During the recently held ‘Workplace Economic Outlook 2023’ event organized by Alan & Grant, the Founder and Chief Analyst of Nairametrics Ugo Obi-Chukwu gave the keynote address focusing on the emerging opportunities in the workplace.
Also in attendance was Seye Komolafe, the Director of Resources at United Capital Plc, who spoke on how employers can manage the current labour market trends.
Key opportunities to watch: Highlighted below are some of the key opportunities in the workplace Nigerians can look into, as identified by Ugo Obi-Chukwu.
According to him, the rapid increase in urbanization will provide more career opportunities. So take advantage of various opportunities even beyond Lagos.
He also noted other interesting insights on different sectors to watch out for this year which include-
- Transportation, Logistics & Supply Chain, Interstate travel, Last mile delivery
- Surveillance systems, Predictive Analytics
- Social media monitoring, consolidating content on social media
- Telecommunications: 5G Network Adoption, Mobile Money, eSim Adoption; Big Data Analytics
- Data, AI Metaverse & Cloud Computing; Data Monetization, Artificial Intelligence, Predictive Analytics
- Vocation & Education: Vocational training centres, Apprenticeships, Continuing Education and Content Development
- FinTech: Digital Lending, Mobile Payments, Mobile Money, Contactless payment
- Agriculture: Crop production
- Renewable energy
- Infrastructure: Road infrastructure, power infrastructure, housing
- More importantly, it now appears necessary for employees to diversify their income
- Lastly, young people should endeavour to track the following indicators to understand the labour market and determine their career prospects: GDP growth rate, Exchange rate, Oil prices, Capital importation
What companies should do: Meanwhile, Seye Komolafe spoke on the need for companies to have apprenticeship internships and micro-internship schemes. He had this to say:
- Employers need to make the workplace more interesting and have an employer value proposition for staff, as the attrition rate now in most organizations is 20%
- To reduce the effect of high attrition rates, companies can maintain an alumni network of employees who have relocated so that the relationship can be maintained. Then these ex-employees can still be engaged perhaps on a part-time basis.
- He also noted that talent share has come to stay and employers should embrace it. Some consulting companies in Nigeria are already involved in it
- Knowledge management is also key. This is because it is important to store employee information, procedures and processes to make it easy to onboard a new employee.
- Companies should focus more on productivity and not on employees marking the attendance register at work because productivity matters more than presence.
