‘Productivity is crucial to economic development’

Kashim Akor

By Collins Olayinka
The Director General of National Productivity Centre (NPC), Dr. Kashim Akor, in this interview with COLLINS OLAYINKA, explains the importance of productivity in repositioning the economy for improved efficiency and increasing individual outputs.

What is productivity within the context of national development? 

Productivity may seem to be a nebulous concept to most Nigerians, but it clearly defines the role of the National Productivity Centre in national development. It is the duty of the Centre to demystify the concept and reduce it to a level that it becomes understandable to the common man and how it can be factored into the way of life of individuals and organisational planning. Therefore, productivity is simply the ratio of output over input. In other words, it is where output represents the goods and services produced while inputs are the resources that went into the production process. So, in a nutshell, for productivity to increase, there is baseline to determine the level of resources that have been committed into production and the level of resources used within the period of measurement. If the same resources were used but now higher yields are achievable in terms of result and output, that means that productivity has indeed increased. When the same resources or even less resources are used and getting same or higher output, it also means that productivity has increased. 

For people to understand easily, productivity is the efficient management of resources.
This brings to the fore the issue of innovation and value addition of resources. Efficiency means doing the right thing at the right time. Doing the right thing at the wrong time will not bring about the desired result. So, the right things must be done at the right time to get maximum result. 

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Another angle of productivity that is very important, which the Centre places high premium on is the attitude of the mind. The mind must be nurtured in such a manner that it seeks continuous improvement. It is like motivation, but there must be that internal driving force that seeks improvement for greater accomplishments. So, one would develop a mindset that whatever one is doing now, no matter how good it is, it can be improved upon. Attitude of the mind that seeks continuous improvement is very important. 

What is the Centre doing to ensure the creation of that mindset in Nigerians? 
The problem of most Nigerians in terms of productivity is attitude. Take the public service as an example. The attitude of most workers is that government job belongs to nobody. People fail to understand that the government is you and I and our work and behaviours toward it is what we get as a people. So, attitude is one key area we have been working on. The Centre has been able to put in place some strategies and activities that are aimed at drumming it into the psyche of Nigerians the need for them to be productivity conscious.