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Preparing Education Leavers for Employment - a conversation with Erefa Coker founder of IMO Interns
40 Plays3 months ago
Regardless of when someone leaves full time education, entering the world of employment is the real 21st Century rite of passage.
You can’t get a job without experience, and you can’t get experience without a job.
Only the biggest employers have the resources to provide training for people entering the workforce.
As a result, getting a foothold on the career ladder can feel like an impossible task, especially when you live in a country that does not provide the same sort of support as the UK.
Erefa Coker is based in Nigeria, a country that does not provide a structured transition from educatioon to employment.
Instead of seeing a problem Erefa saw an opportunity and set-up a company Imo Interns.
Imo Interns provides interns for smaller companies, and at the same time provides the support and training for those young interns that can be a challenge for smaller businesses to provide.
In this episode of The Independent Minds Erefa explains to host Michael Millward how Imo Interns works, the added value that the Nigerian-based interns have delivered for companies in Europe, North America and Australia.
The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr.
Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform, on which you can create your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, and Google. It really does make creating content so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
Find out more about both Michael Millward and Erefa Coker at Abeceder.co.uk
Travel
Imo Interns is based in Lagos Nigeria.
If you would like to visit Nigeria the best place to make your travel arrangements is The Ultimate Travel Club, which is where you can access trade prices for flights, hotels and holidays. Use my offer code ABEC79 to receive a discount on your membership fee.
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Being a Guest
If you would like to be a guest on The Independent Minds, please contact using the link at Abeceder.co.uk.
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Thank you for listening.
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Transcript
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencaster.
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between abecida and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:22
Speaker
I am your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida. As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, the independent minds is made on Zencaster.
Platform Praise and Offers
00:00:33
Speaker
Zencaster is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple and Google. It really makes making content so easy.
00:00:48
Speaker
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencaster, visit zencaster dot.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abecedah. All the details are in the description. Now that I've told you how wonderful Zencaster is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think.
00:01:17
Speaker
but we are hoping to make you think.
Guest Introduction: Irefa Koka
00:01:20
Speaker
Today, my guest independent mind is Irefa Koka, who is the founder of Imu Interns. Imu is a word from one of the indigenous languages of Nigeria, which is appropriate because that is where Imu Interns is based.
Experiences in Lagos, Nigeria
00:01:38
Speaker
I've been to Nigeria quite a few times. Well, to Lagos specifically where I've delivered lots of management courses for all sorts of businesses. If I go to Nigeria again I will be sure to book my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because the Ultimate Travel Club is where I can access trade prices on flights and hotels etc. There is a link and a membership discount code in the description.
00:02:04
Speaker
now hello e i my how you doing um good thank you yes sir Good. I'm not too bad at all. In fact, I'm brilliant. I'm brilliant because, you know, I'm brilliant. That's good. It's good to be brilliant. I'm a bit nervous. I always get nervous when I, yeah when I'm recording ah an episode of The Independent Minds with someone that I've known for a long time. But hey, here we go. Please could we start by you telling us a little bit about who Alefa Koka is, please.
Foundation of Imo Interns
00:02:33
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So I'm an HR consultant, as you know. I have um been in HR for a number of years.
00:02:39
Speaker
run my HR consultant firm. And I know you, Michael, I was one that brought you to Nigeria. Yes. And we both worked together for you to live in those courses for those large businesses across Nigeria. And in most recent time, I have founded a company called, I know you said it pronounced it IMO, but it's IMO. IMO, which means knowledge in Nigeria helps businesses find cost effective talent.
00:03:07
Speaker
And this interns work out of Nigeria to support so small businesses across the world. And it's a two-way street, as the word implies, email implies and knowledge. We're also using that to help this young people get a start on their career and also get knowledge of you know it's the real world, our work our work works, and also you know create their own career path. And the business owners will take up this interns also commits to training them.
00:03:36
Speaker
So it's a win-win for book parties where the skies are working remotely out of Nigeria, supporting this business, whether in the UK, in the US, wherever it is in the world, in the Western world.
