Lagos tasks managers on strategies for business survival

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has asked managers of organisations to create business models that will impact positively on their business survival.

He said with the outbreak of the pandemic, administrators, who are also leaders of organisations, must develop the agility for constant communication with their workers for optimum productivity.

Sanwo-Olu, who was represented by the Commissioner for Establishment, Training and Pensions, Ajibola Ponnle, said this during the 2020 Annual National Conference of the Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM) Chartered, themed: “Managing the Impact of COVID-19: Survival Strategies.”

Considering the challenges posed by the pandemic, he said workers had gone through a lot mentally, hence, managers needed to ensure adequate wellness of their employees.

According to him, a lot of mental wellness issues are crippling into the workplace and managers need to be alert to address this.

Urging supervisors to also think of protocols on health and safety of workers, he mentioned what the state had put in place a wellness centre, where employees can have discussions with health experts for improved health and increased productivity at the workplace.

Speaking on the theme, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Gidi Mobile, Dr. Tunji Adegbesan, said executives have the task to make organisations resilient, robust and anti-fragile.

Adegbesan, who spoke on impact of COVID-19 on organisations and the role of managers, maintained that they needed to examine each of the shocks and deepen the original robustness and resilience to prepare for future stressors.

He said: “Explore positional scope to try to take advantage of the new normal to the extent possible. Be very perceptive and proactive in learning and adapting to the numerous revelations that this time has provided for us with.”

In her welcome address, President and Chairman of Council, NIM, Patience Anabor, said for Nigeria to move forward, there must be a break from the past.

Maintaining that no meaningful development could take place in a chaotic atmosphere, she advocated an operating system that is conductive and peaceful.

She said: “We must all resolve to bring discipline, efficiency, effectiveness, integrity, accountability, probity and transparency back to our individual lives, the workplace and our nation.

“You must shun corruption, self-aggrandisement, greed and other social vices inherent in our workplaces and nation today, which have threatened our efforts at setting Nigeria on the path of greatest. It is only when we give our best that we can help to drive the aggregates of national development.”