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By Enyeribe Ejiogu
Henry Iwekuba is an IT professional who has cut his teeth in different IT roles and set-ups, with specialties in IT Operations management. He studied Computer Science at the renowned Yaba College of Technology. His career path has taken him on a journey to becoming an in-demand Application Support cum Middleware Support engineer, who is consistently enhancing his skill sets with numerous personal development training.
Iwekuba’s passion is to apply Information Technology as an enabler of wealth creation and as a tool to enhance human and business processes. He is a regular speaker at IT conferences and seminars, who has devoted efforts to encouraging young Nigerians to acquire skill sets that will equip them to leverage remote work for domestic and international IT opportunities.
In this interview, he explains the way forward and urges the Federal and State governments to create an enabling environment that will empower the Nigerian youth with a global competitive advantage in harnessing IT opportunities.
Information technology has redefined the workplace and how companies operate. Today one hears about remote work. What exactly is remote work?
Remote generally means the ability for a resource to have or provide utility from any location. Hence, remote work implies a situation where the staffers are allowed, stipulated, or mandated to work from any location of their choice outside of the “traditional physical office” either as an employee, freelancer, or contractor. A common synonym or buzzword for remote work is “work from home.”
Remote work dates back more than a century when people were plying their trades in their homes. However, the Industrial Revolution birthed the “traditional physical office” where workers gathered to complete tasks and carry out delegated duties.
Two paradigm shifts set the tone for remote work as we know it today. The invention of the Internet and the seismic shift from traditional workspaces caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This has birthed an army of digital nomads.
Why is it gaining widespread appeal?
There is a potpourri of reasons for the popularity and appeal of remote work. In the highly competitive business world, more organizations need wider talent pools, reduced overheads, increased employee productivity, the ability to implement business continuity, and competitive advantage. On the other hand, the appeal for remote work has increased amongst professionals due to reasons such as flexible schedules, ability to work from anywhere in the world, absence of wasted commuting time, having more time to dedicate to your own projects and passions, ability to build a career without involvement in the rigours of a physical office, ability to work independently to focus and work more efficiently, ability to care for kids while working, ability to spend extra time with family, ability to travel the world while making money, ability to gain international jobs and earn in foreign currency (particularly for professionals in Third World countries), increased productivity, collaboration, workplace diversity, ability to work multiple jobs and ability to have time for exercise. The reasons are not exhaustive but peculiar to the individual.
In general terms, what are the benefits of remote work to corporate organizations on the one hand and individuals on the other?
The advantages of remote work to the modern organization are numerous. However, the major advantages include increased productivity of employees, and the ability to implement a business continuity plan in the face of a rapidly evolving world. Business continuity here implies the ability of an organization to continue to function during pandemics, natural disasters, political conflicts, and any other such events that disrupt or make it difficult or dangerous to work from the traditional office. Other advantages include reduced cost of operations, increased employee retention, improved workplace diversity vis-a-vis access to a wider talent pool, improved green credentials (low carbon footprint), and a healthier workforce, among other benefits.
On the other hand, the benefits of remote work to the individual include greater work-life balance, increased autonomy, flexible schedules, ability to work multiple jobs and earn more, having a buffer to office politicking, less commuting time, improved mental health, reduced costs, having more time for training and personal development, among others.
What is the global estimate of the adoption of remote work solutions by companies and organisations?
Global adoption of remote work (work from home) saw an upsurge from 4.7 percent in January 2019 to 61 percent in 2020 (In the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic). Globally, 16 percent of companies are fully remote according to Forbes, and without a physical office. Since 2021, the number of workers choosing to work remotely increased by 24 percent and 59 percent of workers would likely choose an employer who offered remote work options to those who didn’t. As of 2023, 12.7 percent of full-time employees work from home, illustrating the rapid normalization of remote work environments and the expected growth for the remote work service market from $20.1 billion in 2022 to $58.5 billion by 2027 at a CAGR of 23.8 percent.
However, despite these statistics showing an increased adoption of remote work, the huge percentile of the global workforce (59.1 percent) works from the traditional office. This implies that the traditional office is still far from being obsolete.
What aspects of the operations of corporate organisations are best suited to handling remote work?
The key determinant of what aspects of an organization’s operations can go remote is the nature of the work. Often, organizations have successfully adopted remote work for non-physical, independent tasks that do not rely so much on collaboration with others. However, remote work has also been successfully adopted for tasks that require collaboration. However, they require more effort to manage. The availability of collaboration tools and remote infrastructure have made managing such remote working teams easier, thereby maximizing their efficiency.
Operations that can be adopted for remote work include information technology operations, customer services, finance and accounting, project management, sales and marketing, and human resources, among others.
What skill sets do individuals need to be hired for remote work?
According to Data gathered by Lina Castro, the top in-demand skills for remote work are Software Development /IT engineering, Marketing, Business Development/Sales, Product Management, Management and Operations, Finance/Accounting, Data Analysis, Customer Support, Web and Graphics Design, HR/ Recruitment, Copywriting, Content Creation and Virtual Administration, among others.
Remote work also requires that the individual develops certain work ethics which include excellent written and verbal communication skills, team collaboration skills, technical proficiency with digital tools, ability to work independently, emotional intelligence, cross-cultural literacy, self-motivation, time management, focus, and discipline.
For Nigerians here at home, are there prospects for remote work?
