Nov.1 (PREMIUM TIMES) — The inability to efficiently manage the constantly changing workforce facing different levels of businesses impacts negatively on firm’s productivity and profitability, experts in Human Resource, HR, Management say.

A Fellow of Chartered Institute of Personnel Management, CIPM, Victor Famuyibo, said the productivity and profit levels of businesses are under threat as companies keep losing trained staff while keeping a string of low productive ones on their payrolls.

“When a change is not well managed, employees would be thoroughly disengaged and alienated, leading to low productivity and low returns in businesses” he said in a presentation themed ‘Employee Engagement: A Nigeria HR Practitioner’s Experience, at the 13th Induction Ceremony of CIPM in Lagos today”.

“A disengaged staff is under productive, and hence, causes the firm to pay more than it is deriving from such an employee” Mr. Famuyibo said at the ceremony which saw about 386 persons being admitted into membership of the grade of associates of the institution.

According to Mr. FAmuyibo, symptoms of a disengaged staff include absenteesim, extended lunch breaks, mutual suspicion and distrust, among others actions which continue to breed low productivity.

He urged the inductees and existing HR practitioners to engage their workforce in the face of changes.

“You can’t have an improvement in performance of the workforce without having an engaged workforce. The success of the strategy of your employment engagement strategy hinges on the nature, character, understanding of the employees.

“Access the current state of the employee engagement, then take gap analysis, draw up action steps on how to move from the current state to the desired state.

“As you grow in your HR career, you have to understand that you would be managing a different type of workforce than we are.  The generation of the workforce coming up are different in terms of work, attitude. They are very smart and there is an overload of information around them, before you know it, they have googled information from the internet and so they would require a different strategy to manage them”.

Mr. Famuyibo said a boost in performance of employees causes productivity to go up. “An engaged workforce achieves more out of the same. There is better quality and higher output. There is improved customer satisfaction, profitability enhancement, there is increase in sales and sales revenue, which would lead to higher returns and then higher wages, and then everyone, is happy”.

Sunday Salako, National President, Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, ASSBIFI, said Nigeria’s workforce is having a fair share of the Nigeria’s failings.

“Good Industrial relations practice is a sine-qua-non towards a healthy and productive workforce. For any organisation to survive and be making profit, it needs the full co-operation and determination of the workforce. The workforce must have that collective interest not to fail because they know what they stand to gain should the organisation survives” he said.

Group Managing Director/CEO, First Bank Nigeria plc, Bisi Onasanya, said a happy work place is a huge asset.

“An efficient and cohesive workplace is all about building the morale and productivity of your employees and minimising complaints, disruptions and legal wrangles, so everyone can get on with their work” he said.

Mr. Onasanya, who was represented by Tunde Daodu, Head of Industrial Relations, First bank Nigeria Plc said induction, appraisal, promotion, staff development and training, positive work environment and grievance procedures to help you build and maintain a workplace free from discrimination and harassment is important.

In Nigeria, ties that bind employees to a company seem to have since been lost.

Companies have continued to lose their very good employees to their competitors, sometimes, even after training and retraining them. Some employees, on the other hand, do not leave physically but are not productive due to challenges they face in the organisation.

Experts say HR managers should step up on their responsibility to helping employers derive the value for their money and other investment on employees, while also making employees satisfied at work.