Operational Model of Imo Interns
00:03:46
Speaker
They're also learning on that job. And this um the business owner i makes a commitment men to at least, we say when they start, the 30 minutes sprints daily, you know, where you're just taking them through what they need to do. And they have an easy communication because we just don't give you the internet as a go away. We have a platform that allows you to manage them so you can um assign tasks to them, you can chat with them. um There's a chart, you can drop videos for them to watch. You know, always say to our client, record everything, you know, whilst you're going through a task yourself, record it and share with them so that they can see the process that goes into doing a task and, you know, when they watch it and and then you talk about it with them.
00:04:28
Speaker
They learn faster. Pretty much, that's what internet, what email email is, you know helping but businesses and those young people get a start in their career. Yes, we hear a lot in the UK and a lot from places like the United States of America and Canada and yeah the European Union about the difficulties that young people face getting into jobs which will lead to careers.
Challenges of Youth Employment in Nigeria
00:04:55
Speaker
And for what you're saying, it sounds like that same sort of issue is also affecting young people as they leave education in places like Nigeria as well.
00:05:04
Speaker
Yes, it's slightly different because we also are faced with unemployment. So whilst unemployment is high, so if they get a job, it's not really like it's going to help them in a career. They just go get a job that they just have to get a job. yeah if they If they're one of the lucky few people that gets into that job, so far from not having a career, but for young people getting into the right career, they're also at risk of not getting a job because the job the unemployment rate is very high. Yeah, some countries in the world like the UK have a lot of well, or shortages of people to fill specific types of jobs. And that means that organizations have to look elsewhere for
Intern Management and Integration
00:05:45
Speaker
them. One of the things that is very interesting is this idea that ah someone is working, doing proper work.
00:05:52
Speaker
for an organization and that part of the arrangement is that the way in which that person is managed is slightly different to what people might have expected from an outsourced, you know, we outsource this work to someone who does it.
00:06:10
Speaker
in another another country, where and then it arrives and it's completed. It can almost be forgotten about whilst the work is being done, which then has all sorts of quality issues, I suppose. you You've got to manage people, you've got to manage processes.
00:06:27
Speaker
But it sounds like what you're doing is is building that management process into to the way in which but you're you're building the development, the training into the management of the process because of the platform that you've developed.
Intern Assessment and Training
00:06:44
Speaker
Yes, yes. So what we do is before, and so we go, we have a set of assessments, so your graduates, so we focus on emerging talent, so zero to five year work experience, no experience at all, or you've just done one year mandatory NRC, which is ah like a mandatory work service, work placement that the government and imposes on all university graduates in Nigeria, we take them through an assessment. So once you've passed the assessment,
00:07:11
Speaker
you then go on our, we call it a boot camp, where we're just teaching you some employability skills training. but teaching how to work remotely, how to work as a virtual assistant, how to do simple things that business owners want, to things that they can outsource, you know, admin task, you know, um emailing, you know, cold emailing, social media, digital marketing, everything that pretty much that if I was a small business owner working with just myself and somebody else in my team, things that we can work together that we can learn on the job, you know, most people are very
00:07:46
Speaker
not very averse to social media and this young kids are very good with social media skills so as a business owner and this young intern you can actually sit down together and create a social media calendar for your business so they're going to talk you through this what I think we should do and then you as a business owner you understand the vision behind your business and say I don't like it that way let's do
Interns in Social Media Strategy
00:08:07
Speaker
it this way And in working together, as you said, it's supposed to just give it to somebody outsourcing and they come up with the idea. You will brainstorm through the ideas and create a yeah social media schedule for your company for social media. If you was um you wanted to do any of the social media, let's take them.
00:08:23
Speaker
Instagram, for example, you want to create a month's worth of um Instagram content for your business, because you know your business, you know your audience. this is But this young chap knows social media, see? so So people coming together with each of their strengths, and then just marrying it together and seeing how you can then yeah translate your message of your business on Instagram. And then they can start with the engagement, what can we do? What should we do?
