The President and Chairman of Council, Chartered Institute of Personnel Management, Mr. Victor Famuyibo, has called on the Federal Government to make membership of the institute and professional certification as the minimum standard for the practice of human resource management in the country.
A statement made available to our correspondent on Tuesday quoted Famuyibo as saying during the annual conference of the body in Abuja that the government should form a partnership with the institute to improve the standard of HR practice in the public sector.
He said the Federal Government should also ensure that those appointed as heads of administration in the public service were qualified practitioners registered with the CIPM.
He said adequate, appropriate and well trained manpower was the driver of enduring solutions to the country’s national social economic challenges.
Speaking on the conference, Famuyibo said this year’s theme, ‘Evolve to excel’ was informed by the need to make a wake-up call for sustained change towards excellence in the general management of human resource; hence the focal point was to bring about a paradigm shift at all levels and across industries.
He said the conference had three main objectives, including the creation of another platform for members of the institute to up-scale their knowledge on contemporary issues of importance to the profession and to their jobs as managers of the most important asset of any organisation.
According to him, the conference was also to provide a veritable platform for social and professional networking among the participants and to provide members an opportunity to make informed contributions to public policy and advocacy in areas within the mandate of the institute.
The president added that the conference also beamed its searchlight on the current challenges of insecurity, declining educational standards, slow progress in the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, rising unemployment and declining employability facing the nation with a view to proffering pragmatic HR solutions to them.
Famuyibo added, “As a professional institute committed to continuous development, we are constantly expanding our capacity to adequately advance HR practice in Nigeria and raise our level of contribution towards accelerated national development.
“We have also continued to upscale the manning quality of our national secretariat, expanded to a more robust technology infrastructure to simplify and automate our work processes and significantly improve the profile and service quality of our state branches.”