Author: Chidi Light

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Career advice Tech

Benefits of Working Remotely.

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The outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020 necessitated a change in work structures around the world. This development led to a shift in organizational attention, to the immense potential of a system that could accommodate millions of people working independently from different locations to achieve organizational goals.

Remote Work – Brief History 

Remote workers did not just appear from anywhere. The practice of working from any location other than an office is as old as man and the internet.

History shows that the practice of working in offices and factories originated just after world war 1 – the industrial revolution, long after man had revolutionized the systems of trade and business.

Despite the increase in office culture over the years, remote jobs and the practice of remote work have remained relevant, co-existing side-by-side with office practice for the completion of unfinished tasks after work hours.

Remote working has always been an integral part of our work culture even though it hadn’t been given widespread acceptance as we now have it. From the usage of staff-only servers where information is passed from superior to subordinate; to online staff meetings and social media conferencing, in one way or another, we all have done remotely what ought to be done within the confines of an office.

This article discusses the advantages of working from home, as well as how working from home, can enhance global living standards. It goes on to explain how a “work from home” policy might help an organisation’s output.

Why Remote Work?

Working from home has the following advantages:

  • Improved Employee Productivity
  • Reduction in Operational Cost
  • Improved Market Penetration
  • High Staff Retention Ratio
  • Better Work-Life Balance

Improved Employee Productivity

An analysis of efficiency on remote work was carried out in March 2021 by Jose Maria Barrero of the autonomous Institute of Technology, Mexico, and Steven .J. Davis of Chicago booth. The statistical results showed that, as of March 2021, a year after the coronavirus pandemic, 60% of America’s working population worked remotely and were said to be more productive working from home.

Employees who work from home are generally more productive than those who add an office to their workspace. This is so because the freedom to establish their work hours allows employees to work when they are most productive, rather than the usual 9 to 5 hours.

Remote work eliminates the stress that comes with having to pick the right outfit for work, and most importantly, commuting. With an almost weightless gadget like a P.C (personal computer) and an internet connection, loads of work can quickly be done – a clear definition of Productivity.

“Remote work allows individuals to figure when they’re most relaxed and within the most efficient state of mind, leading to increased productivity”.

Reduced Operational Costs

Operational costs are the expenses that a company incurs in order to stay in business. Organisations invest a lot of money every year to keep their offices in good shape – from repairs to replacements to upgrades, keeping an office is pricey for what it is worth.

Working from home helps to keep these expenses to a bare minimum. Remote working focuses on worker output and work flexibility rather than amassing operational expenditures. Because these people work remotely and report online, it allows a firm to choose a more flexible headquarters that doesn’t have to be as large to suit a large number of employees.

Working from home saves money on rent and reduces the need for multiple branch offices across the country. It reduces business overhead costs like electricity tariffs and office building insurance. As a result, working remotely reduces unneeded costs from an organisation’s total revenue, increasing the amount of profit available at the end of the fiscal year.

“Remote work focuses on worker production and job flexibility rather than operational expenditures“.

Improved Market Penetration

Simply said, market penetration refers to the level to which a company’s product offering is valued, purchased, and consumed by the local population.

Remember that working remotely allows a company to save money on operations. A lower operational cost corresponds to a lower manufacturing cost. With lower production costs, businesses can concentrate on producing high-quality goods and selling them at lower prices, making the product more appealing to the general public (Ceteris paribus and vis-à-vis, the lower the price, the higher the demand).

Working remotely also assists with market penetration through unconscious online marketing activities. Employees are sometimes unaware of the process, hence the term “unconscious.”

The frequent use of the internet to search, send, and receive data causes the internet to save certain keywords related to a company’s product offering, so that whenever a random user performs a search query using any of the keywords, the product offering is listed as one of the possible results, keeping the product in front of potential customers at all times. This is unintentional and so extremely cheap.

“With a lowered cost of production, businesses may specialise in producing quality items and selling for lower prices, making the merchandise more appealing within the broader market”.

Higher Employee Retention

Rapid employee turnover rate in an organisation reflects managerial incompetence and bad working conditions. Employees are more likely to stay with a company if they believe the company is committed to their personal development.