00:08:49
Speaker
So it means that you're not also you working. They become immersed in your team. They're part of your team for that period. And that's why we call it an internship because an intern comes to learn and also help. So that's the difference here.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah. And in many ways, interns are the exclusive domain of large organizations who can put in the support to make sure that that person does actually develop whilst they're in that in that role. Absolutely. Interns in some ways and and early career people are sometimes seen as cheap labour. Even the people who are here in the UK, when I think back to when I started what became my career in HR,
00:09:35
Speaker
I was working in quite a large HR department, but it always felt as if I don't really know what I'm doing and nobody seems to have the time to tell me what I should be doing. it's You're supposed to learn by the mistakes that you make. But if you give me some information about the mistakes to avoid, I'll ah try and avoid them and all this stuff. But you just end up in a hole in many ways in that up so you can very quickly become very disheartened that I'm trying to do what it is that you've told me to do, but the way in which you've told me is as if I've been doing it for 20
Client-Intern Collaboration
00:10:10
Speaker
years, whereas I'm barely. Absolutely. thank But well you're what you're doing is saying that the people are available to do work for entrepreneurs, small businesses, medium businesses, even bigger businesses, I suppose.
00:10:25
Speaker
but yes Just as you have planned how the person in Lagos or Abuja or wherever they are in Nigeria is going to be working and feeding back into the the client, it also sounds as if what you've also done is worked out what that client needs to do, how they need to behave, what they need to be what they need to learn in order to make sure that the project is a success.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yes, yes, absolutely. absolutely Because the thing about working with young people or working with anyone really is if you're not telling, as I said, looking back at your example, no one told you what to do. Nobody gave you the appropriate feedback. They just said, don't do this. But then, as I said, barely 20 years old. What do you know? You're going to do as much as you think, you know.
00:11:14
Speaker
But if you find someone, and that's the whole concept of an internship is, you know, getting that support, getting someone to tell you what to do, able to give you adequate feedback and just some talk you through how to do it, because you don't know how to do it. So for us, we say, as I said earlier, i say to the client, you have to you can't say i want an internal it's like when people think and that's what when people think is vs in a way not vs we're they're going to come into work as part of your business but they're not virtual assistant so virtual assistant is already there they've smacked they have sold themselves as somebody who can do all your virtual tasks in the
00:11:47
Speaker
when they start they are not supposed to work independently even if they come experience and everything you have to tell them again this is a guy in Nigeria working for a business say for example imagine someone working for you ah Michael they don't know what to do they might send experience but for example if they're doing something for you on a client project the UK label laws is completely different from the Nigerian label law. So if you tell them, oh, go help me, go to help me, the employee handbook. Can you go through this employee handbook for me and tell me if it's okay? They don't know what is okay. They would just use what they know, even if they worked in HR in Nigeria. And so that's fine. But they're going to miss all the things that
00:12:27
Speaker
is important. Some um laws that have been changed in recent times. yeah so as you just and you know It could be as simple as putting a document on a Google Drive or ah any anyd drive and walking through it real time together and just changing some things and putting comments there. and Simple things. When people say, oh, I don't have the time, there's so many ways where you can work with people real time. You know, jump on a call with them, go through the document, say, this is what I need you to do. This is a link to do the research. If you have any questions, come back to me. You know, we make sure we get our clients to dedicate that time. It sounds like the work that the interns will do is the same sort of work as
00:13:11
Speaker
an intern would do if they were in the premises in the UK or the United States or Canada or wherever it is. They're doing the same type of work as I did when I started. You did when you started. We all do the same type of things to learn how an organization operates, how the profession that we're trying to work in operates, the sorts of things that are required to be done. And yeah, we do make mistakes because we're new to it. that You seem to be positioning the whole thing with a client and with, is that it is it like having an intern? It is like having a trainee. It is. Yes. Exactly. That's going with the right expectations. Let's understand what our role as a as an employer, as a business is in making sure that we derive the maximum amount of value from this operation. yeah From having this intern in another country, but they're doing work which they bring skills. They bring skills and knowledge
00:14:14
Speaker
to something which we haven't got, which is why you bring new people in to actually build then, well, you've got the pieces, but you need someone to be the bricklayer to put all the things together to make sure that you get the outcome that you want, that sort of thing. And what you're saying is that in exchange for the knowledge of whatever it is that this person, younger person has, they also gain the knowledge from the employer as well. Yes, correct.
00:14:43
Speaker
It's an exchange of knowledge as much as an exchange of labor. It's an exchange of knowledge as much as an exchange of labor in return for a reward. It's the whole sort of thing. What sort of support do the interns get in Nigeria itself?
