The Nation Newspaper

Tag: employee

  • From employee to job placement business

    From employee to job placement business

    Graduation is a moment of joy for every student.Nonetheless, the challenge comes when it is time to search for job.The competition in the labour market has produced a new generation of entrepreneurs setting up businesses to help young Nigerians discover their career paths, DANIEL ESSIET writes.

    Chief Executive Job Mag Mrs  Maureen Iyasele, had a successful corporate career in the  oil and gas  sector.  She is a Chemical Engineer.  She was working with Exxon Mobil as a Lead Design Engineer for five years.   Despite her success, she felt empty and unfulfilled until she resigned to set up a Youth Centre in Lagos.

    She  noticed  that when students graduate, they are always faced with the  challenge  of  getting  jobs   when the graduation celebrations are over.

    She observed that graduates and potential employers have long noted the gap between what students learn in school and what companies and institutions are looking for in their new employ. She was determined to   assist students have  the ability and confidence to seamlessly cross the gap from the classroom into the workplace.

    For  this reason, she  abandoned her high paying oil and gas job to create Jobmag, a walk-in job centre where job-seekers can walk in from the streets, and at little or no cost, get the help they require to find jobs. Iyasele opened the centre in 2010. So she found job the centre to undertake recruitment and coaching projects.

    At present, over 5,000 young Nigerians have come in contact with Maureen’s organisation.

    The centre helps young people find jobs by training them in skills, such as  computer literacy and social media, providing them with career counseling, and matching them with recruiters and job postings.

    Today, the centre operates with a staff close to 30, all of whom Iyasele manages. Mrs  Iyasele has had to come  up to speed on a vast range of topics from website design, blogging, social media, SEO, and accounting.

    According  to her, the  centre,  in her pursuit of offering help to the unemployed, has received about 5, 000 curriculum vitas (CVs) from unemployed Nigerians, successfully helped to upgrade to professional standard.About 1,500 of these CVs and successfully helped about 500 of these candidate secure the jobs of their choice for which they are professionally equipped with corporate institutions and multi-nationals that the  JobMag serves.

    Initially,  it didn’t translatE into profit but as the outfit  grew, she  discovered  ways  to make  money through  recruitment and selection services, workshops and SME support services, to name but a few.  For her, there is no quick fix for getting students prepared for the workforce. As such, the centre   supports a number of activities in order to approach the challenge from several different angles. While youths  are eager to explore opportunities, she  said many are not ready to pay for the training.

    Generally,she  said the  centre provides training focused on building key skills, such as writing a CV and successfully preparing for job interviews.  Once prepared, the youths get the much-needed exposure to employers and employment opportunities.

    She approaches companies prior to gathering their feedback about what skills they felt would be most in demand. The strong interest shown by firms, demonstrate their willingness to support crucial job creation programmes for young people, as well as the centre  capacity to engage the private sector in supporting youth employability initiatives.

    As a result of the training, trainees felt they were better equipped to write a quality CV, and feel more confident in their interviewing skills. The  centre, according  to her, has been working to provide employability programmes  that meet the needs of young people and improve their chances of finding jobs, or starting successful enterprises. Participating youths attend training sessions and clinics and receive specially tailored coaching sessions.

    After completing the process, they acquire skills for employability, entrepreneurship, or service learning activities.

    On the whole, she is working in a very difficult market. It is hard to build a presence when a lot of the target market may want to use her   services, but may not necessarily have the budget. A lot of companies are trying other methods as an alternative to a job enhancement practice.

    The   biggest challenge also is the current level of unemployment. This requires her getting an unprecedented amount of applications for every job which can be hard to manage.  She also has to  deal with a lot of frustrated candidates who may have been out of work for a long time, and who she may not be able to help, which is always upsetting.  She works on helping as many people as she can and try to point those, they can’t in the right direction.

    She    provides customised, individual counseling and group training designed to help young people get jobs.

    Generally, she is working hard to change people’s perception of the recruitment industry through local marketing and networking.

     

  • How to become an A+ employee

    How to become an A+ employee

    Every organisation wants A+ employees, however, such employees are a rare gem to find. The market today is flooded with individuals who are looking for where to park their “butts” and get paid plenty for delivering very little value to the world they live in. They are the clock-watchers and pencil pushers; in at half past eight in the morning and out by half past four in the afternoon, under the guise of beating traffic. They put in just enough not to get fired and act as stumbling blocks in the way of others who desire to make more positive contributions. You would typically hear them say “This is not my father’s business”. As if they would be so lucky.

