Safeguarding The Health Of The Organization For More Productive Employees- With T.
Safeguarding The Health Of The Organization For More Productive Employees- With
Well,it’s a quote, it’s better to be approximately right than to be precisely wrong. Somebody said that and my senses is when you don’t approach problems holistically; we often fall short in the solution implementation stage and that has been our being as a country and as organizations.Tominiyi Oni
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In this episode of Spark Podcast, Olukunle A. Iyanda, PhD., the CEO of BROOT consulting speaks with MrTominiyi Oni. Group Human Resource Director at Tropical General Investment(TGI) Group Nigeria. He has over 28 years of experience inHuman Resources. Tominiyi has worked with over 10 organizations, holding leadership positions in various aspects of human resources.
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Olukunle A. Iyanda: Good afternoon everyone, or if it is morning or evening, wherever you are, joining me today is Mr. Tomi Oni who happened to be the Group Human Resource Director for TGI, Mr. Tomi Oni, welcome.
Tominiyi Oni:Thank you,sir.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: Today, we are going to be looking at what I call a “Healthy Workforce Productive Nation”. There is no doubt that we have our own challenges as a nation but also, a productive nation is a healthy nation. However, for us to start, you know, you happen to be a Human Resource Directorin one of the largest conglomerates in Nigeria. I want you to share with us what you think to be the current challenges that confront Nigerian workers generally.
Tominiyi Oni: Thank you, Sir. To start with, thank you for having me on this program. It’s a big pleasure to be here, especially based on my own circumstances and the fact that around September this year, I actually thought that I was going to come back in a body bag from the UK, so, just being alive, I’m very grateful and being on this program and I think it’s one of those good things that we need to share knowledge and share our insights with people. So thank you for having me, sir.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: You’re welcome
Tominiyi Oni: Talking about challenges facing Nigerian workers in today’s Nigeria, I willdefinitely want to start by saying that Nigerians work in both the public and private sectors of the Nigerian economy, there are differences in those sectors.Also, they work for big corporations and also for small and medium scale industries, also works inone man businesses. So some of the challenges they face may differ depending on, you know, where they work. However, generally speaking, the following for me, will be some of the challenges that I think are germane to an average employee in Nigeria. First, is doing meaningful work, does the work that I get to do, does it really align along with my purpose? Am I doing something that is meaningful to my body so as for my spirit? And I know that this is not a challenge that many people see, because I think the focus is always on the money. Second, for me would be the value of the currency of the average Nigerian worker and I will use this asan example that I was using with some of my friends. I said when I was with Shell between 2006 to 2010, my salary was a certain amount. When I convert that salary to pounce sterling or dollar, at that time, it use to give me around 6000 pounce because that was a time I worked for shell in London for one year on an internationalproject.Now, from 2010 to 2022,its 12years gone andmy salary in Nigerian currency in naira must have been increasedlike three times or thereabout about, not double orlet’s say liketripled but today when I convert that same salary that that has tripled into pounce, youknow, it gives me almost the same amount that I would have gotten in 2010. So, in naira terms, my salary has increased; inreal money, my salary has stagnated and for many people, my salary hasreduced. One of the challenges for me, facing the Nigerian worker, whether I’m a shop floor cleaner or the Director, is the value of the currency withwhich I get my pay.
