Sterling Bank Plc has been adjudged as the third best place to work in Nigeria and on the African continent at the 2019 edition of the annual Great Place to Work (GPTW) awards which held in Lagos recently.
The bank also clinched the Best in Leadership (Large corporate) and Best Workplace for millennial generation. This indeed is a significant improvement as the bank won the workplace with Best Quality of Life at the 2018 edition of the awards.
Temi Dalley, Chief Human Resources Officer of Sterling Bank while receiving the award, described a “great place to work as an enabling environment, where employees trust the people they work with, derive a sense of meaning from their work and take pride in the overall success of their organization.”
According to her, “At Sterling, creating a workplace where our employees do not want to escape from is always on the front burner of our people strategy. We pride ourselves in our culture as we keep improving on our employee experience through bespoke employee offerings and engagements. Our agile way of working which includes Flexi-time and Flexi-place, accelerated career routes, bespoke reward systems and deliberate investment in capacity building of our workforce, has helped in keeping not just the Millennial but our entire workforce mix.’’
Overall, about 96 firms and women who have distinguished themselves in various industries and top management levels received certification and awards at the ceremony after a rigorous selection process. The organizers said the event attracted entries from more than six African countries including Kenya, Cote D’Ivoire, Senegal, South Africa, Namibia and Egypt.
Also speaking at the event, Kunle Malomo, Group Managing Director/CEO, GPTW, said the awards were not aimed at recognizing only winners, but also to instill best practices in work places, adding that the company’s vision entails expanding the good workplace culture across Africa and that the coming editions will feature about 300 companies and more than 100 persons.
Malomo said the awards that started six years ago has become a huge success, stressing that the company is aiming at taking it to all the states in the country, as it will be expanded to 100 award categories.
In his words, “We are in 22 countries across the world. We decided to expand our scope as most multinationals whose subsidiaries won the awards in Nigeria requested that the certification should be carried out in their sister companies domiciled outside Nigeria”.
He said the chief executive of an American company that was listed for the award a few years back disclosed that after winning the awards, his company enjoyed high ratings which, in turn, helped them to win compensation of $68 million as compensation packages for senior executives, an amount that is bigger than the company’s annual profit.
In his keynote address, Austin Okere, Chairman of Computer Warehouse Plc, said Great Place To Work is out to create value-shared personalities, noting that the awards are aimed at impacting companies and individuals such that they will become internationally recognized