Working from home reduces the likelihood of employee turnover in the first two years of employment. This is because employees who work remotely have greater control of their time, feel more trusted and valued, enjoy their remuneration which does not have to get spent on commuting to long-distance offices, can share the workload through different time zones in the day, place more value on teammates and receive all the incentives they deserve at the right time- an effect of increased profit.

Remote workers are 13 per cent more likely than on-site workers to stay in their current jobs for the next five years or longer.

“Employees who work from home have more control over their time, feel more trusted and revered, and luxuriate in their salary because they’re not required to commute to long-distance workplaces”.

Better Work-Life Balance

One quotation that makes employees want to quit their jobs and start their own firm, which seems like achieving their ambitions, is “A pay-check is the bribe you get for choosing not to pursue your dreams.”

Working remotely allows you to make a paycheck while working for a business and pursuing your passions at the same time, dear employee. Working from home allows you to spend more time with your family while still being able to attend work on a daily basis.

With remote employment, a father no longer has to miss his son’s basketball game due to a long work day, and a mother no longer has to miss her daughter’s eighteenth birthday due to an important business trip. Remote work engenders profitability and happiness, a clear win-win situation.

“Working remotely, dear employee, allows you to earn a paycheck while working for an organisation and pursuing your dream at an equivalent time“.

Remote Work and The Nigerian Transport Dilemma 

Nigerians who don’t own cars understand that jumping from shuttle to shuttle while trying to make your way to work every morning is enough reason to have a bad day.

Chances are that, when you finally make it to the office after surviving the many dramas that come with public transportation, you are already demotivated and not as productive as you ought to be.

Like this wasn’t enough, there is now the trouble of a galloping cost of transportation. It is funny how the cost of public transportation is almost equivalent to half your paycheck at the end of the month.

But these can be averted simply by changing work structures that enable employees conveniently sit in their primary location, yet deliver as much work as they’d normally do in the office – Remote Working

Conclusion

The benefits of working remotely far outweigh its disadvantages. The prevalence of the internet and breakthroughs in communication technology have added to the advantages of remote work.

Every business in the 21st century is beginning to not only go digital but work remotely. Remote work is no longer a pipe dream; it is now a reality that we must accept.

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Career advice General Mentorship Tech Tech For Good

When She Leads: Women in Leadership and Technology Roles in Africa

lady speaking at a tech event

Spread across history are the many contributions of women and the woman folk to development and civilization. In today’s world, women have become major players in almost every important sector of the world, leadership, and technology inclusive. The role of women as key players in leadership and technological advancement becomes even more pronounced as the world advances towards complete dependence on technology. 
This article seeks to beam the spotlight on the many women who are working tirelessly to contribute effectively to technological advancement in Africa. It further highlights the importance of women in Leadership roles.

Women In Leadership Roles

Leadership has never been gender-dependent. It’s the qualities inherent or cultivated by an individual that determines their success as leaders. Let’s take a look at some of the women who have chosen to challenge the status quo wherever they find themselves, who fight for a more equal future, and who have helped shape history!

  1. Ngozi Okonji Iweala – Development Economist

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a Nigerian- American economist and international development expert who has served since March 1, 2021, as Director-General of the World Trade Organization. She is the first woman and the first African to hold the office. She sits on the boards of Standard Chartered Bank, Twitter, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, and the African Risk Capacity(ARC). Previously, Okonjo-Iweala spent a 25-year career at the World Bank as a development economist, scaling the ranks to the number two position of managing director, operations (2007-2011).
She also served two terms as finance minister of Nigeria (2003-2006, 2011- 2015) under President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan, respectively. She was the first woman to serve as the country’s finance minister, the first woman to serve in that office twice, and the only finance minister to have served under two different presidents. Okonjo-Iweala is the founder of Nigeria’s first indigenous opinion-research organization, NOI-Polls. She also founded the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa (C-SEA), a development research think tank based in Abuja, and is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development and the Brookings Institution.
Since 2019, Okonjo-Iweala has been part of UNESCO’s International Commission on the Futures of Education. Since 2019, she has also been serving on the High-Level Council on Leadership and Management for Development of the Aspen Management Partnership for Health (AMP Health).
Okonjo-Iweala Okonjo has received numerous recognitions and awards. She has been listed as one of the 50 Greatest World leaders (Fortune, 2015), the Top 100 Most Influential People in the World (TIME, 2014), the Top 3 Most Powerful Women in Africa (Forbes, 2012). She was listed among 73 “brilliant” business influencers in the world by Conde Nast International.
 Okonjo-Iweala has received honorary degrees from 14 universities worldwide, including some from the most prestigious colleges: -University of Pennsylvania (2013) -Yale University (2015) -Amherst College (2009) -Trinity College, Dublin (2007) -Colby College (2007) 

