The Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPM), has urged employees in Nigeria to continuously develop their skills by expanding their career path towards building capacity that would impact positively on the organisational growth.
Olusegun Mojeed, President and Chairman of the Governing Council, CIPM, stated this during the recent 2023 Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) E3 conference.
Speaking on ‘Creating the Future: Building the Best People in the Work Environment’, Mojeed charged employees to continuously develop their skills to improve their career paths to success.
According to him, there is now a shift in the HR space from an economy where the employer defines an employee’s career to one in which his skills, experience and ambition are the drivers of success.
He stated that formal job descriptions and hierarchies are fading, just as internal job marketplaces, internal mobility and talent marketplace model, among others are now commonplace.
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Mojeed however said that it is time for employees to focus on the work and not the job to manage, lead and build their careers.
According to him, people who are bold to make the move cross-functionally have been found to do better, and noted that the bar is being raised.
“Rather than spend your energy trying to negotiate your way to the top, spend it trying to expand and improve your skill sets,” Mojeed stated.
Mojeed affirmed that irresistible workplaces have leaders who know how to get the best for and from their people by providing quality organisational leadership structure.
He equally reminded the audience to be weary of quacks as the institute is the apex professional body licensed to manage, develop and regulate the practice of human resource management in the Nigerian workspace.
The CIPM president, therefore charged HR managers to lead by example, empowerment, and inspiration instead of by position or title. According to him, everything rises and falls with leadership, hence the need to mentor young employees with the ‘leader as a coach’ mantra.
“As we provide leadership, we also let them lead. They have laudable and workable ideas. We must understand the network; we must understand how the company makes money, we must have the influence and followership to persuade people to move in a given direction and we must have a deep instinct for people and performance,” Mojeed stated.
