Industry Experts Urge FG to Formulate Policies to Drive Healthy Working Conditions in Workplaces 

As Nigeria continues to experience mass exodus of her professionals to western countries in search of greener pastures, the Federal Government has been admonished to formulate policies that can drive healthy working condition in workplaces and tame brain drain.

The admonition was made at the 8th edition of the Work & Family Integration conference held in Lagos on Wednesday with the Theme: ‘Winning the war for talent: Strategy, Culture and Employee Perceptions’.

The programme, which was organised by the Institute for Work & Family Integration (IWFI) in collaboration with Lagos Business School (LBS), featured industry experts, who took turn to make their presentations on their experiences at workplaces and how best the condition could be improved upon.

Some of the speakers included the Group GM/Senior HRBP (Commercial & Anglophone), Dangote Cement Plc, Ahmed Ladan Gobir; President & Chairman of the Governing Council of CIPM, Olusegun Mojeed; Academic Director, HR Academy, Lagos Business School, Dr. Henry Onukwuba and Chief People Experience Officer, Kunbi Adeoti, amongst others.

IWFI’s Executive Secretary, Charles Aigbona, said findings have shown that Nigeria’s best hands are migrating to other countries because of the poor working condition in the country.

He believes that if the Nigerian government is able to listen to the companies and formulate policies that guarantee the safety and friendly working environment at workplaces and make businesses flourish, the lure to chase greener pastures outside will reduce.

“Government should know that they need to create the environment for companies to thrive. They have to listen to the companies. You cannot be governing people without listening to them to know their pain point, how they can grow, because, if all you do is tax, tax and tax them to make business difficult for them, then they will fold up and leave. And who are going to be laid off, of course Nigerians. So, we need to listen to the companies how we can make their business thrive and it’s up to the government to do it,” he said.

Speaking further, Aigbona explained that the event is targeted at the Line Managers, HR Director and the CEOs, who work directly with the people and make policies for the organisations.

“The focus of this programme is on three levels. Line managers, so that they can treat the people they are supervising as human beings. The second is HR directors, so that they don’t undo the policies by having culture that is not in line with the policy and finally, is the CEOs to see that this is quite important if they are going to take care of the bottom line which is something they are concerned about,” he added.

Also speaking at the event, a participant, Chinelo Adigwe, who works as a Human Resource Manager with a private company, said the programme has been very impactful.

“Firstly, I will want to commend IWFI for this initiative, this is the 8th edition of the conference, and I must say for the few hours that I have been here it’s been quite interesting.

“I never had prior knowledge about work life integration but coming here to this conference has broadened my horizon.  I get to understand that I can do more within the space that I’m in. And me doing more, I get to affect so many lives and when I get to groom people, the team also understand that that work life integration is key for the growth of the society,” Adigwe said.

IWFI’s Head of Business Development Marketing & Communications, Bayo Adeoye, in his response on how to tackle the brain drain syndrome, said there is the need for government to provide infrastructure in terms of power and formulate family-friendly policies which will ensure a better working condition for people to stay.

“Well, the situation can be tackled also by winning an advocate as an institute to ensure that government enshrines family-friendly policies which will make the work life integration a kind of what every organisation should have as a policy.

“So, if we have better working conditions and if you have a good infrastructure in terms of power, people will stay because they can stay in their homes and work from there. So, if we have good infrastructural development and also, we have good policies in place we’ll stay back here and work from Nigeria,” he said.

Adeoye noted that the theme of this year’s conference: ‘Winning The War for Talent: Strategy, Culture and Employee Perceptions’, is quite relevant to what is happening in the ecosystem now because of the Japa syndrome and has come at the right time.

“It’s quite a very interesting conference and owing to the fact that we have very good qualities in terms of speakers, panelists, delegates, CEO of companies, managing directors and head of HRs of companies featuring in the conference, it has actually been a good success on our side,” Adeoye added.

The annual Work & Family Integration conference is a platform for CEOs, HR Directors, academia, consultants and managers to come together and discuss the productivity benefits of family-friendly policies. 

It’s time for them to exchange ideas on things related to employee experience and employee engagement as regards taking care of the family work life balance or work life integration.