TheCable

Olusegun Mojeed, president of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPM), says organisations need to consider ways to improve workers’ productivity in an ailing economy.

Mojeed, who is also the chairman of the institute’s governing council, said this at the 14th special human resource forum (SHEF) held virtually on Wednesday.

The forum was themed ‘Improving productivity and engagement in the current economic reality’.

He said as the country’s economy becomes more challenging, organisations, especially human resource professionals, need to think of tactical ways to mitigate challenges faced by employees.

“We are all aware of the economic challenges occasioned by inflation, insecurity, unstable/unpredictable government policies e.t.c, which have negatively impacted people’s productivity, caused a high-level brain drain, loss of jobs and livelihood, and little or no foreign economic investment as well as business somersault,” he said.

“These have necessitated the need for a commensurate effort at bringing in equilibrium that will cushion the effect of these challenges. It, therefore, behoves us as HR professionals to deploy tactical ways and means to ameliorate challenges, volatility or complexities that may arise from economic difficulties.”

Speaking at the event, Johnny Taylor, president, and chief executive officer, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), said there is a need for HR professionals to look into redefining talents, rescaling, and succession plans.

“We need people who are naturally agile learners and very adaptable. Here’s the problem. Our mental models as an HR profession are stuck somewhere between the industrial era [and] the information era, when in fact the work models are heading very, very quickly toward the augmented era,” Taylor said.

“As HR professionals, we think about the great reset, and it was accelerated by the pandemic, it started 5 to 7 years ago. It was this notion that we got to redefine talent and think very, very differently about as HR professionals if we’re going to keep the world of work heading.

“Also, our relationship changes, HR professionals are really going to be something that we’re going to have to lean into. Our employees are changing, and we’re going to have to change. Long gone are the days when we’re going to have to simply say this is our policy. We documented this policy three or four years ago, and we’ll revisit it every three or four years. It doesn’t work that way. You’re going to have to constantly evolve.”

On her part, Funke Amobi, regional head, people and culture West Africa and Nigeria, Standard Bank Group, said the change is paramount as well as a talent check.

“This is the time to rethink your talent management practices. This is the time to rethink how you acquire talent. How you retain talent, rethink your engagement drivers, ask your people what matters, because it has changed post-pandemic, what matters to our people has changed,” Amobi said. 

“It is the time to rethink your employee engagement strategies. The time to rethink your strategic HR management practices.”