Of course, that leads us to inflation or it could be the other way round but certainly inflation is one of the challenges that we face as Nigerian workers. Also, I think there is still this challenge of casualization,so in many industries, we still have casual workers. So for example, in our organization, we have been trying our best to ensure that we convert whoever is on casual to contract and to permanent employees but of course, based on performance. We also have the general challenge, so when we talk about challenges faced by Nigerian workers, we cannot really differentiate or take out that challenge from the challenges facing Nigeria as a whole. Soinsecurity is one of the challenges facing government Nigeria Worker. I mean how to get from home to work, how to get from work back home. You may say that’s not a challenge, but I’m sure that many people even in Lagos, as cosmopolitan as it is, as modern as is, we’ve heard of workers going missing while they were returning from their offices. We’ve heard about people who have spent four hours in traffic and wasting the whole day getting to work and then you just tired, there’s nothing they can do. We’ve also heard about people who are attacked while in traffic and the trauma stays with them for long. And of course, we also have a challenge of health care. So you know, in many organizations, especially maybe some of those small and medium scale industries, but also some one manbusinesses and maybe some big organizations, there are not deductions made from workers salary, either for training or for their health or for their pension or insurance and in some instances, those deductions are not remitted to the regulatory bodies,organizations in charge of those. And those guys become really exposed when they retire when they lose their jobs. I can tell you for certain that’s out of the 28 years that I’ve worked, in my working life, there’s this odd four years or five years in that 28 years where either NSTIF or National Housing Funds or whatever could not trace my deduction paid by myemployer. So that’s a shortage for me and I don’t have the time to go to court, to go and start dragging and say, hey, where is this money that you deducted from my salary so you can then imagine how? How much more you know and other employees face this kind of issues, and of coursefor me, it will also be the challenge of getting out of the rat race. Many authors have said that all employees are in the rat race and 95% of people in the world will work for money till they die. Only 5% of people would have money working for them. The first time, I read a book that told that lend this knowledge was in 2009 when I was coming back from my international assignment from the UK and I read it from the plane. I was thinking thatcoming back from international assignment, I had enough money saved. I was paid both innaira but also in pounds that so I should be part of that 5% that will have money working for them, and lo and behold on the next page of that book,the author said. “Do this experiment and find out where you belong”. Check how much you have in yoursaving account right now and pretend as if you have no job. Do all your calculations on your expenditures, your expenses, whatever debts, and see how long that money will last you”, yeah, I did a back of envelope calculation while sitting in that business class on that plane. I’m at realized that the only all the money I thought I had, would only last me for about seven or eight months, I goso annoyed with myself.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: That’s interesting and I need to thank you for how you have highlighted some of these problems that confront some of this Nigerian workers and I want to link them to how it has affected the state of health because you talked about his security, you know, for instance, I know organizations that are able to afford MOPOL you know, to guide their senior executives to their working places. But you know that that is only for the top exec. So you have the issue of fear because of kidnapping. It doesn’t matter where you work in this country, you have that. And alsois issue of currency, you know devaluation or inflation you know that you talk about. You are lucky to be one of those who have their salary raised maybe every year or every now and then.
There are people that the salary they have been collecting in the lastfew years, is still what they are collecting. There is no increase in the salary, you know, and all of that.Now, from your own experience,if you look at how you trace it from 2010 or 2006 thereabout, you know they’re about and now and we talked about what organizational spend in taking care of the their employee. Uh, their employees health. What has been your experience? And I’m tempted to even link the current situation with corruptions in our society. You know, because if your salary has been increased so much and yet what you are earning now 12 years or 14 years after, it’s like what you earn in 14 years ago, then something is wrong with the system. So what is your perspective in this in this regard?
Tominiyi Oni: So first, I need to disclose that I have worked in 9 organizations in 28 years. So it’s not really that maybe I stayed in one place and then it was increased so you can call me unstable on one side. But I can quickly debunk that by saying that I’ve been married to my wife for 23 years.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: That’s very good, congratulations.
