REAL economic development in Nigeria may continue to be a mirage unless the country focuses on policies capable of developing human capital.
Investment in human capital development remains the fastest way of achieving increased productivity within the private and public sector of the economy.
Unfortunately, human capital had suffered a lot in Nigeria due to policy misplacement, policy negligence but particularly policy implementation.
Capacity building is rated low in Nigeria. The approach to building capacity is not systematic, instead, it is done on Adhoc basis.
Although human capital development and capacity building is an expensive venture it remains the most reliable way for ensuring high economic yield in any business environment.
Specifically, a country to advance and become more sophisticated, its greatest strength is the “people”.
Expectedly, the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM) has been in the forefront of regulating practice of Human Resource Management through formulation of the right policy with the government in the area of human capital development and creating value through productivity.
To the institute, there is need for people to acquire the requisite skill in the industry so that effective management can take place in the organisation.
Speaking at the 42nd yearly general meeting of the institute held in Lagos recently, the President, Mr Abiola Poopola, stated that unless government pays attention to training and development of employees in federal ministries and parastatals, it would continue to lose valuable amount of revenue to poorly trained personnel.
Specifically, Popoola explained that human capacity development ensures effective adaptation of staff irrespective of the professional background.
Popoola, who was recently re-elected to pilot the affairs of the institute in the next one year said the institute is poised to develop and maintain high standard of professional competence as well as ensure that the management of human resources in Nigeria both in public and private sector conforms with international best practice.
He expressed worry on the state of the country’s economic reserve, which he said has depleted from $46.5billion recorded as at December 2009 to $36.68 billion in 2010.
Popoola attributed economic decline to poor managerial skill on the part of leaders.
He noted that the inability to instill discipline in budgeting matters has remained the bane of Nigerian Economic development.
The CIPM President added that the Institute would not relent in its efforts of reshaping HR practice in Nigeria.
“We have tried to shape it in point of view of enhancing the skills of our members. Don’t forget our members are everywhere and they are the one in charge of HR management in the organisations. “The way our institute goes about it, we are not actually going to preaching in public place, but after acquiring quality skills and professional ethics from the institute, as our members go in their various organisation, they will begin to do management of HR in a more professional way.
“So we have been impactful in raising the standard of practice of HR in Nigeria for example we have training programmes, we have the special HR forum, we have a public advocacy forum where we educate practitioners and leaders about how to effectively manage human resource and in that way we are adding value to the organisation.”
On how his leadership has impacted on the status of the institute, Popoola explained that the council had put strategies in place to move the institute forward.
He said one of the strategies was to enhance the institute’s personality in such a way that it becomes more attractive to the people.
“So one thing we have done this one year is to raise our visibility in the market place. We have raise quality of our programmes, we have raise the quality of interaction with our members.
“When we conduct training, we have raised the intellectual level of the content of our programmes and you can see from the response of our members that they are very please that the quality of services that we are getting from our members is going better,” Popoola said.
He noted that the whole idea of the institute’s rebranding effort was to be able to deliver on its mandate adding that the institute exists to raise the standard of HR practice so that they would in turn add value to the organisation.
Popoola added that due to the importance of the institute to national development,