Remote work had not gained traction among indigenous Nigerian organizations until the COVID-19 pandemic occurred. Organizations had to adapt and initiate business continuity so that all or part of their essential operations would continue during the lockdown. However, from 2022 till date, more indigenous Nigerian organizations have called for either a total return to office or a partial (hybrid) system, where staff work from home and at times from the traditional physical office.
However, on the international stage, there are numerous opportunities and prospects for remote work for Nigerian professionals living in Nigeria, especially in the IT sector. The world has become a global village and organizations are on an increasing search for skilled talents and workforce across borders due to the increase in demand for remote work in the post-pandemic era and the emergence of new industries, specializations, and job roles that support remote work.
A lot of Nigerians have leveraged this by making skills-based investments in some of the skill sets stated previously. The prospects are high and there is a huge possibility to get international, remote jobs from Nigeria given that the professional in question has proof of great competence and track records in the specific field or specialty with some proof of international validation, certification (s), stable power and good internet connectivity.
A good development is that Nigeria as a country currently has no diplomatic, international legal issues (such as sanctions) limiting her citizenry’s access to international jobs, access to foreign intellectual property, and contribution to the global workforce, hence a lot of skilled Nigerian professionals have successfully received remote job offers abroad.
Across the West Africa subregion, which countries would you say are excelling in empowering and positioning their citizenry to key into remote work opportunities?
I live in Nigeria and I have limited knowledge of developments about government initiatives in other West African countries with regards to positioning their citizenry and workforce for remote work opportunities. However, empirical data shows that very little has been done by the governments of the constituent West African nations to position and empower their citizenry for remote work opportunities. The region is rife with debilitating challenges in infrastructure, digital education, internet penetration and speed, stable electricity, limited access to technology, and co-working spaces.
In a recent study by NordLayer, using the four major indices of the Global Remote Work Index (GRWI), Cyber Safety, Economic Safety, Digital and Physical Infrastructure and Social Safety, no West African country secured a place in the Global Top 50 or even the Top 5 in Africa. However, only Ghana and Nigeria secured a spot in the Top 10 in Africa. Many West African countries rank very low on this scale due to poor, underdeveloped digital and physical infrastructure. This implies that little or nothing is being done by the existing West African governments in positioning their citizenry for remote opportunities.
As regards Nigeria specifically, the country did not secure a place in the Global Top 50 but ranks ninth in Africa on the global scale of best African countries for remote work according to the study mentioned above. This implies that domestic remote work initiatives, enablement, and opportunities are low. However, there are numerous international opportunities that skilled Nigerians can leverage.
Are the relevant federal and state government agencies doing the needful to position Nigerians for these opportunities?
The needful is not being done. The relevant federal and state government agencies aren’t doing enough. There are a few initiatives on paper with no realistic practical, impactful implementation or results on the ground. I would love governments at all levels to address two major challenges amongst other things: the knowledge deficit and the infrastructural deficit.
There needs to be concerted efforts at the federal and state levels towards revamping the education sector and the curriculum to reflect contemporary global demands in workplace readiness and skill sets.
A laudable policy initiative in this direction is the recent decision by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to unbundle the Higher National Diploma (HND) in Computer Science programme into four distinct specializations namely Artificial Intelligence, Network & Cloud Computing, Software & Web Development, and Cybersecurity & Data Protection. My opinion is that this should be implemented across the board at all levels of tertiary education as it reflects global trends in workplace demands.
In the same vein, the entire academic curriculum and pedagogy at all levels should be revamped to lean away from the existing theory-only approach and more towards a more practical, research-oriented, skill-based learning to equip the Nigerian employee with the requisite arsenal to compete on the global stage. The huge infrastructural deficit (stable electricity, internet penetration, speed, etc) should also be addressed while heavy investments should be made in specialized technical education.
India took a deliberate step to create a focused national programme to produce IT specialists in programming, software development, and the like. Suppose you were invited by President Tinubu to address a special joint session of the Federal Executive Council and the leadership of the National Assembly, what would you tell them about remote work and the way to rapidly produce an army of Nigerians equipped with skills in different aspects of technology adoption, to enable them to earn legitimate income in dollars?
The 21st-century economy is a knowledge economy and a country’s success is a great function of the knowledge repository of its citizenry and manpower. The success India enjoys today as a leading global export of intellectual property and human resources is a harvest of great sacrifices and investments in education made successive decades ago.
I will recommend the following to the Presidency on how to rapidly produce an army of Nigerians equipped with the requisite skill set in different aspects of technology adoption to leverage financial opportunities in remote work
1. Provide incentives and motivation for learning, and reward for academic excellence and innovation. This is to stem the cultural drift away from the pursuit of knowledge and stem the tide of the get-rich-quick syndrome through criminal enterprises.
2. Initiate policies and investments to close the gap in knowledge and infrastructure deficit.
3. Implement and invest in knowledge transfer initiatives. An approach is to partner with international “global knowledge merchants” who are global authorities in various fields. (There are similar initiatives in this direction by the current administration such as the funding of co-creation hubs at the senatorial district level. Another approach is to partner with global enterprises on a train-and-adopt scheme in different fields of expertise.
4. Encourage, adopt, and fund research into indigenous, homegrown technology innovation and solutions.
5. Fund scholarships for Nigerians in niche, futuristic technologies.
6. Create an enabling ecosystem for global enterprises and authorities to berth their business operations in Nigeria
7. Initiate friendly fiscal and monetary policies to remove bottlenecks in receiving foreign exchange via the sales of intellectual property or the rendering of skilled services via remote work.
These are all high-level recommendations that the government can fine-tune with the resources at its disposal for a more granular implementation