Everything will start and end with leadership
Tominiyi Oni: Thank you, sir. So I’m also stable on that side. It’s a mix of, you know why you need to move all of that, and sometimes I think once in my career I moved. I moved for money. Of course. Fortunately, when I go to that organization, I got enough challenges that made me improve. Now, with when we talked about, you know problem of corruption, challenges of health care in our nation, and how that affects our employees or workers,I would like to say that, I’m not pointing fingers at any at anybody but to say that whether we like it or not, Everything will start and end with leadership. And so depending on which leadership we have as a nation, because part of the issue when it comes to healthcare or corruption is how much or what percentage of our budget, you know is dedicated to healthcare, for example,or is dedicated toimproving the processes that we have in governance. If you don’t dedicate enough, definitely will not get enough out of it, but there’s no two ways about it. There’s no magic to this. When we look at the countries where healthcare you know worked, we realized that the government believe that health, health of citizens and residents is priority to them.So whatever is priority to the government, they will, you know, ensure that they allocate resources to fund, you know, that item. So I feel we still go back to listen, when you go back to maybe capitalizations. We have MOPOL for senior executives, this is the same country where policemen have kidnapped themselves and vigilantes are the ones who go to rescue them. So really, we can do all of that but we have seen situations in Nigeria in Lagos and Abuja where people were kidnapped right from the comfort of their homes.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: So what would you advise for leadership, what kind of leadership do you think we need currently? Either the state local federal government level, or in organizations you know, you have said. What will you call that kind of leadership?
So I would rather we have a government that prioritizes and focuses on three to five items to get right, rather than twenty five things or fifty things to do.
Tominiyi Oni: Uh, I try not to use the words strategic leadership because it’s overused because strategy really means planning. It’s not a magic word, it’s just planning, when you plan and you have no capacity to execute, then of course your strategy is nothing. For me. It’s the leadership that thinks holistically and prioritizes. So people can find their phrases to define that or to describe that. I would rather we have a leadership that looks like either the country or the state or local governmentand say , this is the population of this local government, this is how I can slice and dice that data. There are X percentage who have farmers, X percentage who are teachers,X percentage work in corporate organizationsX percentage work in transport. All of that and what are the basic needs of all human beings? Food, Shelter, Security are thebasic. How do we ensure that these basic needs are met? Of course, to make all this work, you need power. So I would rather we have a government that prioritizes and focuses on three to five items to get right, rather thantwenty fivethings or fifty things to do.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: Yeah, yeah, OK so thank you so much Mr. Oni for that I know that you try to choose your words very carefully. I have done extensive research when it comes to what I think is the kind of leadership that we need and I try and I did some articles some of them were business day, you know? I mean I what I call it, the focused and transformational leadership. And why do I call it that way? Because when you look at when you look at China, yeah, it is true. China has existed for over 5000 years but the transformation that happen in China that made China to be what they are today is something that just took place in the last 42 years? The actual transformation that gave birth to what China is today; that China is now the global factory of the world today actually happen in the last 42 years. How do you think organization or a country,society can achieve that in which we are saying, you know, we are, maybe we saying enough is enough because those leaders are actually from all of us, whether we like it or not. So, you will not have a bad leader without you having a bad followers. Maybe we are largely bad followers. You know, as far as I’m concerned, I call it docile followership. So. What do you think is the role of an average Nigerian? What role do you think we can play to can compete to ensure that we have this form of transformational leadership at the various levels of our society?
Tominiyi Oni: Thank you, sir, for your question. I think it’s very straightforward. We need citizens and residents who get involved in governments, not those who stand aloof and say I have nothing to do with politics or with governance. We need citizens who are interested in what happens around them. We need citizens who can give feedback to their leaders, and we need citizens who are able to assess the performance of their leaders and based on that assessment, take a decision through election to elect, reelect or reject leadership.
Olukunle A. Iyanda Thank you so much. That’s I think you just put that aright, you know, we need bold citizens who are involved, who are not afraid who are able to assess. Now, let me quickly take you to life work balance in organization or life work integration which is being talked about, you know here and there, especially since the pandemic. What has been your own personal experience? How do you think employer can ensure work-life balance for their employees? It’s a very dicey you know, topic. But from your perspective, I believe that your employee must have talked about this to you severally over the years. How do you think we can achieve an effective work life integration? Take for instance in Portugal, Portugal just passed the law that no employer or supervisor should call employee anything outside the closing hour because they discovered that afterthe pandemic, they discover that there is no, you know, opening or closing hour, and you can’t even call your employee on weekend and all of that. I think that’s a bit radical. What do you think can be done or what? What does life? I mean work life integration. What does it mean to you?
