Meet The Staff Series

A Good SR Must Have Daily Target, be Diplomatic 

With Customers - Jamil Yusuf  
CCD:  Can you briefly tell us a bit about yourself?

JSY: My name is Jamil Suleiman Yusuf, I am a Sales Representative at Kakuri Service Center under Makera Area Office. I studied Banking and Finance at Abubakar Tafawa University, Bauchi. I joined the service of Kaduna Electric September 2015.

CCD: As a Sales Representative what exactly do you do?

JSY: One of the major activity we do is cash collections, we ensure our customers pay their bills promptly and follow up the defaulters. We engages in personal marketing once, twice and thrice; we then follow up for disconnection. We also do enumeration to know our customers and capture new ones, we also ensure they are billed appropriately.  

CCD: How do you go about assignment to ensure you meet your target?    

JSY: To meet my target, I have a strategy of personal marketing, i.e. Meeting the customers one on one to discuss how they are going to make their payment base on their consumption.  I always look at my monthly target, then divide it by the number of working days in the month, that will be my daily benchmark. With this, my concern shall always be to meet or even surpass my daily target. 

CCD: Is there any challenges you encounter in discharging your duty?

JSY: Yes, we face a lot of challenges, energy theft; we have a lot that are involve in such act, but what we normally do is to disconnect them but when it get out of hand, we  talk to the feeder Manager. We also have those that no matter what you do, they won’t pay. Here in Kakuri Service Centre our challenges are limited. We resolve the energy theft by disconnecting.

CCD: In a place where by you have a customer who consume your energy and is not willing to pay, how do you handle such customers?

JSY: In such situation, after the disconnection, we talk to them; give them reasons why they should be paying their bills; we let them know the effect of perpetual default on the value chain; how the energy we supply to them is generated, transmitted and ultimately distributed and how we as a Company need to pay for energy supplied to us. We let them see the reason why they should pay, we

approach them

Nicely, a lot of people do reason with nice approach, because when both parties are hot, it won’t solve the problem. If they are hot, we talk to them calmly, but if they insist on not paying, we go ahead and disconnect. So, it is combination of diplomacy and some reasonable force.

CCD: Every marketer has his/her achievement, what do you consider as you major achievement?

JSY: My major achievement is detecting energy theft in my own area. There was a time I went to a house, I actually discovered they were on prepaid meter and where giving the hole area water for free, I immediately checked the app and I discovered that they only vends 2-3 thousand naira monthly, I called the attention of the engineers to check the meter and discovered it was by passed. They paid for loss of revenue, and meter penalty.

CCD: What was the total customer population in your cluster when you came on board?

JSY: It was two hundred and eighty three for my cluster and is now around three hundred. In terms of collection, it has never dropped down.

CCD: What suggestion do you have to Management or Staff?

JSY: For the Management, I feel they should increase our welfare and they should understand we do face challenges; we need assistance from them like when it comes to extreme energy theft, we need their hands in assisting us. To my colleagues, we should keep working hard, the sky is our limit.

KADUNA ELECTRIC NEWSLETTER AUGUST 1ST EDITION

Photo news...

The Management of Kaduna Electric in a group photograph with the newly employed staff at the end of their 4-day orientation training program at the Head Office in Kaduna

CMRA Calls for More Synergy and Cooperation Between the Company and Customers

By Asma'u Mohammed

Alh. Abubakar Jimeta, Chief Marketing and Revenue Assurance
delivering his opening  remarks at the forunm

The Chief Marketing and Revenue Assurance Officer, Alhaji Abubakar Jimeta, has appealed to the customers of the Company to accord maximum corporation to the staff of both Kaduna Electric and that of the Meter Asset Providers to ensure the success of the forthcoming MAP scheme.

He made the charge in Kaduna on Wednesday, 24^th July, 2019 during customer engagement and sensitization exercise held for customers within Doka, Barnawa, Rigasa and Makera Area Offices.

 Alh. Jimeta welcomed and appreciated the customers in the four Area Offices for their understanding and revealed that the major challenges facing Kaduna Electric is Vandalism of Company’s equipment and energy theft.

 “The effect of energy theft and vandalism is adversely affecting our operations and often leads to the low power supply to our customers. The act of illegal connection and meter looping is yet another problem”, he said.

