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Adebija says labour market needs major intervention

By on February 2, 2013

Trainer and Chief Executive Officer of Ashton & Layton Nigeria, Gbenga X-adebija, has lamented the dilapidated labour market, which he said results from declining educational standard in the country.

He described the market as one that requires major intervention from all stakeholders.

X-adebija, who spoke with Saturday Independent in his office in Lagos, said the standards of education in Nigeria gave birth to ramshackle workforce and that the only means of getting out of the woods is by training and retraining.

Said he: “The truth is that the standards of education have declined terribly; we have graduates who cannot write, think and do simple things. Those are the kind of people who come into the labour market that corporate Nigerians would have to draw resources from and by the time you hire them you will find that major intervention is needed in terms of training.”

X-adebija whose organisation offers training to both corporate organisations and government, as well as engages in the business of capacity development for its clients, said: “We are into management training; we are engaged in the business of capacity development for our clients. We also train for state governments. We’ve also done international training, taking clients abroad for training. We also go abroad to train clients.”

He explained that targets for these training are not the same, as for instance, training government officials requires different methodology while corporate bodies may demand a different approach.

The former communication/corporate affairs manager of Cadbury Nigeria, said the feedback on the trainings his company has had over the years has been very positive and encouraging.

He said another discovery during the course of the training programmes is the burning desire among civil servants to be trained.  His words: “For our own trainings it has been very excellent; in fact, the level of enthusiasm we get is really encouraging because apart from the financial benefits and the rewards, a major aspect that you look out for is feedback from your clients. We get very enthusiastic and vibrant responses from our clients.”

Apart from impacting the bottomline of these organisations through efficient workforce as a result of quality training, X-adebija disclosed that his organisation is fortified with wonderful faculty of facilitators.

X-adebija is an alumnus of the University of Ilorin, University of London and the Lagos Business School. During his career at Cadbury Schweppes, he led many strategic initiatives in corporate social responsibility, human resources, organizational culture, marketing, corporate communication, supply chain, corporate strategy, procurement, change management, administration and new business development for Europe, Middle East and Africa operations of the company.

In 2003, he won the company’s Award for Excellence. He has had extensive business education in the U,K., U.S.A., France, Holland, United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Poland, South Korea, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Ghana and Nigeria.

 

[Daily Independent]