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Unemployment: Otudeko harps on merit-based recruitment

By Ikechukwu Onyewuchi
22 July 2015   |   11:40 pm
To effectively maximise the ability of Nigerian youths, business leaders must be committed to merit-based recruitment exercises and training of fresh graduates in relevant management principles, Chairman, Honeywell Group, Dr. Oba Otudeko has said. Otudeko made this assertion recently, at the ninth graduation ceremony of the Honeywell Excellence Programme (HEP) in Lagos. The HEP, which…

unemployment_0To effectively maximise the ability of Nigerian youths, business leaders must be committed to merit-based recruitment exercises and training of fresh graduates in relevant management principles, Chairman, Honeywell Group, Dr. Oba Otudeko has said.

Otudeko made this assertion recently, at the ninth graduation ceremony of the Honeywell Excellence Programme (HEP) in Lagos.

The HEP, which was inaugurated in 1993, is an arm of Honeywell Group’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and serves as a platform to train young, intelligent Nigerian graduates of tertiary institutions in business management skills for 12 months.

This year, the programme graduated 40 persons, who would be absorbed into middle-level staff in the different units of the group.

Otudeko said the HEP was developed and revised, over the years, to bridge the gap between university curriculum and the expectation of the business world.

He noted that many of Nigeria’s challenges, including unemployment, were traceable to lack of commitment to excellence, urging businesses to work assiduously to make the country “the dreamland everyone desires.”

He said, “I am glad because of the joy of this event. Some of the graduands do not know the magnitude of what they have been impacted with. I developed them from raw material. Everyone is refined and ready to go; they are ready to be the next Managing Director of our next company.

“For Honeywell and me, it is another testimony of a profound vision. The company is about building legacies.”

According to him, “the HEP, which is now 22 years old, has enabled graduates horn business skills in line with the Honeywell culture.”

A graduand, Olayinka Ibrahim, said the programme immensely impacted on him, as he is now tailor-made for the work environment after rigorous training in different aspects of management, noting that the skills garnered would fast track his career growth.

“I can confidently say that I am ready for work. Though I had a degree in accounting, the programme has horned my skills for effective deployment in business operations. I got to learn how to multitask, take responsibilities and combine work with study. It was challenging, but I thanked God because I am now better for it,” Ibrahim said.

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