He called on customers to take full advantage of the MAP scheme to have their premises metered to avoid estimated billing. “MAP is our solution to estimated billing; with MAP the issue of outrageous billing is over and it will help our customers to conserve their energy, for that we can always be conscious with our appliances,” he said. 

The climax of the exercise was a presentation on Mater Asset Provider scheme (MAP) by the Chief Compliance Officer, Engr. Lawal where he warned that the Management will impose maximum penalty against any staff of the Company or that of the Meter Asset Provider that is caught extorting any customer or colluding with the customers to compromise the meters. He also advised the customers to ensure that all payments are done either online or in the bank.

In his contribution, the Managing Director of Integrated Power Limited, one the Meter Asset Providers approved for the Company, Mr. Emeka C. Olleny assured the customers of their readiness to deploy meters within the stipulated time.

A customer representing Bakers Association, Kaduna State Chapter, commended the Management of Kaduna Electric for the interactive forum, suggesting that “the interactive exercise should be a continue process because it enlightens the customers and provides an opportunity for constructive engagement.

Head Office Staff Receive Training on Emotional Intelligence

By Danjuma Abubakar

The Chief Franchising and Special Customers,
Malam Murtala Bello 

The Organisational Development and Design Unit has organized training for the Head Office staff on emotional intelligence.

The training, which was facilitated by the Chief Franchising and Special Customers, Mallam Murtala Bello, was geared towards improving individual and organizational performance through improved inter and intra personal relationships.

He described emotional intelligence as the capacity to identify different emotions, control and express emotions in a positive way and handle interpersonal relationship judiciously and emphatically. 

According to him, emotional intelligence is key to both personal and professional success and charged the staff to develop positive attitude and the culture of constructive engagements with colleagues based on trust, motivation and team work.

He urged the staff to use the training to motivate themselves and not to allow their emotions to control them at all time. ‘You must imbibe the ability to accurately pickup on emotions in other peoples; understanding what is really going on; understanding what other people are thinking and feeling even if you don’t feel same.’

 Other etiquette of emotional intelligence, he said are improving social awareness; improving relationship management; ability to use awareness of your emotions and emotions of others to manage interactions successfully, ensure clear communication and effective handling of conflict, you must spend extra time observing, asking and listening; maintain eye contact and give the speaker your full attention.

Improving relationship management; seek to build high quality, high trust relationships; try to discover what role emotions are playing in your interactions with others; be quick to settle disputes, differences of opinion and misunderstanding; if you sense tension or other emotional reactions in a person’s body language or speech, ask questions to seek to understand. 

Cross section of participants at the training

At the end of the training, across section of staff at the training expressed delight and welcomed the idea behind the training.

Customers Commend Kaduna Electric, Urge to Improve Services

By Asma'u Mohammed

A cross section of customers commended the Company for the improvement on service delivery and called for prompt response to complaints especially during the weekends.

The customers expressed their opinions through various letters of complaints and suggestions sent through our suggestion box recently.

A customer who chose to be anonymous decried what he called shortage of technical staff and urged the Company to ensure quick response to any fault including metering issues as failure to do so frustrate customer to go for NEPA2. “Technical officers shall be available and ready to response to any fault at any time to avoid the situation where customers are forced to patronize NEPA2”, he said.

Another customer by name Ahmed suggested the automation of units purchase such that once a customer do transaction, the meter would be automatically credited with the units without necessarily having to insert any PIN in the meter. “I suggest Kaduna Electric shall automatically provide a way for a customer to load the Electric Prepaid Unit and get your light without given any digits to the customer”, he said.

Kafanchan Area Office Embarks on Brand Visibility Campaign

By Asma'u Mohammed

The Kafanchan Regional Office has embarked on renovation and re-branding of its Service Centres, Cash Offices and the Area Office as a whole in order to provide a conducive working environment for staff as well as the customers.

The re-branding entails giving the Service Centres face lift and provision of office furniture so as to enhance productivity among the staff as well as ensure customers’ satisfaction.

