Workers stay home on naira scarcity, election concerns

Some employers have asked their employees to work from home in a bid to ensure their safety amid the uncertainties around the forthcoming elections and the scarcity of naira notes.

Elijah Simon, an employee in a top pharmaceutical firm, told BusinessDay that they were asked to work from home till the first week of March owing to the elections.

“Our organisation wants to protect us from any violence in the upcoming elections,” he said.

Another worker in Lagos said her consultancy firm in Ikeja sent letters to them last Friday to work from home till March 6.

Africa’s most populous nation is being roiled by internal crises. Households and businesses are being whipsawed by a chronic shortage of cash occasioned by the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

On Saturday, voters will pick a new president to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari, who cannot run after serving the two terms allowed by the constitution. Members of the Senate and House of Representatives will also be elected.

According to some human resource managers, the remote work arrangement, which was amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the ‘japa’ wave (a Yoruba word for “run quickly”), shows that employers are now prioritising the safety of staff compared to the potential money that could be lost.

Read also: Naira scarcity frustrates Nigerians

“With the uncertainty surrounding the elections and the cash scarcity, it’s best to put your staff in a safe situation like remote work,” Abidemi Ajai, HR group head at Coralstone Capital, said.

He said employers have seen the efficacy of remote work. “So right now, it’s about the people and not the business.”

Olamide Adeyeye, head of research at Jobberman Nigeria, said safety as well as understanding the current social economic realities makes remote work a necessity.

“Employers are trying to be responsive and observant to the needs of their staff by understanding the difficulty in getting cash to transport themselves to work,” he said.

Remote work is a working style that allows professionals to work outside of a traditional office environment. It is not a new concept as there had been some clamour for flexible work but the pandemic forced a lot of companies, both locally and internationally, to embrace it.

However, in 2021, some companies swiftly turned back to adopt the traditional 9-5 work schedule, while others still maintain remote work.

Ogugua Belonwu, founder and chief executive officer at MyJobMag, said employers are becoming more comfortable telling their staff to work from home.

“They have considered the odds and would rather want them to work from home since they can still deliver and play safe at the same time,” he said.

A recent article by Brookings Institute, an American research group, said companies have the legal ability to use keylogger software on business computers, deploy video surveillance cameras, monitor worker attentiveness and track physical movements through geolocation software.

Others include compiling lists of visited websites and applications, monitoring emails, social media posts, and collaboration tools, as well as compiling productivity data on how workers are spending their time and how long it takes them to finish particular tasks.

Some of the advantages of remote work for employees are that it helps in avoiding extra expenses, reduces physical stress, and creates more flexibility.

For employers, it improves productivity, broader spectrum of recruitment, higher staff retention and reduced costs.

The concept of remote work is now a value proposition in organisations, Adeyeye said. “Getting the best from staff and their engagements require flexible work structures and this is the time to do that.”

A 2021 MyJobMag survey revealed that employers are getting more interested in candidates that can work remotely.

“We have also seen an increase in the number of remote job vacancies posted from the period of the pandemic outbreak to date,” it said.

Jennifer Oyelade, director at Transquisite Consulting, said remote work is the way forward.

“Sometimes people seem to be more effective in their work space rather than in the office. So, having that balance between work from home and in the office will still keep the productivity high in an organisation,” she said.