Ikeja Electric recruited and employed 603 staff and promote 74

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 Ofuluealso pointed
out that 74others were promoted across
different functions of the businessas 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.
Ofuluerevealed 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
employeesinappropriately.
“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
careerprogression of its employees,herevealed
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.
In2015, 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.
Ofuluecalled 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.