Speaking to CCD correspondent, the Area Manager, Mr. Jeremiah O. Okoh disclosed that so far, the Management of the Kafanchan Area Office has renovated and re-branded five formations of the Company from their meagre monthly imprest. “The Area Office have renovated and provided furniture for the Customer Care Office, Kafanchan 11kv Service Center, Kafanchan 33kv Service Center, the Cash point and the Area Office building from our monthly impress with the approval of Audit", he said.

He also announced that the rebranding exercise shall be carried out in phases to​ create conducive working environment for optimal performance.

“With support from management and Audit Unit, considering our limited resource, the need for us to rebrand our area office cannot be over emphasized as the old structures has faded over the years and since we came in December 2018, our concern is to gradually improve our work environment. This is to further maintain Kaduna Electric’s world class etiquette and the collective success of the company’s corporate image”, he explained.

He further revealed that the next phase of the rebranding exercise will be Kagoro, Manchok and Zonkwa Service Centres.

MEET THE STAFF SERIES

Standard Procedures Guarantees Safe Operations - Nuhu Umar Dabai

CCD: Briefly tell us about your background?

NUD: My names are Nuhu Umar Dabai, I was born on the 4^th November, 1985 in Zuru Town, Kebbi State. I attended Rikoto Model Primary School Zuru, upon completion, I went Government Science College Zuru and attended Waziri Umaru Federal Polytechnic, Birnin Kebbi where I obtained National Diploma (ND) in Science Laboratory Technology. I further proceeded to Kebbi State University of Science and Technology Aliero, where I acquired a B.Sc. and M.Sc. Degrees in Biochemistry. I also obtained some professional qualifications in Health Safety and Environment and Computer Application and Data Processing just to mention but a few. Before I joined this Company, I worked with Ministry of Health, Kebbi State and National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Idu Abuja, as Laboratory Technician and Scientist respectively.

CCD: When did you join Kaduna Electric and what did your job roll entails?

NUD: I joined Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company on the 1st September, 2015 as Health Safety and Environmental Officer (HSEO) Kebbi Area Office to date. As the HSEO I am vested with the responsibility of preparing HSE activities work plan, corresponding budget or cost implication, monitoring and advising in the

Implementations of corporate policy on occupational HSE, conducting monthly HSE inspection/audit of equipment and plants, staff and public HSE enlightenment, ensuring that no work is permitted until it has met all HSE standards, and standard operational procedures are observed and complied with by all staff involved, HSE training and rendering of monthly incidents and accidents reports as well as the quarterly reports of HSE activities and many more. Thus, these responsibilities seriously demand a lot of devotion and dedication, as a sensitive key area of the company’s operations. In spite of the associated challenges, the HSE department is committed to ensuring that a zero tolerance to accident and other company’s mission and vision is maximally attained.

CCD: As HSE Officer, what are the challenges you face in discharging your duties?

NUD: As HSE officer, the major challenges affecting our duty is both at the side of management and employees, as safety is  both management’s responsibility and that of the employees. The management on its part must provide all enablers for safe operations and ensure enforcement of the standard operational procedures, while the employees must ensure full compliance. But in reality the mind set or positive attitude towards safe practice has not been embraced whole heartedly, thus  increasingly becoming difficult to ensure that standard operational procedures are observed and complied with by all staff.

CCD: How are you managing to reduce safety challenges to the barest minimum?

NUD: As difficult as the task could be, safety practice in Kebbi Area Office has been made much easier through regular HSE sensitization, monitoring and enforcement and implementation of the corporate policy on occupational health safety and environment.

CCD: What are your plans and strategies to achieving  zero accident in the Area Office?

NUD: The key plans and strategies adopted in seeing that Kebbi Area Office has achieve zero accident is by ensuring that no work is permitted until it has all HSE standard operational procedures (i.e technical protection well ensured) and the regulation of near miss and unsafe conditions occurrence and cautioning defaulters of every unsafe act, as short cuts are always forbidden but team work has always been encouraged.

CCD: What is your advice to the fellow staff?

NUD: My humble advice to my colleagues has always remain that, safety is an attitude and is success by purpose not an accident, so we must all be determined to work safely. We expect everyone to be committed to achieving zero injury in all our workplaces and believe that a productive day is completed only when we see our customers and colleagues going home to meet their families safely.