00:15:02
Speaker
Okay, so we've got our team. So for example, say an intern is struggling on ah on ah but a particular tax or use of a particular technology, we are there to support them. So take them on um just do a quick crash course and then support them all the way. And then one of the things we've also built is a community of the interns. so Every week they do a once a week meeting together with one of our team members and they go through and the idea is for them to teach each other as well. So it's a community. And learning this is what we're doing. we can I can support you with this.
00:15:31
Speaker
So I'll give you an example. One of our interns was struggling to create videos for their clients. And we have one intern, so I can help you. Let's jump on a call and I'll teach you how to do it. And that's the beauty because they're a community. They're learning together apart from us just giving them the support that they need. So if a client comes up and say, well, can you help my interns struggling with this, where we jump on it and help them, you know, teach them, get them, if they're in Lagos, they can come in person to the office and we do it. If they're outside Lagos, we do virtually with them as well.
00:16:00
Speaker
But the real thing is that is the community sense they get working with their other colleagues, we're working for other clients across um the world as well and just sharing that knowledge within themselves. So you're starting to
Community and Support for Interns
00:16:11
Speaker
describe something which sounds a little bit like a graduate training program. Forces. in those way If you had a an organization with a graduate training program, an intern program in the UK, the graduates that trainees, the interns would not be operating independently of everyone else. If you have a a remote worker that can be this whole, they know very little about your organization and they know very little about other the people working for it.
00:16:39
Speaker
What you're doing is providing the infrastructure of support both within the intern community and also having experts, professionals on hand to actually help those those people support them. and and but The client has said this, this is what I'm thinking of doing.
00:16:56
Speaker
Well, no, you might think about doing it this way. Go back to the client type of thing. So you've got the voice of experience there as well as the intern. So you're starting to build something that could be a bit more of a graduate training program. Yeah. um And then at least the graduate training format. I suppose it's a graduate training program. Yeah.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yes. is that's what you know So a bit of background to what I've done. Initially in Nigeria, I used to run this thing called a graduate finishing school. And he was focused on just getting young graduates out and giving them employability skills training. And then he was free. We just did it so that they could get a job for themselves.
00:17:33
Speaker
And it's the same thing. The trainees would give us our interns a fee. There's no cost to it. But it's still the same concept of this um graduate training program. But now where they're working for different... you know For a graduate training program, you're working for one business, right? Yes. So every graduate trainee is on the scheme working for this business. But there's people working for in but different business. Some of them are working for just one coach, a coach who is offering coaching services to individuals or to businesses and things like that. And they are learning on that, taking that, bringing back to their community of other interns and just saying, this is what we're doing, this is what we could do better, as you said. And then our own our community to lead for that looks at it and say, okay, this is what you need. Okay, we have somebody that can help you with the training. We have someone that can help you with the training. And it's just, so as I said, using that guidance scheme, training scheme, but with it all, you know, in the all broader sense because we're working with multiple businesses and multiple needs, multiple requirements from different that they all require. This puts all the the bricks together. yeah Now, if somebody's thinking about contacting you and saying, I want one of these interns to help my business, what's the sort of things that you look for in a client? First of all, as I said, do you have a time
00:18:46
Speaker
Because I don't want you coming thinking, oh, I've got somebody who's going to jump on it and go. We don't have that person for you. You want somebody that will lend your business and grow. So if you have that time to work and lend with this intern, yes, you're right candidate for us. But if you haven't got the time, if you just want someone to deliver the work, you better have going to the perpetual assistance who's very experienced in fascinating and fast in keeping that work.
00:19:09
Speaker
So the right kind of resources that an employer was willing to put in the work to get the best out of their intern, their graduate intern, because they say university graduate. Yes. Yeah, which is an important thing. I think in many ways, that is a skill that many employers would benefit from gaining having that ability to explain to someone what it is that you want done and how you want it done. And by when you want it done, the skills of delegation and development are things which very often we can forget are very important in the way in which we talk to people and getting things done for our business. So there is a benefit for an organization. If you can make the time available to talk to someone who's learning, then you yourself will develop a skill that then you can use with other employees, even longstanding employees as well as new starters as well.
