‘Japa’: How Nigerian organisations are dealing with rising talent drought with i-deals
“I asked them to reschedule the interview and make it a virtual conversation, but they said no, so I withdrew my application,” John Olanrewaju, a 29-year-old communications expert based in Lagos, Nigeria, told Neusroom as he explains how the pandemic and advancement in technology have altered the way he works.
Since the pandemic threw the world askew in 2020, Olanrewaju has been working remotely. Although he said he had no plans to change his job anytime soon, in June 2021, a hiring manager reached out to him on LinkedIn after reviewing his profile and offered him a senior role in a new communications company opening in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial center.
“I wasn’t really interested but I just decided to give it a trial, see what the offer would look like and compare it with my present job. Then I also wanted to test my interview skills since I left the job-hunting street a few years ago,” Olanrewaju said. “Then they invited me to an interview at their office in Victoria Island at 1 pm on a workday. I sent them an email asking for a virtual interview and they insisted it had to be in person. I didn’t attend the interview because I couldn’t imagine travelling from Ikeja to VI for an interview and it also means if they are not flexible enough to schedule a virtual interview, they may not be open to a conversation about working remotely. With Lagos traffic, I can’t leave my present remote job for a job that requires that I show up at the office daily.”
At a time when candidates appear to have the upper hand as many young talents now favour migration, using the social media parlance, ‘japa’, to Europe and America, in search of better lives, Olanrewaju wondered why some organisations appear to still be rigid and not open to having conversations with their staff and potentials about how best to do their work to get the best result.
A report by the Africa Polling Institute (API) reveals that 73% of Nigerians were looking to emigrate with their families in 2021 – a 41% increase compared to 2019 results. Nigeria, like many other developing countries, now battles an unprecedented talent drought with the ‘japa’ wave. In Canada, the number of Nigerians admitted through express entry between 2018 and 2020 stands at 19,000. Data from the UK home office reveal that the number of Nigerians granted work permits in the UK increased from 3,918 in 2019 to 15,772 in 2022 – a 303% increase, while 102,981 Indians were granted work visas in June 2022 – an 80% increase from 57,087 in 2019.
As talent continues to be in short supply, organisations are becoming increasingly flexible and open to negotiating individual working arrangements with their employees.
A new research has now found that employers are having to embrace customised work arrangements as the talent shortage crisis hits harder.
The research titled, ‘Temporal contexts and actors vis-a-vis i-deals’ timing and creation: Evidence from Nigeria’, is the work of Dotun Ayeni, a Doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh Business School, in collaboration with Sara Chaudhry, Senior Lecturer at the Birkbeck University of London, and Maryam Aldosari, a Senior Lecturer at Aston Business School.
The research, conducted for over two years in the UK and Nigeria, examines employer and employee perspectives on i-deals and presents new perspectives on work arrangements. It is Africa’s first qualitative i-deals paper, and it highlights how employers are adopting Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals).
I-deals are personalised non-standard agreements negotiated between employees and their employers, and they can be negotiated during the hiring or after the hiring process. Although I-deals are not usually formalised in employment contracts because they are individually negotiated, employers grant I-deals to meet the needs of their employees and to bring some benefit to the employer – including employee retention, improved commitment and loyalty.
“Our paper focuses on the under-explored issue of i-deals’ timing by applying the theoretical lens of institutional entrepreneurship (IE),” says Ayeni, a Chartered Member of the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel Development) UK and CIPM (Chartered Institute of Personnel Management) Nigeria.
Over 40% of the 62 participants interviewed across three service-oriented organisations for the research confirmed that they have negotiated and/or received i-deals either during hire (ex-ante) or after hire (ex-post). In contrast, 100% of all managers interviewed revealed they had granted i-deals to direct reports at one time or the other.
Sara Chaudhry said, “our paper highlights the challenges that firms in the global south face due to the movement of skilled talent to the global north.”
Meanwhile, as many young people who have not migrated to Europe and Canada now prefer to work remotely than show up at the office every day, they are constantly negotiating this option while prospective employers and organisations are also making adjustments to meet their demands for the benefits of the employer and the candidates.
“Returning to the office is not something I am looking to except maybe hybrid. For bigger pay, well, I’ll negotiate hybrid and if it’s a very big pay, maybe I’ll take the offer,” Tobi Owolabi, a Lagos-based Digital Marketer who works remotely, told Neusroom.
Although Nigeria leads in the number of organisations in Africa planning a hybrid work model (56%) going forward, and companies like Flutterwave and Paystack now allow workers to roam globally, however, some service-oriented organisations still prefer having their employees resume at the office daily.
For Tunji, a Senior Web Developer who also works remotely from Lagos, taking up an offer that is not fully remote is a ‘No’ even if the pay and other benefits are bigger than his present earnings.
“The headache is not worth it. And besides most of what you do in the office is waste of time, unproductive and you’d be thinking of the traffic you will face,” Tunji told Neusroom.
According to the research by Dotun Ayeni, Chaudhry and Aldosari, with the advancements in technology evidenced by increased automation and a growth in demand for employees with skills in the area of critical thinking, data analytics and problem-solving, Nigeria has witnessed a glaring skills shortage, so much so that employers are doing all they can to hold on to talent, including granting and offering i-deals.
Ayeni, the doctoral researcher, said with “the after-effects of a global pandemic, rapid technological advancements and the growing need for organisations to attract, engage and retain talent have impacted the rise in requests for i-deals. Therefore, employers will increasingly have to rethink how best to personalise the employment experience through i-deals, we-deals or by offering cafeteria-style benefits.”
Opeyemi Ewulo, an entrepreneur in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, says she’s not open to working with any organisation that is not ready to negotiate remote work.
“I love being flexible with my job because it allows me to do other things. Showing up at the office everyday is not an option for me,” she told Neusroom.
As the mode of work is changing across the world and organisations are embracing customised work arrangements to meet the new reality, Dotun Ayeni believes Nigerian employers also have a chance to revisit their policies and practices by listening more closely and learning from what employees are requesting.
“Our multicase research shows that i-deals offer employers a platform to design more innovative policies to enhance their value proposition; however, only employers who give a chance to i-deals will reap the benefits,” says Ayeni who is rounding up a PhD in Management at Edinburgh University Business School
“Findings from Ayeni and colleagues point to the significance of context in i-deals negotiations and the need to consider the contextual dynamics shaping how these negotiations emerge,” Kristina Potočnik, Professor and Chair of Organisation Behaviour at Edinburgh University Business School, said.
