Engagement of Expatriate Employee in Nigeria – Expatriate Quota

With the repealed Immigration Act 2015 in place, certain responsibilities have now been clearly defined as it pertains to the role of the Nigeria Immigration Service and the Federal Ministry of Interior.

Inspite of the changes and reviews what appears to be topmost on the minds of would –be- investors and companies, is the procedure or steps to consider in the engagement of expatriate employees on a long term basis or possibly short term as well. We will attempt to highlight in this edition, the areas for consideration for the long term engagement.

The preliminary stages for a company to engage an expatriate is to obtain from the Federal Ministry of Interior, an Expatriate Quota Approval. This approval allows a company registered in Nigeria to employ expatriates to occupy specifically approved positions/designations with specific validity period subject to conditions of the grant of the expatriate quota approval.

Expatriate Quota is often granted to cover a period of 2-3 years at the discretion of the Honorable Minister for Interior and is subject to renewal upon expiry. The positions/designations granted in the quota approval are issued to the company not the individual expatriate and as such the positions reverts to the company when the expatriate leaves or concludes his assignment in Nigeria. The company is at liberty to place another expatriate on that position subject to its validity. 

Prior to approaching the Federal Ministry of Interior, a company is to first determine their expatriate needs, positions and number of expatriates required. The positions so determined are to be verified for legibility as not all positions would be granted. Organisations often begin with the process of engaging expatriates only to discover an approval is required to engage expatriates in the first instance.

The process of obtaining an approval for Expatriate Quota from the Federal Ministry of Interior may take up to 3 months and as such organisations are encouraged to commence the process in consideration of this timeline. The requirements for expatriate quota application can be obtained from the Federal Ministry of Interior or through a consultant.

Having satisfied all relevant requirements and approval granted, the company is now ready to engage expatriate employees who will occupy the approved positions/designations. It is important to mantain the integrity of the the nomenclature of positions/designation so stated as it must be consistent with the title/position the expatriate is to assume. For instance an expatriate cannot be given the title Project Manager when the approval states Project Coordinator.

Expatriate Quota are of two kinds; the Temporary Expatriate Quota  and the Permanent Until Reviewed (PUR) Quota. The Temporary Quota is usually for positions that would be occupied on temporary basis and are specifically stated on the quota approval. It typically has a lifespan of 10 years, renewable at least every 2 years until it attains its full lifespan by becoming unrenewable. This period is to ensure adequate transfer of knowledge to trained Nigerian employees within the company. It is also expected to note that for every expatriate position occupied, the company is expected to engaged/have at least two Nigerian employees to understudy the expatriate employee.

The Permanent Until Review (PUR) Quota as the name implies is granted at the discretion of the Honorable Minister for certain top executive positions upon request and remains valid until such a time as the government deems it fit to withdraw. The quota assures the foreign company of the protection of their investment as well as save the expatriate employee the typical hassles associated with periodic renewals. Positions such as Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors, Managing Director, General Manager, Finance Director and other top executive level positions maybe considered for an upgrade to PUR.

Watch out for the next edition!

CAPACITY BUILDING IN AN ORGANIZATION

Capacity building can be defined as Human resource development, which involves the process of equipping individuals with the understanding, skills and access to information, knowledge and training that enables them to perform effectively.

Whose capacity are we trying to build?

This entails the target people whose capacity is to be built. It depends on the company or organization but mostly the staff of company.

Capacity to do what and why? This means building the right capacity for the right purpose. The focus should be on critical functions, which if performed effectively would allow the organization to survive and hopefully, overcome their main challenges and constraint.

TYPES OF CAPACITIES:

Functional capacities are “crosscutting” capacities that are relevant across various levels and are not associated with one particular sector or theme. They are the management capacities needed to formulate, implement, and review strategies, programs, and projects. Since they focus on “getting things done,” they are of key importance for any successful capacity development.

Technical capacities: are those associated with particular areas of expertise and practice in specific thematic areas or sectors. Technical capacities tend to be acquired through more formalized instruction, study, and practical training. Because this tends to be a more specialized set of skills, the target audience is generally much narrower.

Behavioral capacities: This has to do with cultural shifts and changes in attitude. An important component of capacity building, especially in a multi-stakeholder context, is raising awareness in order to affect changes in the attitudes, practices, and behaviors of individuals, groups, and organizations.

Why do we need to build capacity?

·         An opportunity for long-term, bigger, lasting change:

·         An opportunity to do something organizations usually cannot

·         An opportunity to apply organizational resources in a unique way by making use of skilled members and knowledgeable staff and faculty.

How to Improve Capacity?

1.) The organization knows best: The leaders of the organization are in the position to best understand the existing abilities and future needs of the organization itself. Thus the organization does not need to be “told what to do”, and the capacity builder should not assume superiority. 