00:20:02
Speaker
It's that ability to look at the issue from the other person's perspective and work out what they really do know, what they don't know, and how you can help them to learn without in a positive way in a positive way. Yes, yes. I suppose that's it. yeah it's helpful It's helpful for book parties. appla I had a client who, after having a call with me, she when i she said, oh, I'll get back to you in a week. And then she came back to me, because everything's still not ready. Give me another week. And when she came back in a week, Michael, she had an old video of her just doing different tasks. And I said to her, you already have your
00:20:38
Speaker
you have your first set of workouts because imagine the first week your intern just going through this video and coming back to you with questions. You know, there's a kind of type of client word. Also, I mean, she came back and said, it took me two weeks because I realized that all the stuff I need to do, I need to do it myself and understand how I do it before I teach someone else. And then I thought, let me just record the videos. And they should start to record them, which um was a learning call for as well. It was going back to a business, going back to the business and learning just as you said.
00:21:05
Speaker
letting out to do, you know, she does every day, but just putting herself in a position of teaching somebody it was just helping her, you know, go back through everything and letting to delegate because as a business owner, sometimes we find that we want to do everything ourselves. We don't delegate. Yes. Isn't that the truth?
00:21:23
Speaker
okay It's easier to do it yourself than it is to explain to somebody else how to do it. And one of the things is that what you've just explained there is that sometimes you it's easier to do it than to explain how to do something to someone else, because we haven't actually thought through how we do
Benefits of Process Discussions with Interns
00:21:40
Speaker
it ourselves. It's just automatic pilot. And when we start to think about it the how we do a particular job, we can then start to see where we're wasting time, where we're wasting resources.
00:21:52
Speaker
and That, and again, is another benefit of sharing how you want something done with individuals who have no knowledge of it. yeah You can start to see, actually, this isn't quite such a sensible way to do it. Or they will come back and say, like, why do we do it this way? Why? Why? It's like, yeah, it all seems to to pull together. But the basis of imo, in turns, did I say it correctly that time?
00:22:22
Speaker
you get You're getting closer. I'm getting closer. I'm getting closer. yeah should point out that At the end at the um end of the courses that we run in Nigeria, your effort would make me hand out certificates and read out everybody's name. I very rarely got them wrong, but it is you the it is a when you're used to speaking English, then speaking ah different languages can be ah can be quite tricky, but we make an effort. It's making an effort that is important. No, no, Michael, you did used to try. As I said, you really made me speak. You did try. Yes. Yes. I remember someone gave you a Nigerian name at some point. I can't remember what it is, but... It probably was. It was probably very, very nice. It was probably very nice, but... Yes, it was a nice name.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah, what we've been talking about ah today is all of those things that are about development and learning how to develop people whilst they're also doing something think of value to us, that fair exchange of knowledge that goes beyond the exchange of labour for
Reciprocal Learning Dynamics
00:23:28
Speaker
money. it's Everybody learns in every learning situation, but the person who needs to learn and the person who's trying to help that person learn will also learn. If you're a teacher you will but you will learn from your pupils is ah is an old saying. What you've developed is I think a ah model that could be used by lots of organizations but at the moment you're focused on helping
00:23:54
Speaker
The youth of Nigeria find the right type of work that helps them develop their careers by interacting, I suppose, with organizations from around the world, which I think is great. I think it's great. yes and ah really I'm grateful for you spending the time today too to share what it is that you're doing with with me and um explaining more about it. Thank you very much for your time.
00:24:15
Speaker
Thank you for having me, Michael. co Thank you. Thank you for at least giving the opportunity to explain what I'll do. And speaking with you is great at being on the independent mind. It's been great. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:24:28
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the managing director of Abisida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind Edefa Kolkar, the founder of IMO Interns. You can find out more about both of us at abisida.co.uk. There is a link in the description.
00:24:47
Speaker
As well as links to Abisida and Imo interns, the description also includes links to Zencaster and the Ultimate Travel Club, together with the discount codes. That description is really well worth reading. If you've liked this episode of The Independent Minds, please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe.
00:25:14
Speaker
Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abisida is not to tell you what to think, but like today, we do hope to make you think. All that remains for me to say is until the next episode of The Independent Minds. Thank you for listening and goodbye.