RAISING COMMITTED STAFF

A group of entrepreneurs were talking about the high rate of mobility amongst skilled workers. They felt that the skilled workers were getting quite arrogant and unreliable. A few of them said that workers could move for a 5% salary increase and sometimes to an organization that is far less established than the one they are leaving behind. They lamented the dearth of committed staff and wondered why staff unions were not addressing that anomaly.

I pondered over this complaints, wondering why all six of the entrepreneurs were of the same opinion. My personal experience was quite different; I had staff at senior levels that had been with my various companies for years and had in fact grown with the organizations. Some of them joined up as rookies but had grown into positions of leadership and huge responsibilities. I believe that any employee worth his mettle would look at several factors before deciding to join an organization.

The first one is the Vision of the organization. When the vision of a company is easily communicated, it gives employees a fair knowledge of where they are headed and how far along the organization has come. If a company is a distribution company for instance and just says its vision is to be the best in Africa or globally, that doesn’t give a clear indication of the path the organization is taking and what it hopes to accomplish. If the vision is to distribute goods globally at the fastest speed possible with zero error in handling and delivery, it gives a clearer vision and a worker who is in the logistics department immediately knows what is expected of him and skills that he needs to improve on. In summary, the vision of the organization needs to be effectively communicated and then broken down in such a way that every member of staff knows how his job and contribution enhances or demotes the organization.

Most employees would rather take a job in an organization that is large and has been around for a while. When you are a young company, the only way to encourage employees to choose you and stay with you is to be clear about the structure of the organization, the experience of the leaders and the reasons why stability is not a cause for concern. These things can be detailed out on the company’s site or directly to the prospective employees during the on boarding of staff or even at the point of interview.

Another factor that employees consider is a company that will support their personal growth. The personal growth include opportunities that enhance the person’s productivity and marketability; yes that is the bare truth – in order to enhance the productivity of your staff, you make them more marketable. This notwithstanding, the organization would help staff to enhance their knowledge and skills for better contribution towards the organizational goals. It is important for team leaders in an organization to find out the personal goals of their subordinates and work to incorporate that into their staff enhancement programme. The managers and team leaders drive performance of employees so that they can achieve the larger goals set at the organizational or business level. However, if these larger goals are not aligned to impact individual goals, employee motivation will deteriorate after some time.

It is important to encourage individual enhancement because it helps to sustain employee motivation. Aligning goals also helps in prioritization of tasks and responsibilities. When employees understand how their personal growth impacts on the goals of the organization, collaboration, commitment and team cohesiveness increase.

Furthermore, it is important to be clear on staff welfare. What do your staff members hope to gain after some years of consistent and impressive work? What are the trainings that the staff hopes to access in the organization? How does the company encourage its staff to take advantage of available opportunities? In this period of online courses that are sometimes totally free, a company could make it easy for their staff to take some of these courses by incorporating them as KPIs for staff. Some organizations encourage their staff to read books, travel and get exposed to different cultures, all these are ways to enhance staff productivity and they help the employees to feel treasured by their employers.

Lastly, make the staff emoluments and benefits to be comparable to the best in the your industry. If your salaries are competitive and the benefits are great, it would be difficult for your staff to leave for any other pasture.

Finally, Let there be positions for growth within the organization. Even if the company reviews salaries every year, no staff wants to be on the same level for a long time. Create the opportunities for elevation and increase the capacity of the organization as the capacity of your staff grows.

If these things don’t keep your staff happy and focused, then let them go. There are some workers that derive pleasure from just flitting from job to job and most times, they might actually be worth less than we think.

Fatherhood with Ibe

BROTHER’S KEEPER DILEMMA

Being your brother’s keeper can be quite delicate especially when a woman is involved.  Things are not always so cut and dried when emotions play a large part in decision-making. Ordinarily, I like to watch out for people that I have mentored. They almost become a part of my family depending on the level of closeness we establish over the years. Paul was quite close to me, but that was before 2016.

Paul is about 61 years old and a CEO of a successful company. I met him when he was in his twenties, even before he met and married his dear wife and business partner, Lily with whom he enjoyed 26 years of marriage. But Lily died from injuries sustained in an auto crash in 2016 and the light went out of Paul’s life. Everyone knew that Paul was going to be miserable without his partner. They had been too close and had seemed inseparable. Friends and relations tried their best to draw Paul out and keep him occupied but he was not willing to be part of any social activity. He retreated into his shell and gave more business responsibilities to his two daughters who were already married. Paulo struggled with deep loneliness and no one seemed able to help him.