2.) Build the investee relationship: Capacity building has been a two-way street that requires frequent, open, and honest communication. There needs to be a relationship that shows the capacity builder and the organization both has a shared stake in the organization’s success. Trust needs to be present on both sides, and the capacity builder and organization staff needs to communicate on equal footing.

3.) One size does not fit all: There is no one approach to capacity building that will work in every organization. Rather, each organization has different situations and different needs that need to be specifically addressed and uniquely met.

4.) Start and end in self-assessment: Organizations need to start by assessing themselves to know where they are struggling, so they can have adequate knowledge of their needs and work towards focusing on them. After capacity is built, additional assessment needs to be done in order to understand if the capacity building is actually working and to identify new problems. Without this assessment, things may be working, but it could be hard or impossible to tell.

5.) Know your limitations and choose your battles: As a capacity builder, it can be tempting to assume you are more skilled or knowledgeable than you really are. However, if the end goal is to maximize one’s value-added, this requires being honest about one’s own abilities. One also needs to focus on finding good matches where the organization needs line up with the skills one is able to actually help with in an effective and competent manner.

StreSERT Services Limited delivers unique and well researched training programmes for both the public and private sectors, offering organisations distinctive services to fulfill all their training objectives. Programmes developed are in relation to job requirements, and focused on initiatives meant to develop employees for their current jobs and future roles and responsibilities.

Our training services cover the following:

·         Management and leadership skills

·         Supervisory skills

·         Performance management

·         Negotiation skills

·         Personal Effectiveness

·         Professional office management

·         Presentation skills

·         Marketing and sales skills

·         Team building

·         Communication skills

·         Customer service

·         Several other training subjects

In-company and customized learning solutions

We can deliver our open programmes to single company audiences (i.e. in-company) when an organization is seeking to create impact and improvement through lifting the performance of groups or teams within the organization. These can be lightly tailored or heavily customized depending on the precise nature of the client’s need(s)

Customized learning solutions

Our customized learning solutions are designed with you to match precisely your needs. Working with you from the earliest possible consideration of both the need and the solution design, we ensure your objectives are met in full and that the outcome has a sustained impact on the workplace.

CHALLENGES TO SUCCESSFUL RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION

Recruitment is the process of sourcing and hiring the best-qualified candidate(s) from within or outside of an organization to fill a job opening; in a timely and cost effective manner. It can also be described as the process of attracting, screening, selecting, and onboarding a qualified person for a job.

Retention on the other hand tells the extent to which an organization is able to retain its best employees and hence maintain a lower employee turnover. It involves taking measures to encourage employees to remain in the organization for the maximum period of time.

Retaining key employees is crucial to the health and success of any organization. It is an established fact that retaining the best employees ensures customer satisfaction, increased sales, satisfied colleagues and reporting staff, effective succession planning, and deeply embedded organizational knowledge and learning. Therefore, failure to ensure retention of key employees would be a costly proposition for an organization.

SERVICE PROFIT CHAIN

The service profit chain is the link (chain) between service and profit. What it basically says is that profits come from customer loyalty, customer loyalty comes from customer satisfaction and customer satisfaction comes from employee satisfaction.

Barriers to Employee Retention:

       Monetary dissatisfaction: One of the major reasons for an employee to look for a change of job is because they are dissatisfied with their current pay. Every organization has a salary budget for every employee which can be raised to some extent but not beyond a certain limit. Retention becomes a problem when an employee quotes an exceptionally high figure beyond the budget of the organization and he’s just not willing to compromise.

 Dearth of opportunities: where there is no dearth of opportunities, stopping people to look for a change is a big challenge. Every organization tries its level best to hire employees from the competitors and thus provide lucrative opportunities to attract them. Employees become greedy for money and position and thus look forward to changing the present job and join the competitor.

      Job mismatch: Individuals speak all kind of lies during interviews to get a job. They might not be proficient in say “branding”, but would simply say a yes to impress the recruiter and grab the job. It is only later do people realize that there has been a mismatch and thus look for a change. Problems arise whenever a right person is hired into a wrong profile.

  Boredom: Some individuals have a tendency to get bored in a short span of time. They might find a job really interesting in the beginning but soon find it monotonous and look for a change. The management finds it difficult to convince the employees to stay in such cases.

  Unrealistic expectations at the work place: Unrealistic expectations from the job also lead to employees looking for a change. There is actually no solution to unrealistic expectations. An individual must be mature enough to understand that one can’t get all the comforts at the workplace just like his home.

Ways to improve retention rate:

•  Salary, benefits, perks
•  Contests and incentives
•  Motivational conversations, good communication
•  Promotion from within
•  Fostering employee and management development
•  Participative leadership
•  Employee ownership
•  Compelling corporate purpose, mission statement
•  Create an environment where the employees want to work and have fun
•  Treat your employees like you treat your most valuable clients

Ensuring that your best employees are happy and productive is important to the success of your business!

At StreSERT Services, we can help you structure “Retention Strategies” for your organization with the purpose of ensuring that the best hands are always retained and satisfied.