the universities. Our education system is quite different from what employers are looking for.”