Nigeria’s largest electricity distribution company, Ikeja Electric (IE), has employed 603 staff between January 2015 and February 2016, in keeping with its commitment to drive service excellence through robust human capital profiling and development
The company’s Head of Corporate Communications, Mr. Felix Ofulue also pointed out that 74 others were promoted across different functions of the business as part of the company’s drive to ensure that it has a pool of competent and capable resources to manage modern trends in efficient power distribution and seamless service delivery.
According to him, there was an ongoing recruitment of young engineering graduates to enhance sustainability of the business, whilst creating a platform for grooming future leaders of the sector.
He said: “The promotions and additions are part of the company’s drive to ensure that it has a pool of competent and capable resources to manage the legacy challenges the company is currently facing and also to position it as the provider of choice wherever energy is consumed. At Ikeja Electric, we place a high premium on human capital development as a vital component of driving its commitment to providing the best possible service to customers within its network.
Ofulue revealed that 229 employees of the company were affected in the disengagement exercise after they failed to meet the required parameters for the company’s performance assessments and were deemed to be performing below mandatory performance objectives. He reiterated that the exercise was part of the strategic steps aimed at repositioning and it was focused on aligning the company’s structure with its operating model and optimizing human capital capacity for better efficiency.
This figure clarifies recent reports in which the Nigerian Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) and Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Matters (SSAEAM) had alleged the company disengaged 400 employees inappropriately.
“We will like to state that the number of employees that were disengaged was 229 and not 400 as earlier reported. In accordance with best practice, employees in the organization went through a thorough, transparent and objective performance assessment exercise and those that were deemed to be performing below the required performance objectives were exited from the organization. This is also to ensure that Ikeja Electric maintains an assemblage of the right staff in the right roles that are equipped to perform optimally’, he said.
He noted that Ikeja Electric will continue to implement robust human capital optimization policies that are geared towards promoting efficiency and service excellence”.
As part of the company plans for career progression of its employees, he revealed that specific and generic learning and development programmes, which hitherto were unavailable prior to the company’s privatization in 2013 are ongoing and mandatory for all categories of employees.
In 2015, over 245 unique learning and development interventions were conducted with over 2000 staff benefitting from the training programmes. A job regrading exercise was also conducted to flatten the previous 17 career levels to only 9 career levels thus allowing for accelerated growth.
Ofulue called on the industry stakeholders to lend their support to the organization as part of their contribution towards the company’s commitment and desire to tackle the challenges in the sector. “As a responsible company, we remain unflinching in our resolve to “light up” lives, homes and businesses of all our customers. We also acknowledge and appreciate the feedback of our esteemed customers and remain committed to ensuring equitable, reliable and transparent distribution of power within our network” he said.
It will be recalled that in the last few months, Ikeja Electric has scaled up their metering programme to meet the expectations of its customers and further reduce the agitation against estimated billing.
The Electric distribution company is currently deploying smart meters and implementing a customer enumeration and technical audit project that will culminate in a seamless network that supports transparency in billing and reliability in power distribution.