In this topic of work-life. I believe that the shadow is work and the substance is life; and since life is more important than work, it is therefore crucial for us as employees, and all our employers or anyone to order our priority right.
Tominiyi Oni: Thank you, thank you sir for this question, I’mean, I would like to really quote one Greek. Fabulous Legendary who said and I quote,“in quarreling about the shadow,we often lose the substance”, so that was a quote accredited to Esso, who lived between 620 to 520 BC. In this topic of work-life. I believe that the shadow is work and the substance is life; and since life is more important than work, it is therefore crucial for us as employees, and all our employers or anyone to order our priority right.For me, as an employee because I’m an employee, it’s about understanding that there are differences between the rocks in my life. The big rocks in my life, the pebbles, and the grains of sand and to ensure that allocate time and resources to the big rocks and the big rocks for me personally and based on my experience this year, is my family, my health, the quality of sleep that I getand my relationships.Of course,my work provides the fund for me to be able to ensure that I manage my family, my health, my relationship. Well, so my work is also important to me. However, my work can come and go. I can be asked to leave today. My family is so crucial because when I’m asked to leave or when I retire; that is what will be with me, especially my wife and my children. My health is so important that I got that, you know I got that on the eve that I was going into the theatre for open heart surgery, I realized that I am just one sickness or illness or disease away from death or from poverty.;no matter how much I might have amassed and I realized that. I mean, at that point, I updated my will a day before you know and sent it to my best friend and one of my professional colleagues, I mean outside my own work, work area. Like to say guys “ I don’t know what’s gonna happen tomorrow”. Thanks, this is how I would like things to be done. So when I, you know, on the strength of that experience alone. I tend to prioritize my health even above. You know, a lot of things, and so if anything is gonna affect my health, I would. I would have a discussion about it. So whether ismy workor whether my family or relationships? We’ll have to sit down and have a discussion. I think we need to get a compromise.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: So now it seems to me that what you are saying isthatit is in the in the hands of individuals.
Tominiyi Oni: I believe that organizations had something to do. That’s why all those policies also come into play.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: Alright, So what do you think? Can you just tell us one of those policies that you feel organization can have to help their employee because you know, there are some employee thatdon’t know when to stop; all they just do is sit down work and work and work and work. What do you think organization can do and they’re not doing and this employee are not even conscious of their health like I’ve mentioned.
It takes a considerate leadership to understand that this work life balance that we talk about is not a very difficult thing to achieve.
Tominiyi Oni:Really, there has been a lot that has been done by different organizations. I mean, you just shared with us the example in Portugal, but even in Nigeria, companies have done a lot.For example, the banking industry, even in those states around 2003,2004, and 2005 and around 2003, one bank came up to say, guys, we’re gonna shut down the generator by 6:00 PM. OK, go home. And it was a bank, and that was an era where banks, you know, the culture was quite terrible. People always complain and say no, “I need to get out of the banking sector. I can never work in the banking sector”, blah blah, blah but some banks took the bull by the horn and decided that they would switch off the generator by seat by their generators by 6:00 PM and that all their guys should go. Some other companies and including ours, you know we used to work on Saturdays for example. And then we stopped it. OK and said you know no more work on Saturdays but in our manufacturing; our business unit, manufacturing is 24/7. We should stop in line. It’s gonna cost you a lot to restart that line. Then of course, that’s why you have the shakes system and so people don’t go on their off days but other sets of workers continue to work and so there’s a lot that again, it comes back to it and it comes back to mindsets and behaviors of leaders. So, if you believe that your guys cannot go home until you go home and you are working till, 1AM,9 PM, 10:00 PM, then of course not only that, that leader needs some counseling and coaching. If you believe that your guys must always answer your emails or Saturdays and Sundays and if they don’t, you get crossed then of course you need some counseling and coaching, because they also make time for their families, for their social life, so it takes a considerate leadership to understand that this work life balance that we talk about is not a very difficult thing to achieve.