  1. Graca Machel – Politician and Humanitarian

Graca Machel is a prominent Mozambican woman who, for decades, has worked for women’s rights, education, and peace. Despite a long career as a feminist leader, she is best known for her two marriages, initially to Mozambique’s first president Samora Machel, and later to Nelson Mandela, when he was president of South Africa. 
Graca Machel is an international advocate for women’s and children’s rights and was made an honorary British Dame by Queen Elizabeth Il in 1997 for her humanitarian work. She is the only woman in modern history to have served as First Lady of two countries, South Africa and Mozambique.
Graca Machel is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa. As a panel member, she facilitates coalition building to leverage and broker knowledge and convenes decision-makers to influence policy for lasting change in Africa. She was chancellor of the University of Cape Town between 1999 and 2019. Graca Machel received the 1992 Africa Prize, awarded annually to an individual who has contributed to the goal of eliminating hunger in Africa by the year 2000.
Machel received the 1992 Africa Prize, awarded annually to an individual who has contributed to the goal of eliminating hunger in Africa by the year 2000. Following her retirement from the Mozambique ministry, Machel was appointed as the expert in charge of producing the groundbreaking United Nations report on the impact of armed conflict on children.
On 17 January 2016, she was announced by UNESCO as a Sustainable Development Goals Advocate.
Ms. Machel is a current member of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders who work together for peace and human rights that she co-founded with her husband, former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

  1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Novelist and Feminist Campaigner

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in 1977 to a middle-class Igbo family in Enugu, Nigeria. Her mother became the first female registrar at the University of Nigeria, while her father was a professor of statistics there. Pressured by social and familial expectations, Adichie ‘did what I was supposed to do’ and began to study medicine at the University of Nigeria. 
After a year and a half, she decided to pursue her ambitions as a writer, dropped out of medical school, and took up a communication scholarship in the US. Chimamanda has bagged nothing less than 15 honourary doctorate degrees from respected universities around the world. Adichie’s three novels all focus on contemporary Nigerian culture, its political turbulence, and at times, how it can intersect with the West. She published Purple Hibiscus in 2003, Half of a Yellow Sun in 2006, and Americanah in 2013.
Her novels and wider writings are the best windows into Adichie’s incisive and emotive imagination. She has delivered several impressive talks that get to the heart of their subject. They broadly encompass race and gender and our tendency to accept what we are taught without recognizing ingrained prejudice.
Her 2009 lecture, The Danger of a Single Story, is a brilliant discussion of race, but her argument is cleverly applicable across many broader contexts. In this lecture, her discussion of US perceptions of Mexicans as the ‘abject immigrant’ during the early 2000s, could just as easily be transferred to our current hysteria about Syrian refugees entering Europe.
Adichie’s 2013 lecture We Should All Be Feminists discusses the damaging paradigms of femininity and masculinity. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, “You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful otherwise, you would threaten the man.”
Adichie argues that Feminism should not be an ‘elite little cult’ but a party ‘full of different feminisms.’ It is an important message to take to heart – we are imperfect. We are attempting to unlearn what we have unconsciously learned and simultaneously discover new ways of seeing.

