An Ed-tech startup, Ujali that assists organisations to bridge skills gap among their workforce through connection to world-class experts for training in different fields is expanding its foothold in Nigeria. The founder of the young organisation, Nigerian- born Onyinye Igbokwe told BusinessDay in Lagos recently that the mission of Ujali is to solve organisation’s human capital challenges hindering effective performance by proffering appropriate facilitators world-wide to address those challenges. Onyinye who is a Stanford trained project management professional with rich experience in engineering, project and operations management, said Ujali was basically established to help African companies and the public sector close their soft skill gap for the continent’s growth. Excerpts
Could you tell us more about Ujali, and what the firm does?
Ujali is a UK company I started last year, we have moved our primary target market to Nigeria to solve the soft skill gap prevalent in African companies. The idea is basically to recruit some of the best facilitators in UK and other parts of Europe and allow them to come to Nigeria to teach our workforce in various fields to be effective and perform optimally in the workplace.
In Nigeria it is difficult to hire people because of skill gaps. Some of the graduates lack the necessary skills to compete globally. Africa has a prevalent skill gap challenge. Though many people in the continent went to school, but how does that translate into productivity? In UK, for instance, what they look out for is skill an individual possesses for a particular job and not necessarily the degrees. Another issue in Nigeria is the soft skill problem which includes leadership, business development, and personal development. These are the things needed in an organisation for a team to perform better. Based on this we established UjaliPro, a platform that helps organisations to recruit the best experts world-wide for training needs of their workforce.
We are committed to closing soft skill gaps and not learning or educational gaps in Nigeria. The workforce needs to be involved in proper training to close the skill gap for work efficiency.
Are you focused on any particular sector or is it general skill gaps solution in various companies?
It is general skill gaps solution in various companies including public sector. I have worked in Nigeria and UK but the quality of work being turned out in UK is very different and this is informed by skills the workforce possesses. Even when Nigerians are very educated, there is often the issue of soft skill proficiency. We are therefore assisting to bridge this skill gap to improve productivity in Africa. Our platform, UjaliPro, is where companies can log in to book their workforce into specific trainings that are being provided by our training vendors abroad. The organisations can also book these top-shelf international trainers directly to Nigeria and save cost. The booking depends on the companies’ human capital needs and the problem they want to solve for efficient performance.
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What do you think are the causes of skills gap in African graduates and the workforce against their counterpart in Europe?
In African schools, we are more theoretical than practical. In Africa it is 99% theoretical while it is the other way round in foreign countries; they are taught the practical and get the theoretical aspect to back it up.
Does Ujali identify the skills gap in an organisation through research or the organisation tells you what their needs are?
We allow the organisation to identify their skill gap and tell us what their training need is. Our duty is to find quality facilitators and consultants who will fill that need properly.
What is the cost of skill gap challenge to an organisation?
The cost is fatal and it is detrimental. The organisation will perform less optimally and eventually dies. If you have a workforce that has a deepened issue with skills, it cuts down the productivity. The wider the gap the more unproductive the workforce is. If an organisation is not in tune with their needs, the competitors would take over the market. The quality of service a manager can get from their workforce depends on who is training them and who understands their lapses and knows how to fill them.
Many organisations are considering cost in their operation, so how cheap is Ujali and its facilitators?
What we are doing is cutting cost and making them productive. The logistics of training about 100 staff abroad is humongous but Ujali could bring the quality facilitators to your organisation. What this means is that the organisation is cutting cost to the barest minimum but the same quality of training.
What stands Ujali out from local training organisations?
What stands us out is that we are not a training organisation, instead we provide a platform for organisations to access quality facilitators in different business areas from Europe and any-where in the world. Companies already have access to some trainers in Nigeria but what Ujali has done is to broaden the accessibility to more trainers world-wide so that the organisation can make informed choices on their needs. We have trainers in business development, personal development and financial management currently.
In line with your value proposition to help Africa close the skill gap, one sector that needs training is public sector. Are you focused in that direction to provide facilitators to engage them in their skills gap?
In our target plan, we have 40 percent SMEs; 40 percent for government institutions and 20 percent for large scale organisations. This is because the government institutions are the ones that need training the most, yet they are the highest procurers of training in Nigeria. But of what quality are those trainings and what is the impact?. If they are spending much money to engage in training, my advice is that they should do it well to get value and have a better workforce.
Do your facilitators have metrics for measurement of the impact of their training on organisations?
Each facilitator has their own metrics for impact measurement because they engage in follow up services. But each organisation should also measure from the staff performance before and after training to ascertain the effectiveness.
What challenges do you face in providing platform for organisations to book for facilitators?
Organisations who are offering training here tend to look at us as competition, which we are not. Since I started, I have reached out to a number of training providers here to expand their training by using our facilitators. Our aim is to procure quality trainings, so if the quality trainer is in Nigeria, Ujali can have them on-boarded on the platform.
