Director, Administration/Registrar, Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies, Mrs. Deborah Olalere, and the Permanent Secretary, Kwara State Teaching Service Commission, Ilorin, Chief Samuel Ayobola,have identified capacity building as key to increased organisational productivity.

They spoke during the monthly summit at MINILS of the Kwara State branch of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigerian in Ilorin on Tuesday.

Olalere urged management of organisations to expose their employees to modern skills, technologies and global best practices so as to remain competitive.

Ayobola said capacity building, though very essential, may not alone guarantee maximum productivity.  He stated that it must go alongside with the right pay or motivation, conducive work environment and availability in sufficient quality and quantity of working tools.

According to him, it is the totality of the above strategies that could aid employees to achieve maximum productivity for the benefits of the workers and the organisations.

Ayobola also said that continuous retraining of employees would enhance their skills and productivity.

According to him, experience not renewed will definitely be a liability in this age of technological advancement. He noted that workers could not use 19th century knowledge and experience to solve 20th century work problems.

He added that continuous capacity building process would keep the workers abreast of the current trend and the approach to adopt to be able to cope.  He stated that capacity building equips the beneficiary with knowledge, attitude and practice.

“It is, therefore, imperative to continually and consistently renew and update the workers skill, knowledge and experience. The world is dynamic and the dynamics of workplace continue to change,” he said.

According to him, to carry out the analysis of training needs, employees or prospective training participants may be interviewed.

“Superior officers too can identify where gaps exist in the organization, which may give rise to training needs. Some of these areas may include low production, slow service delivery to the public, poor morale, bad supervision, lack of communication, poor staff deployment.

“These situations are easily observable in many organisations and can be corrected by appropriate training.

“A step equally important to training needs assessment is the assessment of already existing capacity in an organisation.  Capacity assessment will help to identify the already existing basis that new capacity building can build upon,” Ayobola said.