  1. Daphne Nkosi – Executive Chairperson at Kalagadi Manganese Pty Ltd

Daphne Nkosi is the executive chairman of Kalagadi Manganese Pty Ltd, which is the first African- woman-founded and predominantly African-women-led mining company in the world. Daphne Nkosi’s formidable drive as a business powerhouse, social worker, political activist, and women’s rights campaigner, has its roots in the impoverished rural environment and staunchly patriarchal society of her birth.
In 2015, the Africa Female Business Leader of the Year was awarded to her The international title was presented to her at the 2015 African Business Awards held in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Daphne is committed to the people of South Africa and uses every available resource to enrich the lives of the average South African. She is responsible for the creation of more than 30 000 jobs in the Northern Cape and will go down in history as the mother of the largest mining venture.

Importance Of Women In Leadership and Technology roles

It’s no secret that women are highly underrepresented in the tech industry. But have you ever considered the great benefits of a gender-inclusive team in your organization? Read further to learn more about the importance of women in the tech industry and the value they can bring to organizations that employ them.

  1. Diversity of Thought

Collaboration between team members of different backgrounds, genders, and races can open a world of creativity and innovation, work efficiency, better communication, and increased team success.
Men and Women see things from different perspectives so having a diverse team can lead to an input of unique ideas which will enable better problem-solving skills and eventually boost performance level!
Having a diverse team also means having the capabilities to understand the pain points of all members of a target demographic and, this aids in proferring the best solutions.

  1. Mentors and Role Models

Imagine facing a gender-based issue at your workplace and not having a mentor of the same gender to talk to at the end of the day!😔😔
Having a female mentor that helps you as a woman in tech is very beneficial. It causes a ripple effect because the more women mentor other women, the more it encourages them to come into the tech space and thrive! 

On 8th March 2021, First Check Africa introduced #ChooseToChallenge with a focus on highlighting the 30 Nigerian Women in Tech challenging the Status Quo. Read about them here.
Conclusion: There are more women in leadership and technology who are breaking ancient ideologies, it is of utmost importance that we see them as allies than as threats. The tech space is vast enough to accommodate people from every work of life, gender, and race. Women in technology and leadership positions is a yes in the 21st century given the pace at which technology evolves daily. From little children to teen girls, to nursing mothers and aged women, tech and leadership should become dominant.  

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Best practices Career advice General Team Management Tech

The Most Basic Skills You Need For a Tech Career

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The highest earning people in almost every profession, not excluding the tech industry, aren’t always those with lots of certifications and technical know-how. They are usually not the “geekiest” people in the team, yet you wonder why they are always team leaders, corporation managers, occupy very important positions in every organization, earn the highest figures in pay and lead happy lives. Whether you want to build a career in the tech industry for only a few years or the rest of your life, soft skills are a sure bet for achieving a tech career that offers you fulfillment. This article defines the concept of soft skills, outlines the five most important soft skills everyone needs to possess given the dynamic work conditions of this century, why soft skills are necessary and how to acquire them. Do not forget to subscribe to our newsletter to get updated on new trends in tech and all you need to be successful as a 21st century techie.

What are soft skills?

Soft skills are a set of social, interpersonal and emotional skills, a blend of which enables people efficiently carry out tasks in work and non-work environments made up of human beings. Soft skills are necessary in every field of human endeavor as long as it involves day to day interaction with people.

Best-five 21st century soft skills.

The following are a list of the five most important soft skills needed in the tech industry for a competitive advantage:

 Critical Thinking

 Team work

 Time management

 Leadership

Wondering what each of these skills are and how they blend to offer a mix of job success and customer satisfaction? Also wondering why they are ranked as the best-five 21st century soft skills? Keep reading.

¶. Critical Thinking: This means an ability to intelligently analyze and proffer solutions to problems. It requires mastery in tackling problems as bits of an entire whole- abstraction. This skill demands creativity, curiosity and flexibility.

¶. Teamwork: You most certainly know by now that “TEAM” is an acronym for “Together Everyone Achieves More”. Guess what? Your organization also knows about this acronym and wants to achieve high efficiency through the various teams and departments in the organization, they expect this from you too. Teamwork is the ability to contribute ideas and manpower towards the achievement of a common goal. This means sacrificing all of your time and energy to ensure that the common goal gets achieved. Teamwork demands communication, tolerance, patience and a willingness to bear the burden of a lagging teammate. This is a difficult skill given the various difference in likes and dislikes specific to different humans, yet teamwork ranks the highest in its ability to achieve organizational goal in the shortest possible time. To learn more about teamwork, click https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-teamwork-work-11196.html

