You celebrated a decade in the outsourcing space in Nigeria, how has it been?

It’s been a great learning experience, given that we and indeed outsourcing as management practice were relatively unknown in Nigeria in 2006 when we started. What was common, that still persists sadly to a great extent is contract staffing or casualization. We set out from the start to provide professional Human Resource management services on an outsourced basis and have a lot to show for that vision in the last ten years.

Can you say that outsourcing industry has developed in Nigeria? Are companies embracing the concept of outsourcing?

The Outsourcing Industry is still developing in Nigeria, though it has advanced over the years. I can say without any equivocation that many businesses are embracing outsourcing, more so in recent times because of the prevailing recession. A critical value addition to any businesses that outsource, is cost optimization where a portion of their overhead costs that are typically variable become fixed over the period of the outsourcing mandate.

Can you say that Nigerian Labour and other labour organizations are okay with the concept of outsourcing?

In my view, a lot more education and marriage of minds is required by labour and outsoured service providers because outsourcing as a management practice is completely different from casualisation or contract staffing. Every staff Resource Intermediaries Limited engage and deploy to clients has all labour certified employment benefits, such as a valid letter of employment that is not tenured specific, paid annual leave, pension, tax, medical insurance and life policy cover amongst other things. The unfortunate challenge, though, is the fact that there are many quacks in practice because there is no law or legislation regulating the practice of outsourcing in Nigeria. In fact ,all that is required currently is a Recruiters license from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, when recruitment is just a subset of the professional practice of outsourcing.

Skeptics to outsourcing say that it aids in casualization of the workforce. What do you have to say about this?

Ans: While I have addressed this misconception in my previous comments, the general state of the economy which throws up several prospective applicants relative to available jobs encourages most employers, wrongly in my personal view to offer relatively low salaries and wages. The supply far outweighs the demand. This is usually a businesses decision by employers, even as I personally abhor the moral implication. Most outsourced jobs are also really what a first school leaving certificate holder can do, but graduates apply, this is due to the general state of the economy and related unemployment levels.

As the Nigerian economic space is evolving from what it was some decades ago to an ICT-driven economy. Is there any skill set you have in your pool that can man these highly technical places or do companies continue sourcing/searching for expatriates in these areas with attendant consequences like capital flight?

This continues to be a major challenge, as our educational system combined with declining societal values continue to throw up half baked graduates with very poor social and work skills. Thankfully, this gap is now being filled by several private institutions and capacity building firms for the few individuals who seek self development to take advantage of the emerging new workforce needs.

Soji Oyawoye said”if anyone had told him the company he started with just two other staff members would grow into a global brand, serving clients all over Nigeria as well as in Ghana, he would have said no way, but 10 years down the line, RIL is now 4,000 staff strong.”

Is Ghana the only place that you have footprint apart from Nigeria?

Yes, we are only in Acrra, Ghana for now rendering the same services to the Ghanaian market. Further regional expansion is not in our immediate plans.

Human capacity skills, some employers have made it clear that our graduates aren’t that globally competitive. As a stakeholder in this space, how true is this notion?

Yes I agree, though , I would not make such general statements as many Nigerian graduates have gone on to excel overseas. I must say here though that I am an advocate for building talent rather than buying same. What I mean by this is that, employers should be prepared to invest in developing their employees to their required standards rather than just looking for already made staff to head hunt. It actually pays better in the long run for the entrepreneur and could build staff commitment from value added to them by the organization over the years.


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