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Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for that because I tried to bring that issue up because of how I believe we must have stressed some employees. We did a very large survey for some telecom companies in this country some years back and we discovered that about 76% of their employees are protected and that takes me to the state of healthcare in Nigeria. Yes, we havemade some improvement of recent; at least investment going to private healthcare sector, but it’s still not enough. You just told us and I need to congratulate you with thank God that you had a successful surgery; open heart surgery in the UK. You know, and my question youtraveledabroad, you have your reason whydo you have to travel abroad. Looking at the health care financing or the healthcare situation in Nigeria which is what an average Nigeria worker will have to assess. What is your opinion? What’s made you to travel abroad? Why did he even get to that point of saying you need to undergo open heart surgery and all of that? Do you want to share your experience with us?
Tominiyi Oni:Yes, part of being grateful to God for keeping me alive is also to share their experience. So I’m not going to say something I am. I’m not gonna say the Nigerian health system is good or bad or whatever, but I’m going to talk generally from experience. First and foremost, what I see. I mean what I’ve observed is that. The health care professionals either in the US or Canada or wherever in the country, and our ownCountry were all well trained, they went to medical school, they went to School of Nursing. They went to wherever they got qualified, graduated, certified under work.So, on that on that note, the quality of the individuals in the health care profession is more or less the same.However, based on my experience and I will share them. You know, in snippets; I realized that there are some differences. Number one, attention to details of the experts, whether it’s a nurse or a doctor or a surgeon or a radiographer, whatever. Experience number one, I had an issue with my left eye in 2011; I was working there in Abuja. I went to the numeraone, eye hospital in Abuja which was public. They kind of accessed me. Did all they were gonna do, wrote it on kind of looked like that was like written on a jotter of like just one page. Then I took it to my boss. We had a discussion and she said look Tomi, when it comes to vital organs in the body; the eyes, the heart, the lungs, the kidney. I prefer to do it in well advanced countries, so why don’t you do that? So I traveled abroad to an eye clinic in London. What I what I observed was that the doctor that assessed me use the same equipment that the doctor in Nigeria used. However, her report was like 9 pages long. Not one page of a jotter. And based on the attention to details ; a few things came out that did not come out when I got my assessment in Nigeria That’s one example, of course. I ended up doing having that surgery. The second example is about the heart surgery. I had a cardiologist in the UK, but I also have a cardiologist in Nigeria, a cardiologist that is well trained that actually trained abroad and even practice abroad but now practices in Nigeria. At some point, two of them had to meet via zoom to discuss my condition and the next step. They agreed on everything except the treatment. While the one in Nigeria said the pacemaker that I should go for; the guy abroad said he did not believe that the peacemaker would work for my condition because whatever was happening was happening at rest. The Pace makeris supposed to shock my heart back into its rhythm, push some pressure on likemaybe my heart couldn’t cope again. But what happens to me, sometimes happen even when I’m at rest when I’m sleeping? When I like I’m sitting down, I just get up and it can happen; and in that case it doesn’t matter the pace maker would be useless. I didn’t need everybody to advise me.I took the advice of the cardiologist in the UK and now it was also based on other experiences that I’ve had. In my consultations with two parties separately, I realized that because of the location and number of patients that they see in some countries abroad. They had a lot of experiences. They can tell you this is the how the heart of an African, these are the normal ailments. This is what we do with an Asian. Middle Eastern person and American or British. Whereas many of our doctors in Nigeria are limited to treating only Nigerians and in some cases where the hospital is very good or is private and niche, they get to treat some experts who mostly would be maybe the Middle Eastern easterners. Sothe kind of various experiences they had, the exposure of the multicultural patients that they come across kind of builds up into the experience. Thirdly is the way that they share knowledge in Nigeria. Many times, the doctors become the Lord over other health care professionals. In some Western countries, they work as a team. In fact. I was on my bed when a team came in. I did not know the doctor or the nurse and cardiologist nurse was the one leading when they were discussing with me. In Nigeria, they will never let that happen. They would never allow the nurse to even talk. Maybe just chip in if that nurse is bold. And that nurse, I realized later, I found out had even written a book on how to treat, patients with cardiac issues. So they are called respect and they work as a team. It’s not one man who knows everything. One woman that knows everything above the others. And