‘Great people make a great company’

The Concept group CEO, Chukwuma Ochonogor, in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay’s Edozie Ifebi, talks about the importance of the company’s human resource system, and the importance of acquiring the best talent in a fast-changing business environment. Excerpt:

Can you give a brief description of what your HR platform is?

Our HR portal was born from a realisation that only great people can build a great organisation. We at the Concept Group are looking to build such an organisation. We have evolved to the point where our talent wholly encompasses the company vision. In fact, the Concept Group is its talent. We aim to build a long-term relationship with our talent and we are cognizant of the fact that a team is only as strong as its weakest link. Therefore, our recruitment process is of utmost importance. Here in this organisation, we know what we expect from each employee in-line with their roles and functions.

Through our evolution, we have come to appreciate what makes a true Concept Group staff, and we adhere 120 percent to that. In terms of performance, it is not only about academic intelligence. Some of the most important skills include: problem solving and creative intelligence. Added to that is attitude, going the extra mile, team-work, humility and emotional intelligence. Thus, the career portal was built to effectively target and capture these traits that we seek.

Is there any process that tries to bring these qualities into coherent system from which it can be administered to people?

Our HR Portal and Testing structure helps us to streamline and optimally capture the best combination of these qualities that we seek. This streamlined process was implemented because we seek a very selective range of people.

Excellent people only like to work with other excellent people. If great people work with mediocre people, they tend to be driven away by the mediocrity of the mediocre people. This platform is to enable those that have what it takes to know the standards by which they operate in, and come into an environment where they will get to work with other excellent people.

How has this been able to affect what you do at the Concept Group? Has this translated to considerable improvement in output?

There has been a lot of improvement. Many organisations tend to focus on tangible outputs such as sales. If something is not tangible in monetary value, its importance is not fully appreciated.

However, life has always been about progress. Glass cups of today didn’t start off the way they now are. They started off as hollowed-out stones, until someone thought: why don’t we use clay? Someone else then thought: why don’t we use plastic. Someone else also thought: why don’t we use glass?

These are intangibles. These are innovations. This is progress. In this day and age, where the world is a much smaller place because of the internet and the transfer of information, “the rate of change and dynamism has become such that there must always be continuous innovation”. If you focus on what you are doing now, for example – sales, at that point you may not know it, but there might be unnoticed competition looking to take you out of the game.

There must always be that culture of innovation, and how better to get things done, and that is what we see to provide here.

How has Concept Group been able to distinguish itself from other indigenous companies over the years?

The Group has evolved. We have always held our cultures and values very dear to us. The most important is continuous improvement. We are not satisfied with where we are and what we do today. After briefly celebrating our wins, we are always looking at the next step, and that is because we are very ambitious and almost insatiable. We believe very strongly that with the right thinking, the right application, nothing is unachievable.

A lot of companies outsource their HR function. Since it is a vital part of your organisation, it is a process that you want to have a tight grasp over. You might not trust an outsourced party to do a job as good as you would like.

Indeed. As an analogy, would you allow your parents or siblings to choose your spouse? A lot of people see HR as merely recruitment, but for us HR is the most important department in an organisation. The people who reside in HR are the most important people in the organisation. Here at Concept Group, we believe our HR department is not only the driver of our culture but also the driver of continuous learning and development, team building and bonding; and a continuous robust performance management with matching reward initiative amongst other things.

Where do you see this company in 10 years’ time?

No one can tell for certain. The rate of change and dynamism is so great now, that there is a little window for ‘sink or swim.’’ For instance, it was not too long ago that Sony Ericsson and Nokia were the top of the food chain in the mobile phone market. They blinked, and Blackberry swept them away. Apple and Samsung are the leaders now. As we speak, Apple is making good products, but they have the Chinese firms breathing hard down their neck.

All this has happened just within eight and nine 9 years. If you don’t have every part of your organisation with great people, culture, innovation, openness for new ideas and dynamism, now more than at any point in history, you will pay very dearly for it.