    A+ employees,on the other hand, make their organization and world a better place for everyone. They are team players, proactive problem solvers, idea generators and risk takers. They leave legacies and track records behind for others to beat. Being an A+ employee is not hereditary. It is a state of mind and a choice. It is behaviour that can be learned. Here are 3 key lessons on howto be an A+ Employee.

    (i) Understand the business of your employer. Every organization is set up to achieve a set of objectives, whether it is a not-for-profit, for-profit or government agency. Find out what those objectives are and identify how you can directly contribute to their achievement. You are an A+ employee when you take the time to discover what makes your organisation great in the eyes of its stakeholders and you invest your time, energy and passion in making your organisation rock!

    Work with your manager to clearly articulate your goals and deliverables for the year, and establish early connections between your work outputs and business priorities. If you cannot relate what you do every day to the survival and success of the company you work for, you will have a hard time convincing yourself, or anyone else for that matter, that you are a valuable asset to be retained.

    I had to break this message down for my employees in very simple terms. If we are not engaging new customers and we are not delivering to our customers’ satisfaction, then the business will eventually go bust and so will their jobs. It is everybody’s job to sell and deliver quality service. Everything else is secondary.

    (ii) Check yourself before others put you in check. Every year, smart organisations invest funds and resources in creating monitoring controls. They set their performance targets at the start of the year and spend the rest of the year benchmarking their actual performance against these. This enables organisations identify early warning signs of impending disasterand take timely action to avert undesirable outcomes. If monitoring controls are good enough for your employer, they are certainly good enough for you.

    A+ employees regularly monitor their own individual performance and keep score. They proactively seek out performance feedback from stakeholders and take immediate action to address performance issues. Plan and organise your week in such a way that you accomplish your most important tasks first, and evaluate your performance against your objectives on a weekly basis. Ask your manager to evaluate your performance on a quarterly basis. Do not be afraid of constructive criticism.

    One of our interns quickly learnt the hard way that he had to “check” himself when his internship was extended from six months to nine months because he was not meeting some of his performance goals. The experience was a wakeup call that spurredhimto evaluate his own performance on a weekly basis and regularly ask for performance feedback.

    (iii) Create and implement a Personal Development Plan. All organisations are expected to evolve into bigger and better versions of themselves. They are expected to grow market share, increase revenues and improve profitability, in an environment that is constantly changing. Guess what? Companies are made up of people and if those people are not constantly reinventing themselves to improve their work outputs, then their organisations will soon become extinct.

    A+ employees keep abreast of the strategic direction of the companies they work for and changes in the environment, so that they can respond proactively to emerging business needs. Work with your manager and mentors to formulate learning and development strategies for upgrading your knowledge, skills and experience so that you can meet not just the present, but also the future needs of your employer.

    In a one-on-one meeting with one of my interns, I helped her understand that her desire to pursue graduate studies and work experience in the United States means that she is choosing to compete on a global stage for admission and employment with people from all over the world. It is, therefore, her responsibility to ensure that her skills and competence are at par with or better than other prospective graduate students.

    As we progress into the last quarter of the year, it’s a good time to check-in with yourself and probably your manager, what grade of an employee you are. If not A+, then what?

     

  • Disabled employee gets car, wheel-chair

    After many years of hopelessness, succour has come the way of a 44-year-old physically challenged worker of the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos, Mrs. Mercy Omogbayi.

    She is now a proud owner of an automated wheel-chair, a Mitsubishi car and the sum of N250, 000. They were donated to her by Omo-Ilu Foundation, a non-governmental organisation established by businessman cum politician, Chief Buruji Kashamu.

    At the presentation, Kashamu, who was represented by his Media Assistant, Mr. Augustine Oniyokor, said his boss was touched by the plight of the woman during a recent encounter.

    “This gesture was borne out of the vision of Omo-Ilu Foundation to help the needy and empower people in the society, irrespective of ethnic or political leanings. My boss had an encounter with the beneficiary a few weeks ago and had promised to assist her with mobility aids. He, however, felt that giving her a car would complement other mobility gadgets.

    Amid tears of joy, Mrs. Omogbaiyi, thanked Kashamu for the gesture, saying: “I am short of words because I was not expecting a car and money. During our encounter, I told him that I needed a wheel chair and it was a big surprise that he added a car and money to give me comfort.

    “I have been a paraplegic since birth. I came to work this morning as usual not knowing that a bountiful package was waiting for me. I pray that God will continue to bless him and his children.”