I think for me, it’s also the, of course, the conditions of the environment. So when you are in Nigeria, the doctor, no matter how good he is, wakes up in the morning and contends with either the traffic or the security when it gets to the hospital, he is distracted, you know, by those experiences that they had, or the experience that is going to have later on in the evening when it’s going back home. You can’t compare that to a guy who woke up, got on the train or on his car, got to the office, no issues. Doesn’t need to think of the security of his home or whatever, so it’s so different. And then lastly, for me is the follow up system from the hospital we are discharged, you are handed over to the GP. It’s not that you have to go to the GP yourself, they send your details to your GP. Yeah, your GP calls youand say that they have an appointment with you on the phone or you have to come in person and they aregonnatake it up from there until something serious comes up. We continue to get full of treatment from your GPU. Get your medicines from the pharmacy. They send it there when you need to show them the order. So it’s it’s a holistic approach.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: Very interesting thing that you have said. It’s not all Nigerians that will be able to travel abroad to access healthcare. Possibly we can’t. We don’t even have up to 10% that can afford to do that. What do we need to do differently as a nation? So the thing that you said Nigerians are well trained there so doubt about that. Our Health care, just like education, you know, continue to play, lag behind other sectors very seriously and this is this educational system and the health system that an average Nigerian workers need to access. So what do we need to do differently in this regard, especially when it comes to healthcare finance? Because without adequate finance into Healthcare, it is going to be the same story.
Tominiyi Oni:I think first and foremost sir, there needs to be Focus like you said on what is priority to this country and to the people and citizens of this country? Now, we’re talking about, Maslow said this thing, I don’t know how many years ago. But we still grapple, we are still struggling with the basic things of life, so food, shelter, health, security. Without those four things, we’re not going anywhere. Now health is there. How do we want to ensure that we can at least transform? I think we’re gonna need a lot of funding and you can’t get funding incidentally if you don’t get government support. You don’t get government support if government does not think that it is priority. And when government thinks its priority then it’s about partnering, you know with private sector, with donor agencies and even with other countries? What are the issues that we have as Nigerians? What are the health issues that we have? What are the most common health issues that we have? And are we focused to resolving them. Do we? Do we even have basic health issues that we need to eradicate?Malaria, for example, when you get to hospitals, majority of the cases are malaria. How do we ensure that malaria becomes a thing of the past? Why is there no vaccine for malaria? When it is major challengeand we sit down and expect that Europeans and they the Westerners to develop it for us. They don’t have malaria there,there are no mosquitoes, we need to start thinking on the basis of What are the basic things and then what are our priorities?
Olukunle A. Iyanda: It is because there’s no funding for research, so those places that you spoke about developing vaccines there is huge amount of money that is devoted to research and I put it to you that some of those research, yes, a lot of them come from government. But Majority come from private institutions, which we don’t have in Nigeria. Private institutions. I mean, you go to Harvard, go to MIT, Yale and all of that, you see the endowment. You know that they have, those endowment does not belong to the government. Those endowments come from private individuals. U.I is the largest, I mean the oldest university in Nigeria. What is the endowment that they have? I’m not sure the endowment is up to $100,000. OK, so this is the issue that we have. How do we ensure that there is a bridge between town and gown. Gown is the academics and town is the organizations like yours and you know other organizations that you have in this country, because without that injection it may be difficult for us to actually move ahead.
Tominiyi Oni:My sense is that in Nigeria you still in the government to be involved, not to put the money down, but to be only one way or the other. Now let’s look at infrastructure for example and see whether we can borrow something from what we are doing on roads. Now government goes to corporate organisations and say hey, he road from our national port is terrible, Mr. XYZ. You can help us fix that road and in return, we will give you some tax concessions for X number of years. So, what stops us from doing that research? I’m not saying this research for everything, for million of things, lets focus and take it as food and health. Yes, I mean health is about OK. Let’s eradicate the diseases or illnesses that lead to bigger ones. So malaria, let’s focus on malaria for the next four years, OK? Organization ABCDEF, let’s come together and discuss this. We will give you a tax rebate for the next fouryears, if you could help us fund research on malaria vaccine.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: I think the government has started that.
