Vivian Onyebukwa
Afoma Uchendu is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of The Sycamore Business Support. She is a Public Administration though she spent most of her working career serving as a Secretary and an Office Administrator.
Uchendu equally has an experience as a Project Administrator. Presently, is involved in training and focused on helping small businesses with organisational structuring and operational efficiency.
Why did you go into this profession?
I wanted to help individual and small businesses to become better through human resource services and organizational structuring. The foundation of my profession, It is innate, then my late father also helped me with the path (commercial study) I have followed. I got my career formation through the mentorship of my boss and empowered me.
Recently you organized a skills enhancement and career counseling program for fresh graduates. What was the reason behind the programme?
We discovered recently that the unemployment situation is so bad that graduates stay at home for as long as four to five years after graduation from the University before being gainfully employed. From here, I began to think of how best to help them and how I can contribute to reducing unemployment. I know that helping them will help to curb crime and other vices
Then we came up with the idea of Workplace Readiness Workshop (WRW),
So, what is it all about?
It is a skill enhancement workshop series (Modules 1- 6) that equips fresh graduates with skills to help them address employability challenges, get prepared for the labour market, succeed in the workplace, increase their chances to build successful careers, and ultimately be of value to their employers.
The Program was informed from our years of interaction with Nigerian fresh graduates and the employers of labour. There is an apparent skill gap on the part of fresh graduates that makes them unprepared for the demands of the workplace and the expectations of employers of labour, with most entry level graduates performing below average on their jobs. The skill gap among Nigerian graduates has its inherent negative socio-economic effect. It has reached an alarming rate that requires urgent action by all stakeholders.
The main challenge is that a lot of youths, although, are with degrees, do not have the skills to even pass the job application process. And so most of them do not even get called for interviews. Those who get called up at all lack the basic skills to successfully pass through the interview stage. When some get the jobs, they perform poorly. They either get frustrated and leave, or are shown the way out. It is a pathetic situation for our graduates whose potentials keep wasting because of knowledge gap.
How do you think you can get this message across to the youths over the country?
We are already passing the message across to our audience. The employers, human resource practitioners, people in leadership positions, everyone keep talking about how our graduates are unemployable. Some do the talk, while some match action with their talk.
The action required to help can be as little as advising a graduate on the right thing to do.
We will pass the message to the youths across Nigeria through the constant hosting of the Workplace Readiness Workshop. The skills we impact and the values we add to the lives of the participants are immense. Another way of passing the message across quickly is through the testimonials of those whose lives and careers have been impacted.
What is your reach?
Although, the initiative is starting off in Lagos, we have plans to reach out to other geo-political zones. All theses are dependent on how much our resources can carry, or how much support and partnership we are able to attract because the workshop is hosted free of charge to participants.
It is not a journey we want to embark on solely, otherwise, we will just scratch the surface for years to come.
What are your challenges in achieving this goal?
It is a new initiative. When something is new, it requires a lot of efforts to ‘sell’ the message even to those who it is meant to benefit or to the stakeholders within its ecosystem. We know that everything new requires time and continuous efforts to succeed. However, we are encouraged by the acceptability and response we have received from those we have been able to reach. At the first edition, we were encouraged by the on-point presentation of our speakers. The smiles on the faces of those who attended, the hope that was ignited and the feedback was enough fulfillment
We believe that the initial challenge of working very hard to reach the right people, to get the stakeholders to listen to us will be overcome with time.
Why do you think there is unemployment among Nigerian graduates?
Unemployment among Nigerian graduates does not start when they leave University. My view is that we take our children through unemployment or employment situation right from their childhood or adolescent years by the choices we make or don’t make or actions that we take or don’t take.
First is parental choice. In this part of our world, a lot of attention is not given to child’s potentials and possible capacity and talents in their formative years. We sometimes ignore a lot of signs that our children give with regards to the things that they can do and naturally succeed in. In this regard, most parents do not consider their children’s personality traits in guiding them through courses of study in the University.
Rather, most parents are interested in their children’s studying what I call ‘the popular four’: Law, Medicine, Accounting and Engineering. Meanwhile, there are so many other routes to employment and success in life.
