Moving round some work places in Osun State such as the vast secretariat of the state, the newly completed state-of-the-art schools, the newly renovated state House of Assembly complex, its new gate and Pavillion and Park and others in the state remind me of my early days at one of the Federal Government Colleges in Nigeria during the early 80s.
I vividly remember my first introductory class in Biology by one of our teachers back then. Mr. Ligali was the one who introduced us to Photosynthesis, giving us an experiment where we planted seeds and after germination, told us that plants need sunlight to survive and grow better.
Then, we kept one of the planted flowers in the sun, a condition that our teacher described as encouraging the environment, and the other placed indoor. The experiment after some days showed the flower under the conducive atmosphere flourishing and the other one withering.
We have all worked at places that we were less than excited to get up in the mornings and go to; this is an unpleasant feeling. It is much more pleasurable, and less stressful to go to a work environment that is filled with positivity and enjoyment.
A positive work environment is not only important for physical, mental and emotional health, it is also important for the productivity. The better we feel at work, the more likely we will take pride in our jobs and be loyal towards our place of employment.
Today, the latest generation presents a new set of challenges for employers, and organisations have been forced to find new, innovative ways to attract and retain them as employees.
Promoting a fun work environment is quickly becoming one of the most widely-implemented recruitment and retention strategies in many of the world’s most successful organizations, and there’s a good reason.
Little wonder, the Rauf Aregbesola-led administration is leaving no stone unturned in promoting a fun work environment for workers of the state of the virtuous.
The former governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande, left among many other legacies, the vast Abeere Government Secretariat, an achievement that Osun people will forever be grateful to him for. The state before the completion of the complex was being run from rented apartments before Akande put a halt to it.
With the ouster of Akande’s administration, the secretariat was left at the point the former government left it, though fit for human habitation but without proper landscaping as it was on the blueprint conceived by the Alliance for Democracy government of Akande.
Part of the masterplan of the secretariat complex by the Akande government was a beautified environment with proper landscaping for all the ministries with access infrastructure linking each of the ministries.
After the AD government in the state, came the Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola-led Peoples Democratic Party, who moved workers who were hitherto operating from borrowed offices to the newly completed secretariat. However, further completion works had stopped with Akande’s exit.
Workers and others went about business using the complex at that stage until the coming of the Aregbesola-led administration, who commenced the carry-over of the project initiated by Chief Bisi Akande 16 years ago.
According to Judith Heerwagen, a former scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory who is now a program expert with the General Services Administration, productivity and the workplace are related in these ways:
“A building can positively affect ability by providing comfortable ambient conditions, by enabling individual control and adjustment of conditions, and by reducing health and safety risks. Negative impacts on ability to do work are associated with conditions that are uncomfortable, distracting, hazardous or noxious.
“A building can positively affect motivation by providing conditions that promote positive affective functioning, psychological engagement and personal control. Moods create the ‘affective context’ for thought processes and behaviours and are directly tied to motivation.
“A building can affect opportunity by providing equitable access to conditions that reduce health and safety risks, equitable access to amenities and compensatory design options where inequities exist and are difficult to eliminate entirely.”
Before the commencement of the laying of interlocked stones, pavements and the grassing of the different ministries, the work places have suffered unthinkable environmental dilapidation largely occasioned by erosion.
Aside from agencies and ministries at the government secretariat that have been beautified, another spectacle to behold is the construction going on along the road close to the Bola Ige House that serves as office to the sitting governor. Going on there is the construction of a modern supermarket and shops sitting on top of an artificial lake that is nearing completion.
It is believed that the structure when completed will in a way provide a serene and unruffled place for workers to cool off during break hours, thus enhancing performance and productivity.
Shola Oyetunde, a civil servant, said of the emerging beautiful scene within the complex: “One cannot wait for this beautiful project to be completed. From my own point of view, this is capable of relieving workers of tension and stress during work hours.”
The Osun State House of Assembly is another work place that has undergone serious overhauling; the present administration had begun the construction of the gatehouse of the complex and the beatification of the environment, giving the place a complete facelift.
Speaking on the new lease given to the complex, the Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker Osun House of Assembly, Goke Butika, said: “The feedback on the new environment is fantastic, workers at the Assembly now have a place they can be proud of, and you will see some of them taking photographs around the newly renovated Assembly and the gate.
“Some of them can now invite their friends and family to come and greet them during break time or after office hours. The place is no longer that kind of environment you cannot be proud of.
“Things have changed in terms of environmental issues, their attitude towards work has moved beyond average as it was before. We are now more secured with our environment.
“The beauty the House of Assembly is having under the present administration is unprecedented, the Assembly gallery is digital, we have e-library, a canteen that none of the fast food joints in town can rival and ultra modern toilets located in strategic spots makes it difficult for workers not to be at work, they always look forward to being at work with the present environment.”
Also speaking on the changing faces of work places in Osun State, Ibrahim Lawal, a lawyer, stated that a conducive work environment will definitely encourage workers to do more and that people aside from workers will even be attracted to do business in such places.
He pointed out the example of the newly built state-of-the-art schools by the present administration as an incentive for teachers to do more, saying most of the teachers in public schools are now conscious of the way they dress.
Lawal stated: “The beautification embarked upon by the administration of Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola in and around the State Secretariat has in no small measure added to the aesthetic of the secretariat. It encourages people of the state to come around and do one thing or the other in the secretariat thereby making it a beehive of activities.
“It has also in no small measure enhanced the productivity of workers as the beautification has affected them psychologically, thus motivating them to give their best to the state. It has indeed changed their attitude to work as the environment is now more workers-friendly.”
As the State of the Virtuous work places now wear more friendly looks, the state is living up to the promises of Governor Rauf Aregbesola during his electioneering campaigns that the state under his leadership will take its rightful position amongst states and that Osogbo must live to its billings of a capital city like every other state capital in Nigeria.
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