Tominiyi Oni: I’m sure that we will get something.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: That’s true. They started that with infrastructure. Like giving that giving Dangote to do the Oworonsoki, theApapaexpress zone. So I agree with you. Government can introduce that for research as well. As you Round up, a new business day of January 20th published that all the healthcare, all the private hospitals in Nigeria have given a notice that by January 31st, they’re going to withdraw their service because of poor tariffs and terrible delay in payments of bills by HMOs. The HMOs are meant to help us to advance our health care services in Nigeria. But from this report, it seems to me that that’s not what you have. If you go to an HMO, HMOs will say well, our clients are not paying their tariffs. And when they talk about their client they talk about organizations and even when they pay tariffs they are they also, you know, had delayed terribly because the delay in the payment. The question is how do we as a nation work around this? If there is no HMO today, that a lot of people who rely on it, what’s gonna be the state of our health care? What do we need to do for organisations to actually appreciate quality of care for their employees. I give an instance. Somebody access hospital some years back, wealthy person in this country, who himself attested to it thathe got a better care in Nigeria compared to what they get in UK? However. He was asked to pay for consultation. Maybe they theythey ask for that particular procedure, they askedhim to pay 500,000. He complained , he said that is too much, however. OK, so do it. In UK, he is going to pay £1700 and he is, his daughter who happened to be in UK and his son who is in the USA saidthat what are you talking about? You told us have interacted with this doctor, he is an American trained doctor, is one of the best that you can see around and you yourself you mentioned that you have never seen this kind of care before, so why don’t you want to pay for a service OK? So what I’m trying to say is that how do we get organizations to support their workers better through attaining quality health care and quality healthcare cannot come if is not the free lunch it has to be paid for and when the HMO complained that it is because organization paid them in little premium, so they cannot afford to pay I mean a hospital where they needed to pay the hospital, then there is a problem. From your perspective, relating with HMOs.What can you say to this?
TominiyiOni :This is a very important topic when we look at it. I would like to say that it is not the first time we’re going to have this issue of HMO’s versus hospitals or vice and vice versa. I remembered veryclearly when I was working for Diageo Guinness in Nigeria in 2002 to 2005 and we are migrating to HMOs, that some hospitals declined moving to HMOs. They wanted that retainership at all cost because of course, they can control things, and they get their money direct and they make more profit. I feel that the HMO has come to stand today. But we still need HMOs at scale. The more HMO organization that come up, the less the problem we’re gonna be having.Right now, what I think is happening is that we have HMOs thatare managing in lots of clients and organizations and all hospitals much more than they can handle. Because again, it’s a quality market, it’s also a price market. So people who gravitate towards HMOsthat can satisfy their needs. So, but you know hospital saying, oh, we’re gonna do it, it’s not the first time but this kind of issue come up and I believe that they can reach a consensus because the HMO system has really helped, you know, organizations in Nigeria and has helped employees. Now,we go back to you know ability topay by employers, I think it goes back to what you think of your employees. Yeah, and what you think are the benefit that is important to them. Benefits are important to them and how those benefits can lead to better engagement with their employees. I’m happy to retain talents. Because if it’s a benefit that is important to employees but you don’t provide the kind of care that they want or that they need. Then of course, you know that you may you may not be able to retain those talent. In effect,organizations will prioritize what is important. For many companies, where I have worked. HR succeeded,you know, in achieving good engagement scores, the costs that we show to leadership that number one or 2 or3 top complaints of employees is this or that, and if that includes medical benefit then of course leadership listens and they say OK, So what should we do? What can we do? And then they provide a solution.When most of the challenge when it comes to this, in terms of paying premium on time, yeah, In the processing document, documentation that maywell be in, you know, small scale industries, one manbusinesses, maybe some government or organization, but also in some big corporation and. I would like to see this as it’s an area where we continue to develop and improve,we have not gotten there. I don’t think we’ve done 20 years of HMOs in Nigeria.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: No, we have not. So we’re not there yet. It’s developing and we are also beginning to see HMO specializing now, we see HMOs who say, Oh well for the SME’s. Well, we are for disputed trade like this sales organization because they are always dispersed and sometimes there is a dichotomy between the health care that’s employees in the head office or in major towns are able to assess versus employees who are in some rural areas. In fact, the quality of the hospitals in the rural areas may not be comparable to the hospitals we have in Port Harcourt, Abuja a or Kano or Lagos. But with the help of technology because that’s why we also need to embrace technology and also data analytics companies are able to improve, you know, as we go along, I want to see this as teething problems and that we will be able to overcome them. So my advise is that go back to hospitals and HMO’s, my own advice is guys sit down at the table, have a discussion, reach a consensus?