Do you think that this is good for the demands of the labour market?
The fact is that when a child is not good with numbers or does not have numerical skills, and you force such a child to study Accounting, what do you expect when he or she graduates? Being a lawyer requires a lot of constant reading and researching to stay up to date, and to be able to perform professional duties. You see a child who does not have patient with reading, and force him or her to study law, what would you expect after graduation?
Meanwhile, some of them could have done better in other disciplines. Therefore, when young adults are compelled either by their parents or the university admission system, to study courses that their personalities or academic background, does not equip them for, getting jobs becomes very challenging after graduation.
Next is the curriculum that we currently operate in our schools. The world is changing, but the curriculum in our schools has been the same for several decades. Students are not taught in a way that they could fit in, or relate easily to the real world, or be able to stand on their own when they graduate. They are not prepared for the demands of the labour market in today’s modern world. When they leave school and start work, the employers are unhappy with what they have to offer, and even the graduates themselves are so shocked with the reality facing them.
Some parents send their children abroad or to private schools as a way to solve this problem, but what percentage are able to afford that? Eventually, this comes back to hunt our system. The quality of graduates we churn out, the impact of poor quality manpower on businesses and government, the unemployment situation it creates, and the adverse impact of youth unemployment on the society as a whole.
Challenges
Another is the private sector challenges in Nigeria. Private sector drives business in countries across the world. But here we have a lot of private sector businesses that are just existing, not even surviving. When that happens, employment opportunities will definitely be limited.
Of course, our youth have a role to play. Most do not put in their best while in school. But again, I link it to our educational system, and our value system as a society. What examples are we showing these younger ones? What type of success do we celebrate most as a people? Remember the music industry. When these youths started seeing a lot of their contemporaries doing well in music and becoming celebrities, a lot them began to look inwards and come up with their own songs. So whatever we celebrate is what our youths will navigate towards. If we celebrate academic excellence, they will move in that direction. If we celebrate a carpenter, who makes furniture and it looks imported, we will see what will happen. If we celebrate a man or woman, making shoes in Nigeria and exporting them, they will work hard enough to emulate such success. As a result, our youths will get to know that there are many routes to employment, and there is no reason to be idle after graduation. But it has to be modeled by our values as a society. This is what we are helping to do with Workplace Readiness Workshop.
What is the rate of social vices in the society and do you think that parents have failed in their duties?
I will not really say parents have failed in their duties. I will say, we have failed as a community and as a society. As a community, we no longer see each other as one, rather there is so much competition and lack of care and concern for the next person. Even in our remote villages where most of our life’s journey largely starts, things have changed. The days when one person’s child is everybody’s child is gone. Those days, when an adult can discipline another child and not get angry reaction from his/her parents, but a thank you, is now history. So now everyone looks away, but sadly parents are never there 100% of the time with the child.
One of the problems experienced by job seekers especially women is sexual harassment. How do you react to this ugly situation?
The world is ugly everywhere, it all depends on the scale and if there is a system of checks and balances. Some societies have such a system while some like the developing countries lack adequate checks and balances necessary to reduce injustice and horrible acts against humans. It is as bad in this society as it is in the other.
So I see it as part of the problem of the world. For me this is as bad as the things some do in their areas of influence that leads to loss of lives, that makes families unable to feed their children, makes some children unable to go to school or enjoy good facilities in schools, makes some unable to afford medical bills, or makes some travel on a bad road and lose their lives.
I would rather say, if there is anything someone is doing that hurts the life of another, think of how you can stop it and make life worth living for the next person and the next generation.
Unemployment is real, it is reaching an alarming rate, and it is important we take actions before it causes more explosions.
What is your advice to unemployed youths in the country?
To the unemployed youths, I would say, employers are looking for skills. No employer sets up a business for charity or for play. Even a charity organisation would need people with skills to succeed in their humanitarian activities.
Therefore, get the skills that will make employers to look for you. There are many routes to employment. Open your eyes and widen your horizon. Check the trends that are leading to gainful employment, such as small businesses and technology and position yourself by gaining the skills they need in those areas. It could be tough and challenging at times.. Learn through the process, keep pushing, for your day will come.