KADUNA ELECTRIC FRONTLINE AUGUST EDITION

We Shall Turn Kaduna Electric to Global Reference Point for Outstanding Performance_ Mrs. Adeola

The current re-structuring and aggressive manpower development programmes going on in the Company could not have come at a better time. The Company need to be placed on solid footing to meet its obligations to both internal and external stakeholders. Mrs. Adeola Akanni, the Head of Unit, Organizational Development and Design, in this interview explained the manpower ‘revolutions’ embarked upon by the Management. The interview is as thought provoking as it is highly educative. Excepts...

Mrs. Adeola Akanni Head of Unit, Organisational Development and Design

CCD: Let’s begin by sharing your thoughts on the general state of the Company's human resources; have we enough? Have the workforce the requisite skills and talents? What is the level of discipline among the workers, etc?

Mrs. Adeola: First and foremost, we must understand that human resource accuracy and adequacy are some of the most crucial factors in achieving organizational goals. They are no doubt, the most valuable factors required in the production and delivering of efficient services. It is therefore very important, especially for us in HR, that we pay critical attention to the quality and quantity of our manpower at all times. In specific terms, Kaduna Electric currently has a promising crop of employees that can deliver on both short term and long term goals if they are properly harnessed and strategically positioned. Of course, as long as we are determined to record quantum leap in our performance as a company, we will need to continue to hire skillful and talented individuals that can add significant value to the bottom line.

Having interacted with a good number of staff in the past three months, I can confidently say that Kaduna Electric has great talents on board. But it’s one thing to be talented and another to be skillful. Tim Notke once said “hard work will beat talent when talent doesn’t work hard”. In the same vein, John C. Maxwell will always say “Talent is never enough”. This implies that diligence and discipline are required to transform talent to productivity. We, at OD & D shall continue to create the platform and enabling environment for staff to develop their talents and sharpen their skills.

Talking about level of discipline among staff, I want to use this opportunity to commend those who have shown remarkable level of discipline and call to order those that are found wanting in this area. I have observed various forms of indiscipline like lateness, abscondment, closing before official closing time, negligence of duty among others. On a general note, the level of discipline is commendable.

CCD: Having been on the saddled as the HOU, OD&D for over three months, what are the key area(s) the Unit is going to pay urgent and serious attention to?

Mrs.  Adeola: Generally, we are focusing on building and developing the capacity of each and every staff to efficiently and effectively deliver on his/her assigned task(s). This will invariably galvanize the workforce to work in synergy towards achieving the overall organizational goal. In this regard, certain key priority areas have been identified are being worked on.

(a) We have identified some gaps in training, we have started working on that both at the Head Office and at the Area Offices level, we have introduced what is called Learning Nugget, this is done at Area Offices level every Friday morning where we share knowledge and best practices with both the Technical and Commercial staff at no cost as we need not bring them to the head office. We have trained over 100 frontline officers on developing excellent customer services. While the training is still ongoing, our plan is to train every frontline staff.  Come first week of August, we shall release the schedule for training all staff on understanding ATC & C Losses.

(b) The Unit has started restructuring/reassignments to put the right people in the right place as this will greatly enhance productivity in our dear company.

(c)The Unit is of the opinion that a well spelt out Job descriptions for every one staff is needed and this has been developed with the assistance of strategy department and input from each unit heads, this will be issued to employees with their new letters

(d)Individual Employees’ job grade has also been captured and this will also reflect in their new letters.

(e)Organogram for every one unit in Kaduna Electric is ongoing and is at about 90% completion.

In addition to all these, we have done and are still doing other things such as establishment of Leaning Nuggets in all our Area Offices where our Field staff (Technical Staff) and Sales Reps can be trained on a weekly basis and at no any cost incurred, we have also developed Employee Confirmation Performance Appraisal, we have developed Training Policies and Processes (Awaiting MD/CEO Approval), we are working on a more robust performance appraisal system, and a more robust reward and recognition policies and processes for high performers as well as staff motivation and welfare packages.

CCD:  There is a school of thought which believed that the commitment of the staff to "Project Kaduna Electric" is barely above average, in your assessment, what do you think is responsible for the lukewarm attitude by a cross section of the workers?

