The adoption of a hybrid approach of working remotely within COVID-19 and beyond has been harped on as essential by the Director of Human Resource at Vodafone Ghana, Hannah Ashiokai Akrong.
The HR of Vodafone Ghana stated matter-of-factly that leaders in organizations must adopt this approach, as globally, the pandemic has influenced how organizations work and has increasingly obliged companies to summon technology to assist work.
“The pandemic has impacted how we hire, altered how we work and compelled companies to mobilize technology to aid work. With about 90 percent of the world going on lockdown in March, a good number of business entities had to figure out how to still be productive with staff or employees operating from home.
“If you build the digital tools and infrastructure to work remotely, that’s great but the physical work space is key for brainstorming sessions, collaborations and team bonding. A hybrid system is the way to go”.
Speaking at the 2020 Virtual Accra SDGs Investment Fair, Ashiokai Akrong noted that, her role at Vodafone Ghana involves running a team and staying in touch with line managers and getting updates of staff and progress of assigned work.
“With the informal sector said to constitute about 80 to 90 percent of Ghana’s economy, it’s imperative that the sector is digitized. When COVID-19 pandemic hit, some businesses in the sector such as deliveries and food services went online and utilized social media platforms.
“There’s no business which cannot harness the power of technology and innovation”.
Additionally, with Vodafone Ghana dedicating September to SMEs, she highlighted the fact that there are training programmes mapped out for those in the informal sector to digitize their operations to bridge the technological gap.
Ms. Akrong believes modifications to education modules is well overdue especially in current use where a lot of classroom learning is done within a theoretical framework and end of year examinations.
She was of the view that with little physical contact, continuous assessment rather be done using more of online work.
“Students can be given reading material ahead of a class for them to undertake research and be prepared for a discussion. Academia and industry must both play their roles.
“It was heartwarming to have Rita Akosua Dickson, the first female Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology come to Vodafone Ghana to forge such a working relationship to involve industry more to know what exactly they require to prepare graduates who are job market-ready”.
In her parting shot, she highlighted the significance of Ghanaian students as well as African students exhibiting interest and being equipped for jobs and working in areas such as Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Process Automation.
“There are many free online courses to take advantage of Udemy, Inc. the American online course provider aimed at professional adults and students has over 1,600 courses. Adding Yale, Harvard, Coursera and the Microsoft partnership with LinkedIn all give free courses or paying ones for as little as $15.”
