Digital Jewels, the leading best practice standards consulting firm in Africa, as part of its continued effort to drive strategic learning and development in organisations, has launched the first of its kind Learning and Development Benchmark Survey that will enhance workforce effectiveness.
The survey, which centred on the learning and development position in Nigeria, evaluates the direction L & D is going in locally and how it compares to best practices globally. The study cuts across education, non-governmental organisations, healthcare, media, technology, energy, manufacturing, banks and non-banks; and financial institutions among other sectors of the Nigerian economy
Adedoyin Odunfa, MD/CEO, Digital Jewels in a chat with BusinessDay at the Digital Jewels HR Leaders forum in Lagos, explained that the survey scientifically shows learning and development trends and how human resources managers in private organisations and government agencies can structure their training for their workforce to effectively boost bottom-line by aligning capacity building programs with strategic organisational goals.
Odunfa opined that there is the need to take capacity building seriously- be it in private or public sectors- stressing that with the right learning and development strategies in place, organisations and managers of government agencies will be better informed on the intelligent ways to deploy training to achieve their set goals.
Commenting on the efforts put in place to engage government and private organisations to key into learning and development best practices, Odunfa disclosed that the survey would be sent out to various spheres of government to see while presentations will be made to deepen collaboration.
According to her, “I think the Government should get involved. We will make an effort to involve them. One of the problems we have in Nigeria is lack of research and data. We should stop being a generation that has a lot of people and a lot of under employed people,” she said.
Enase Okonedo of Lagos Business School on her part informed that the survey highlights what the current practices for training are looking across organisations and the best way to improve workforce efficiency and effectiveness using the right approach to training.
Okonedo observed that there is disconnect between the realities of the market and the people that are being graduated which is what accounts for the high unemployment rate in the country especially among youths.
She further said that with employers still complaining about shortfall in getting the right talents among the pool of graduates yearly, it is important for organisations to modify their training methods to help meet organisational needs.
“There are graduates but they don’t have the right skills set that businesses are looking for. It is to champion this advocacy further to ensure that there is a coming together of minds between the government and all relevant agencies to ensure that they incorporate all the findings in the survey into the curriculum in schools so that when they come out of school they will be able to add value to organisations.”
“We have human resources, we should be able to convert them to valuable talents,” she added.
KELECHI EWUZIE