Mrs. Adeola: Negative mindset can make any employee become lukewarm. Two kinds of mindsets are needed here. First, employees need to develop ownership mindset. See the Company as though it is your company, Put in your best like you would for your own company. Secondly, staff need to develop a contributor’s mindset which means we must be determined to make positive contribution to the company at all times. We should see our working here today as an opportunity to make positive impact. That way, we are able to grow with the Company, when we grow the company, we grow too.  Negative mindsets emanate from the feeling that one is not being appreciated by the employer. A person who feels appreciated will always do more than what is expected. I want to let all employees know that management truly appreciates you all for your contributions towards the growth of this great company and is committed to ensuring that staff are happy and motivated.

CCD: The failure of the Management to release letters of re-engagement and placing some staff at the appropriate level despite repeated promises has greatly affected the morale of the affected staff, what is responsible for the delay and what assurance do you have for the staff that all shall be treated fairly?  

Mrs. Adeola: Management is fully aware of the need to release letters of re-engagement and to do proper placement as promised. You must agree with me that the process is quiet cumbersome and it requires carefulness in order to ensure fairness to affected staff and to the Company. As I speak, we are seriously working on that and letters will be served soon. There is absolutely no reason for the staff to despair or be de-motivated because of the brief delay; everything is on course. What is needed now is for us to roll up our sleeves and renewed our commitment to our respective duties.

CCD: Lets talk about staff training and capacity building, we can see that your unit has been very busy lately in this regard, can we hear from the horse's mouth, what is really happening in the area of staff training and capacity building?

Mrs. Adeola: Capacity building is the bedrock of employee performance. The OD & D is passionate about building the capacity of staff through functional and on-the-job trainings. We have carefully identified knowledge gaps among staff and we are determined to close these gaps as soon as possible. In the immediate, we have commenced extensive staff trainings using our internal faculties as facilitators. This will enable us benefit from the wealth of experience of our internal facilitators before we begin to source for more external facilitators which will require substantial funding. Capacity building is a major priority for us and we shall continue to provide the required trainings to ensure optimal performance of Kaduna Electric employees. For example, all employees at the Head Office are currently undergoing training on emotional intelligence which is being facilitated by internal faculties; this and many more to come are geared towards placing the workforce on strong footing and keep them abreast of the latest development in the electricity industry in particular and strategic business development skills in general.

CCD: How do we ensure the motivation of the workforce so that every member of staff shall be operating at his or her optimal performance level?

Mrs. Adeola: Every good manager knows that employees need to be motivated to stay productive. Motivation comes in diverse forms.  Pay rise is a good motivation and nobody is going to turn it down. But the question is does it really solve all the problems? Does it make employees permanently happy? Will it be enough to make them stay with our company? All other things being equal, the answer to all these questions is NO. The truth is we all want to feel valuable and recognized.  For instance, when line managers show their subordinates that they are valuable, they will work harder and they will always stick around to get the job done.  The point I am making here is that we will explore every avenue to keep our people motivated including, but not limited to the following:

((a)    Commendations: Sometimes all that the employee needs is an encouraging word.  This can be a quick note saying how much their work are appreciated, or simply telling them how great of a job they have been doing, it has been said that employees don’t leave bad company, they leave bad manager

(b)  Acknowledgement of Employees Contributions and Responsibilities

(c)   Recognition and Reward.

(d)  Opportunities for Career Progression and Professional development opportunities

(e)   Pleasant Working Environment: creating a workplace environment where people enjoy spending time also goes a long way towards keeping employees happy.

CCD: Lastly, we will like you to talk directly to the staff; what are your suggestions, appeals, counsels and words of caution to the staff?

Mrs. Adeola: I will like to use this medium to appreciate all staff for their unwavering commitment and dedication to work. Project Kaduna Electric is our project, we are all stakeholders in this project and we all have a vital role to play in moving this company to greater heights. Let us not relent in putting in our best, I see Kaduna Electric becoming a global reference point for outstanding performance in the nearest future. The journey starts now. It is also important that I mention to you that management is not in denial of your yearnings and aspirations. We are optimistic that better days are ahead of us and every issue of concern today will soon be a thing of the past even as we navigate through these challenging waters together. Always remember that tough time never last; tough people do.