Time Management: Time management is a skill that involves giving priority to important tasks and getting them done before focusing on leisure activities. Given the peculiarity of jobs in the tech industry and how dynamic certain tasks tend to be, clients are always hoping to have their projects delivered in the shortest possible time, hence the need for time management. Time management cuts across intentional planning of work schedules, to-do lists and progress level markers.
¶. Leadership: No leader is born. Yea! Read that again. Leaders aren’t born but made. As a soft skill, leadership involves directing the affairs of others to get tasks done in record time. It demands understanding various viewpoints of different people, strategic decision making, and firmness to follow through with previously laid out plans, not ignoring the intelligent suggestions from team members. Leadership involves a lifelong learning process to manage new sets of people given new working conditions.

¶. Networking: Networking is the art of creating relationships for organizational benefit. Networking creates room for growth and strengthens business connections.

If you gained value from reading this article, stay glued for the next episode where we’ll talk about the 10 easy steps to acquire and master soft skills.

If you need help starting your tech career, techrity has got you covered. Click on https://techrity.org/ to learn More.

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Career advice Kickstart Tech

Reasons to Consider a Job in Tech

You probably have heard all about the importance that comes with the position of a lawyer, doctor, accountant and all of the regular corporate world job titles. What you most likely have not heard is that aside those corporate positions and the prestige they offer, there are a wide range of other career options that offer as much relevance as a job in the corporate world, with an added advantage of having to work from any location in the world at any time in the day deemed convenient.

A bulk of these career options is found in the Tech industry. Data science, software development, information security analysis, computer systems analysis, web development, search engine optimization, technical writing and artificial intelligence are some of the high demand career options that exist in tech.

If you’ve always wanted a job that allows you all of the freedoms you deserve to lead a happy life while harnessing the best parts of your mental capability; if you fancy the idea of contributing effectively to making the world better yet remain behind the scene, you definitely should consider getting a job in Tech.

Here are five reasons you should consider a job in tech, especially if you desire to contribute a part of your mental ability to increasing world innovations while getting rewarded.

  1. Skill over qualification
  2. Opportunity for innovation
  3. Opportunity for growth
  4. Possibility of working remotely
  5. High demand

Skill over Qualification: Jobs in tech such as web development, digital marketing, artificial intelligence, cloud computing etc., do not necessarily need a lot of paper work to get you hired and strapped in for a new project. Unlike regular office jobs, tech career options reserve the best positions for the most skillful and emphasizes competence over certifications. A job in the tech industry has no discrimination whatsoever on age, gender, nationality or religion as long as the job gets done.

 Opportunity for Innovation: Technology is evolving daily, thanks to the millions of tech-professionals working daily to make things easier. You can agree with me that twenty years ago, an interactive website with a very colorful landing page used to seem like a luxury especially in developing continents like Africa.  Today everyone can have access to millions of specialized websites in seconds, connecting from virtually anywhere in the world. This is proof of how quickly technology has evolved in the past two decades. This trend therefore suggests that, a career option in any tech field, gives no room for monotonicity and boredom as every day is an opportunity for innovation.

Opportunity for Growth: Tech knowledge is pretty easy to acquire with practice and consistency. A job in tech offers you the opportunity to get better in your primary skill and pick up a few new skills.  In tech, it’s all about working and growing.

Possibility of Working Remotely: Not many career options can boast of liberty to have workers function remotely, away from the supervising eyes of Management yet perform at maximum efficiency. Taking on a job in any field of tech allows you the liberty to work in an environment other than the organizations facility, yet function effectively.

High Demand: These days, everyone depends on one form of tech or another to get through daily life activities. From social media handling, to creating just the right designs for banners and business logos, down to completing a college assignment, there is always a need for the use of the computer and internet enabled devices; Thus an increase in the demand for tech savvy individuals with every tick of the clock. This  insinuates that getting a high paying job in the tech industry isn’t just a possibility but a norm in our century.

       To conclude, the tech industry isn’t just interesting, it is also rewarding. A job in tech might just be your first step to career fulfillment and financial freedom. Tech-up today!

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