In a bid to address the rising unemployment rate in Nigeria and the growing trend of the japa syndrome, ITM Services Limited, a pan-African firm has announced plans to partner with the Federal Government.
The firm, which specialises in human capital development, expressed its commitment to providing training and employment opportunities for Nigerian youths.
ITM Country Director, Bukola Oyinlola-Anuwe, announced this during a stakeholders’ engagement held in Abuja on Thursday.
Speaking at the event, Oyinlolo-Anuweshe said,” ITM Service Limited is a foreign-owned company so definitely we hope to bring to bear what we have practised in other sister countries and we didn’t mention that we in seven to eight countries such as the United States of America, United Kingdom and Canada etc; but that is not to say that we would also not try and partner with them to get more innovations and begin to reach out to our government and organizations right here.
“The next thing that we plan on doing is to do a job fair which we would really like to collaborate on as one of the attendees is the Ministry of Education and Labour which would be our next project to bring into view a lot of innovations from foreign countries that can be very helpful for Nigeria.”
Speaking on the reasons why people are leaving the country and possible measures the government should employ to guarantee the retention of staff, she emphasised that the issue of staff retention starts from the roots and the need to consider employable employees when hiring, stressing that it is important to have the right talent and to ensure that the hiring process is inclusive of all walks of life, cultural and social groups.
Furthermore, she noted that proper onboarding processes are crucial in retaining staff explaining that employers should focus on innovation, and ensure that they are adopting industry best practices and moving with the times.
“So we have seen from the discussion today that it starts from the roots, you talk about having employable employees and having the right talent, so when you are employing you look at diversity and inclusion. You include all works of life and cultural and social groups.
“Also, when you are employed and going through a proper onboarding process where we talk about innovation what you need to do to have industry best practices and move with the times we know that nowadays we are looking for more flexible hours.
“We are going to look at all these things and start doing them differently to curb the Japa syndrome and also protect compensation, to ensure that people are compensated rightly and also additional compensation from the noble compensation such as having a package structure that is not just the employer that gets the benefits some go to his family members, children schools are taken care of, wife gets a percentage so the retention is not only for the employer is also another multinational force for the person to stay.
“I hope that has been thought today a lot of employers will take and apply it in their workplace so that we get to see some changes coming up,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Product and Business Development Director, ITM Africa Ltd, Rwanda, Lys Mwiza said that employers should work on internal policies that will enable them to understand how to best retain their employees, adding that it starts with understanding what their staff needs are, implementing policies such as ensuring the mental well being of staff with the policies to as well allow feedback such as 360-degree feedback systems.
She added,” So we need to also put in a lot of effort in making sure that even this talent that is fleeing, leaving the country can be able to eventually come back and put in incentives for them to come back and change this culture.”
