Organisational Repositioning: JAMB Upskills Staff On Team Building

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As a way of sustaining its enviable strides in terms of credible personnel growth and development, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), through its Monthly Lecture Series,  has enjoined members of staff of the Board to imbibe the spirit of teamwork in the workplace.

The July edition of the series with the theme, “Team Building for Re-engineering Organisations” was held at the Board’s Auditorium, National Headquarters, Bwari, Abuja, on Tuesday, 25th July, 2023.

The visiting Director of Test Development Department, Prof. Olutayo Adesina, a Professor of History from the University of Ibadan, who was also the resource person at the event intensively dissected the topic to the admiration of all.

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In his presentation, Prof. Adesina defined  the concept of re-engineering as a “management process for the radical redesigning of organisational procedures to achieve enhanced productivity in the workplace, and provide improved, efficient, timely and transparent services.”

Furthermore, the erudite Professor opined that team building would not only rejig team spirit but also save the amount of time a team spends working on the production of an item, up to the time the product would be ready for delivery.

Continuing, he submitted that team building would provide quality services to the people and encourage employees/clients’ satisfaction.

To do this effectively,  the astute Historian highlighted the necessary skills required for efficient service delivery as Soft and Hard Skills. According to him, soft skills are highly important for repositioning an organisation, stressing that they are needed beyond machines, ICT, and big data.  

“Soft skills, also known as power skills, common skills or core skills, are skills applicable to all professions. They are any skill that does not employ the use of machinery.”

Categorising the skills, the academic cited fifteen essential traits expected to be found among employees as: Communication, Teamwork/Team building, Problem-solving, Time Management, Critical thinking, Decision-making, Organization (the ability to stay organised- planning projects and other details), Stress Management, Adaptability, Conflict Management, Leadership, Creativity, Resourcefulness, Persuasion, and Openness to criticism.

The seasoned scholar opined that the possession of soft or hard skills alone was not adequate for organisational re-engineering, as such, there is a need for collaboration and partnership through teamwork among the employees to cater for their individual weaknesses for effective service delivery.

“If you hire an employee primarily on his soft skills, he might be a great communicator but he would struggle with the technical demands of the job. If you hire primarily on the basis of hard skills, he might deliver in specific conditions but struggle in some situations, hence, teamwork is the key to organisational successes because a team cohesively works together towards a common goal, ” he said.

In his remarks, the Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, expressed his gratitude to the resource person, for x-raying the topic succinctly while admonishing members of staff to constantly update their skills to be able to function as expected in a team.

In her closing remarks, the Ag. Director Quality Assurance Department, Mrs. Doom Iyortyom, expressed appreciation to Professor Adesina for sharing his wealth of knowledge with the members of staff of the Board. She urged the staff to return to their various duty posts and put the knowledge acquired into practical use towards moving the Board to greater heights.