We have started the MSF-France Nigeria Human Resources Roadshow. We are announcing a lot of changes: payscale, job function grid, a new tax law, seniority system, terms and conditions of employment, retirement plan, work hours, work schedules, maternity leave, annual leave planning and counting method, and more! Most of these changes are positive, but there are a few that are less pleasing. It took a lot of work, and it was very difficult to get approval for the package from the Paris headquarters.
Last Monday we announced the new policies to the Abuja coordination staff. Then, we took the 8 hour drive up to the Jahun project on Tuesday, informing the expatriates of what we would be presenting. The big general meeting took place with all the staff on Wednesday morning. Starting Wednesday at 11:30am, we had a series of small group meetings to inform them of the specific changes for their group (salaries, work hours) as well as to answer their questions. These continued all day Thursday.
The reaction has been very positive. The employees are pretty happy overall. I was worried about some of the lower level staffs in Abuja who receive a rather small increase. I was also worried about the staffs in Jahun, who are being asked to work 20% more hours than before. But we were prepared to answer their questions on these issues, and they accepted our arguments.
Today has been dedicated to implementation. I generated contract amendments for everyone, and made some good progress on calculating the correct number of months for the new seniority system. I am waiting on some info from Paris, which I do not think that I will be receiving before leaving tomorrow morning (another 8 hour drive) back to Abuja.
We stay in Abuja for Easter weekend and then leave again on Tuesday to do the same thing in Port Harcourt, returning on Saturday. One group in particular in Port Harcourt risks to be disappointed that we could not get an increase in their function level. And since we have already made the announcements in Abuja and Jahun, everyone will have already heard most of the stuff through their network of friends in the other projects even before we get there.
We may have to split up to have 1 person in each site the week after that to get all the contract signatures, finalize the database parameters, and enter all the changed personal variables into the database. Then we generate the new payslips under the new policies and sent out the money! I am sure that when everyone sees his/her payslip, there will be more questions.
And then I leave Nigeria! I am really happy I am able to see this thing all the way through implementation. I think a lot of information would have been lost if I had had to handover to someone else during the process. And since I had to be the bad guy when I arrived at the end of 2010, introducing the first tax scheme and then announcing that there would be no pay raises in 2011, it is rewarding to be able to announce good news before my departure.
