Every business thrives with meritocracy of its human resources engagement, involvement in the day-to-day operations, creativity, innovation, and planning in the organizations to meet the end goal. Engagement is not simply a place where humanity co-exists, it’s a place of connecting minds, hearts, and hands to fulfill a given goal. Engaged Teams accomplish more and exhibit a higher level of innovation and growth through healthy competition. Trends are showing employee retention and productivity are highly impacted by the growing loss of interest in work affecting business growth in many ways.
Humanity has an inherent instinct to contribute meaningfully to society as a heritage of its legacy for personal well-being and satisfaction. Work is part of a human cycle of progression and is one of the pillars of mental health. The absence of the desire to work petrifies underlying symptoms of loss for continuity. In many instances, this follows questioning of the reason to live hence suicidal ideation. It's no wonder depression is on the increase each year in Africa. For businesses to make sustainable progress, an active and productive workforce are key ingredients. Society grows and thrives on the livelihood of its health and vibrant workforce. Even technology to complement or replace humanity’s efforts requires a mind behind its innovation, functioning, and advancement. This therefore makes human capital engagement a key component in business progress and advancement in every perspective.
For Africa to take advantage of the current window of business opportunity to showcase its hidden potential, work culture transformation is going to be very critical to ignite human capital engagement.
Understanding The Risk
While the unemployment gap grows wider each year, it is appalling that even the employed workforce is losing interest and purpose for work, hence many get employed as simply a way of earning a living or trend of life. This is a huge risk, especially for Africa in its development stages. According to a new global study (State of the Global Workplace by Gallup: 2023 Report), while global workplace engagement increased by 23%, North and Sub-Saharan Africa scored 85% and 81% disengagement levels with Europe having the highest scores at 87%. But what is the major cause for the shift in mindset to draw lessons for risk management and mitigation?
When I was growing up, my mother always reiterated this voice, “A woman does not fall sick because she is the fiber of a home” She would even add “If you are very sick, at least stretch to sit outside to feel the fresh breeze as you either supervise work being done or do small pieces of work like washing plates.” The body would respond and forget about the sickness and life would continue. This always worked amazingly and made me learn that working or serving is a constant for human beings regardless of the condition of their physical or emotional state. I believe this handed me an opportunity to be self-motivated to carry out tasks, serve, and give naturally. No amount of covid lockdown, bad boss, loss, or failure could affect my desire to work. Over time as a Wellness expert and counsellor, I have learned that our positive physical and mental health is the result of our work ethic that controls the mind in a positive direction. Working (occupation) then becomes more than merely an income or life trend but a pillar that infuses wellness while being productive and fruitful to those around us. It's an embedded motivation to give more of yourself through innovation, creativity, and relentless personal provocation to be part of solutions for complex matters of society with the intent to bring comfort or a smile to the world. The desire to see the continuity of yourself then becomes a goal to nurture and pass on what you have to the next generation through mentorship, coaching, knowledge sharing, training, etc... While this may seem obvious, society has shifted into selfish ambitions of riding on advantage of the weak and ignorant to thrive leaving them with no interest to work, share and give. Currently, at our places of work, we see quiet quitting, presentism, absenteeism, work conflict, sabotage, the list is endless. All this is because an inherited desire to work is lost in the matrix of poor upbringing, external influences, leadership limitations or demeaners, and of course mental health issues. Parents and leaders need to understand the importance of an intentional good work ethic legacy to those led.
The Big Picture
Every human being is part of the global puzzle to play a part (purpose) in the world through their mind, heart, and hand. Each has an important part of the puzzle; however, it takes understanding (great leadership of parents & leaders) to draw out this mindset (through engagement & culture, tasks) to function successfully. This is the most fulfilling part of humanity and motivation to work every day. This is called purpose. Human failure to achieve purpose leads to a loss of reason to live, give, and work. This is the number one (1) cause for anxiety, depression, and suicide... It’s been quoted that Africa’s rich functional heritage is buried before hatching into useful purpose. We need to get back to the basics of how the world transitions because the meritocracy of humanity can only progress through the true legacy of the value system of the latter. Losing human capital motivation to work derives risks for negative productivity, financial losses, lack of progress, and loss of reason for existence.
The risk and consequences of human capital disengagement have implications on business sustainability, economic growth, and individual mental health. Focusing on Human Capital engagement is going to take a central role because this is the fiber of life in every business. The timing to reverse the potential heritage to the next generation is of the essence. We can avoid losing a generation to poor work ethics caused by disengagement. It's not surprising that self-driven slavery is taking shape on Africa’s human capital.
Ultimately our relevancy lies in the ability to create solutions that improve engagement and interest to work with purpose in mind. Some of the following can be adopted to rejuvenate the workforce: Establish Labor laws that favor Employee wellness, patriotism, cultural heritage, family structures, religious institutions, and educational systems to encourage and build a value system for good work ethics, reward and invest in youth innovations and talent. Through workplace wellness programs, education and empowerment of individuals are going to be key drivers of employee engagement and performance as they deal with self-psychological saboteurs. It aims to create the necessary balance for mental health as an enabler for performance and growth. Fostering human capital engagement in Africa is a key enabler for accelerating innovation, and creativity for economic development and growth. Let's drive engagement through Employee Wellness programs to mitigate the risk of low/poor production to Secure Africa’s Future.
Helen Mbabazi | Wellness Coordinator - Employee Benefits | Minet Uganda
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