Olukunle A. Iyanda:Thank you so much. It is a teething problem that we’re going to overcome just like some of the problems we have in our society? We’ve come to the end of this chat. However, before we go, is there any parting words you know from you that you will want our listener,we want to drop with our listener any parting words., We try to say we give uncommon insight in business, leadership and governance. So anything that you want to say differently for the benefit of our leaders and of our listeners in terms of how we can improve in our systems in our society and make Nigeria a better place.
When you don’t approach problems holistically; we often fall short in the solution implementation stage
Tominiyi Oni:Well, it’s a quote, it’s better to be approximately right than to be precisely wrong. Somebody said that and my sensesis when you don’t approach problems holistically; we often fall short in the solution implementation stage and that has been our being as a country and as organizations. We need to look at things holistically and be able to execute. You know, the solution set perfectly. Our Challengeis we can plan, we can strategize there are a lot of papers that have been written, but there’s nothing new about Nigeria’s problem that anybody will come up with. But in implementing this solution, we often fall short and an example, for example, in 2009, I was working, when I came back, I was working between Lagos and Port Harcourt.In Lagos,we were parked our cars at the BRT bus stop in Magodo and joined the BRT bus. We felt like, yes, this is what this country needs; in the air condition, you work on your laptop, work on your phone or you take a nap and you arrive at the office? They didn’t take long before you knowbefore that system began to breakdown. No, what could have in some other countries maybe? What would have happened was where we are starting BRT Yes, we’re getting buses, we expect. Let’s make an open bid. Let the companies who are best in managing, you know, buses, transportationbusiness, big and lets select the best three or best two or four it there and I’m sure the companies that would have won, would have beenEkendilichukwus, the Chiscos, of this world. Butthat didn’thappened, we fund the companiesourselves, put our people. Yeah, people that do not know anything about logistics, running busses whatever, and then we have what we have today. I hope this will not happen to the train system, to the lighttrain that is coming and to the updates on the BRT. Soholistically let’s approach problems or lets implement the solutions in an holistic way.Thank you, Sir.
Olukunle A. Iyanda: Thank you. Thank you so much Mr. Oni for your time and for the insight that you have shared with us today. Your parting words islet’s do less of politics and appointment in giving services to people you know to run. Let us havean holistic view of our problems. Let us approach our problem with uh, by being deliberate because without a deliberate effort, we cannot get out the woods. I want to thank you again for your time with us this evening, and we also want to wish you again good health as you continue with your variousundertakings and we do believe that one of these days that Nigeria is also going to get to where it ought to get to in the community of nations. Thank you so much.
Tominiyi Oni:Thank you Sir. Thank you for having me.Bye.
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About the author(s)
- Olukunle A. Iyanda, PhD is the Chief Executive Officer of BROOT consulting. Tominiyi Oni is the Group Human Resources Director of Tropical General Investment, Adeola Ojoawo, PhD is BROOT Consulting Director of Strategy& Growth and the Program Director for the Spark Podseries