After years of keeping away from social activities, his friends were greatly excited when he started dating again. The lady was a beautiful 35-year-old, a mother of one and an event planner. She was making a name for herself in Lagos, Nigeria, and was said to be a social media influencer as well. She wasn’t typically the type of woman any of Paul’s friends would have paired him with because she was totally different from his former wife and a little too much into the social scene which Paul traditionally avoided. The funny thing was that his younger daughter was actually the one that innocently introduced the lady, Shirley, to her father and within a short time, Paul was heading off to the woman’s family to formally ask for her hand in marriage and pay the bride price.

Everyone was taken by surprise by this new development but what surprised people, even more, was the lavish wedding party that followed their court wedding. It was a gathering of celebrities and business chief executives. For weeks, the pictures from the wedding kept dominating the social media. It seemed as if overnight Paulo had moved from a conservative and very private business owner to a popular face on the social media. He started accompanying his new wife to some social functions and always, there would be massive social media coverage. As Paul changed his social stance, his company also seemed to be undergoing some form of metamorphosis. They started sponsoring some media events and hosting social events.

I saw a little bit of these changes in Paul’s business style but I didn’t know how extensive they were until Paul’s older brother Kenneth visited me and asked me to please have a talk with his brother.

“He is acting strangely. His daughter came to me with the company records and it showed that Paul has spent more than 500% of their annual budget on CSR. She told me that for the one year he has been married to that woman Shirley, he has spent an incredible amount of company funds on what she called ‘frivolous things.”

It was obvious that Kenneth did not like his brother’s new wife but I didn’t know how I could help. Paul had worked with me when he was fresh out of school and had turned me to his unpaid consultant in the early years of starting his business. Both he and his first wife became familiar visitors to my home but since his wife died, my attempts to invite him over for a meal had been met with polite refusals. Actually, I was out of the country at the time of his remarriage and only ran into him and his new wife at a social function once. I didn’t feel that it was appropriate for me to dive headlong into Paul’s internal problems and I told Kenneth so.

“He respects you a lot. I can’t think of someone else he would listen to.”

“You are his elder brother; you are the right person to talk with him.” I parried.

“You know how it is. It will be given some ‘mean in-law’ colourations besides, I am a shareholder in the company but I have no financial commitment. If I meddle, his new wife could have him delete my name from the company.”

I laughed and tried to make light of it but Kenneth was not having it.

“This is serious. His daughter came crying to me.” Kenneth said. “She is worried that her father would fritter away everything her mother laboured for because he is trying to impress his new wife.”

“Why not let the girls speak with their father. He will listen to them.”

Kenneth laughed drily.

“The problem is a little bigger than that. I don’t normally believe in these local charms and voodoo but over Paul, I am tempted to believe that he is being spiritually manipulated. Do you know that he asked his first daughter not to come to his house anymore because she had an encounter with Shirley’s rude son?”

“I don’t understand.” I said, frowning.

“Exactly! You know Daisy, very calm and sweet natured young lady, she went to see her father in his house and the little boy asked her if she brought a present for him. She said she would bring one the next time she was visiting and the boy called her a stingy and wicked woman. He told her to leave the house or he would start shouting and have his mum deal with her. Daisy was stunned at the rudeness but not as stunned as when the boy let out a shriek and Shirley came and started shouting at her for upsetting her son. Daisy was trying to explain that she didn’t do anything to the boy but Shirley would not listen. She escalated the problem so much that Paul asked his own daughter to stop coming to his house.”

I am sure that my eyes were wide with disbelief. Could it be the same Paul that I knew? He loved his two girls so much, he had wept openly at his first daughter’s wedding and was teased mercilessly by his friends. How could he ask her not to visit him at home anymore?

“This is a lot to take in. I don’t know if there will be an opportunity to engage Paul in a business discussion soon but if there is, I will try to tell him to be cautious. I can’t do more than this unless he asks for my opinion.” I said sincerely.

Kenneth was not satisfied but he knew that I wasn’t going to make promises that would be difficult for me to keep. I would be sad to see Paul’s company struggling financially due to wrong decisions but it is his company and this is one of those instances that being your brother’s keeper isn’t the best route.

I am hoping there would be a logical reason for the things going on in his life right now but I come in peace when I say “women are powerful.”

So long!!