Rumbles in NIMN as stakeholders pick holes in recruitment process …BJAN calls for caution

The appearance of a few returning staff of the  National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), last week, before the job interview panel, set up by the institute’s Council, left no one in doubt of the avowed resolve of the new leadership of the institute to tinker withits workforce.

The new Council had, in December, intimated members and staff of the institute, of its decision to scale down the volume of its workforce; a development stakeholders believe must be handled with caution.

In a memo, dated December 23, 2016 and sent to all members,  the  institute’s new president, Mr Tony Agenmommen,  had intimated members of his administration’s decision to restructure the institute by abolishing the institute’s zonal structure and reducing its staff strength from 31 to ‘less than a total of 20 people’.

“The current zonal structure will be abolished. We will simply have the national secretariat and the various chapters and no more. When there is need for support, this will be provided by the national secretariat staff.

“The current staff strength including the six in the zones is a total of 31. Compared to similar institutes and relative to our needs, this  number is quite high and bloated. Therefore, in the new structure, there will be less than a total of 20 people,” the memo read.

As a way of reinforcing the message, the NIMN boss was said to have earlier met with the institute’s workforce at the CMD Magodo Head Office in Lagos, few days to the Yuletide, informing them of the

decision of the Council to reconfigure the workforce by disengaging the staff and allowing those still interested in the job, among the workforce to re-apply on or before January 6, this year.

But since the announcement, not a few have faulted the process being adopted by the Council in recruiting a new workforce for the institute.

For instance, many were taken aback that the access to the recruitment portal, opened immediately after the announcement, was shut before the January 6, 201 deadline.

“Some of the staff who resumed here on January 3, this year, and wanted to re-apply, were shocked that they could no longer do that.

Contrary to the president’s words, the portal was actually shut down in December, few days after the announcement. “Is that not a plot to actually shut out some people still interested  in the job?” complained one of the staff of the institute, denied the ‘opportunity’ to re-apply.

Besides, as at the first week of the exercise, only a very negligible number of  staff, that succeeded in re-applying,  had been invited by the recruitment agency for interview, thereby fuelling the above claim of a grand plot to shut some people out.

Interestingly, while the apprehension and the waiting game continue among the staff of the institute, some stakeholders are also presently uncomfortable at the new development and the way the exercise is being carried out.

A fellow of the institute, in a chat with Brands & Marketing, described the whole exercise “as a positive development, but for the timing.”

“While one cannot query the right of the Council to carry out such exercise, but I think it would amount  to  insensitivity on the part of the council to treat workers that had been there through  thick and thin like that, all in the name of restructuring. There should be better ways of doing this,” the fellow argued.

The above argument may not be farther from the truth. As at now, none of the institute’s staff has collected their December salary. And they only received the backlog being owed them at the twilight of the last administration.

Meanwhile,  the Brand Journalists Association of Nigeria ( BJAN), an umbrella body of the nation’s integrated marketing communications writers, has also expressed its concerns at the development,  noting that  such action,  if not properly managed,  could send the institute’s back to that ‘rancorous and dark era’.

While congratulating the new president on his recent victory at the polls, the association, in a statement signed by its president, Mr. Goddie Ofose, appealed to the new NIMN boss to maintain the status quo by suspending the exercise.

“BJAN is not comfortable with this development and we are asking the Council to  maintain the status quo, within the system, so as to avoid a repeat of  the 2003 incident.

“We are  concerned with the probable consequences,  if the current leadership of the NIMN goes on with its planned retrenchment. We fear that this might disrupt the fragile peace currently existing within the institute and marketing practitioners and throw the institute back  to its old, rancorous days, a development we never pray to witness again” the statement read.

Curiously, in his response, the new NIMN boss has denied the planned disengagement story.

“I’m not aware of any staff disengagement. Where did you get the  information? All I know is that the institute’s staffs are on vacation and will resume in January,” he responded, when contacted towards the tail end of last year.

But, in spite of the denials, the disengagement exercise continues.

None of the staff is sure of what the future holds for them in the institute. While those that failed to re-apply, as a result of a shut out by the recruitment portal, prepare for the worst, the lucky ones that met the deadline are not expecting the ‘best’ either.

Words of re-assurance are yet to come, and the peace of the graveyard, being presently experienced at the institute, continues.