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5:53 AM
home after graduation, Evelyn was badly in need
of a job. After passing the aptitude test and first
interview, she was pretty confident as she walked
out of her second interview for a management
trainee position at Access Bank.
But her confidence immediately atrophies like an
ice cube thrown into a burning fire when she was
told, over the telephone, by an official of the bank
that she needed to source a total of N1 million
from at least 10 new customers within a week as
a prerequisite for being employed.
Her parents immediately kicked against her
continuing with the recruitment process saying it
was exploitative. But the thought of having to sit
at home for an indefinite period in search of
another job was far scarier for Evelyn. She was
determined to meet the bank’s demand.
Hard as she tried, she could only get eight people
to open new accounts with the bank. Two days
later she got a call from the bank telling her she
didn’t make the cut.
“In Access Bank it has to be ten over ten or
nothing,” the voice at the other end of the phone
said.
Evelyn was devastated. She felt used and
dumped.
“After the second interview, I thought I already
had the job,” she said.
In fact she was called for the third interview,
which is usually a formality, according to an
Access Bank source.
John, another applicant, said he didn’t feel
comfortable raising N1 million as a prerequisite for
employment.
“I remembered telling myself this was nonsense.
Why would they ask me to get N1 million before I
was employed? I didn’t even bother to try.”
Some of applicants who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES
said the bank gave them ten account-opening
booklets each carrying Access Bank employee
numbers for this purpose.
“When I say the employee numbers on the
account-opening booklet, I was confused. Does it
mean that I’m running around for someone else to
take the credit,” wondered another applicant who
raised N900,000.00 and was not employed.
Evelyn, who said she is now doing what she
described as her dream job, told PREMIUM TIMES
one of those who opened an account with her
went through a lot of hassles when she tried to
withdraw the money she deposited.
“She wasn’t given a debit card or chequebook.
They kept telling her at the branch that they have
issues with her account when she went to
withdraw the money she deposited. After paying
several visits to the branch over three months she
could only manage to withdraw part of the money
she deposited.”
Access Bank says the practise of asking applicants
to generate N1 million within one week is to
prepare them for “the rigour of the highly
competitive market.”
The bank’s Head of Corporate Affairs, Segun
Fafore, says only candidates that have passed the
entry requirement are asked to raise this amount.
“It is part of the training. It is part of the
recruitment process. This person will certainly go
to the training school. It is just the practical
aspect before you go for the four months training
programme,” he said.
However, none of those who spoke to this paper
were called to resume at the bank’s training
school. Despite excelling at all the pre-
recruitment evaluations, they were specifically
rejected because they raised less than the N1
million asked by the bank.
Employment bond
Access Bank has been courting controversies for
some time now due to some of its recruitment
practices. In what is a blatant disregard of the
country’s labour laws, the bank makes new
employees sign bonds that force them to stay in
the bank’s employ willy-nilly for at least two
years.
Access Bank says it does this to protect the
“heavy investment” it makes in training its staff. It
says due to the quality of training its staff get they
are usually poached by both local and
international firms.
“The bank invest heavily in building the
competence and capacity of its staff to a level of
admiration that matches what is available in the
global financial community,” Mr Fafore says.
“Following market tendencies, it is not surprising
that with this kind of investment in its people
other institutions, financial and non-financial,
within and outside Nigeria encroach on the bank’s
School of Banking Excellence.”
Mr Fafore says the bank designed its employment
contract to “stem the tide” of employee poaching.
Alarmed, Lagos lawyer and frontline human rights
advocate, Jiti Ogunye, describes the practice as
“shady, irresponsible and illegal.”
“From employment and banking perspective it
was illegal for the bank to compel people who are
not employees of the bank to discharge banking
duties,” he said.
“Having compelled these applicants to go and be
scouting for customers for them as a condition of
being offered employment, a relationship of
implied agency has crystallised between the bank
on one hand and those prospective employees. So
the bank has made them her agent by sending
them out to go and bring customers so the
question there is if the bank had made these
people her agent how did the bank remunerate
them at the end of the day?
It flies in the face of constitutionally guaranteed
rights of citizens. A bank is expected to be a
repository of integrity. This is nothing but
obtaining property by false pretence. This is
nothing but fraud.”
Obituaries and epitaphs
Allegations of malpractices and abuses have
dogged recruitment processes and staff training in
the Nigerian banking sector. For instance in 2011,
a group of Guaranty Trust Bank’s entry level
trainees were expelled on the last day of training
for what the bank described as “[contravening]
several basic programme rules that include
professional conduct.”
But several members of Sapphire, as the class
was nicknamed, said the consultant instructor
during the training, Tutu Sholeye of Learners and
Trainers, traumatised the group with an unending
string of vile comments, verbal abuse and attack
on their self-esteem.
They told this paper that they were asked to write
their obituaries and epitaphs as part of the
training regime.
“We were shocked when she told us to write our
obituaries and epitaphs. And it didn’t end there;
whatever you wrote will be used as an excuse to
rain more insults on you,” said Taye, still visibly
angry two years after the experience.
For instance, a trainee who smokes and had
indicated to live up to 85 years in his obituary was
told by the trainer: “how do you expect to live
that long with the worthless life you’re living?”
Learners and Trainers website says it focuses on
the “attitude training and personal development”
rather than focus on “skills and knowledge
training.”
Ms Sholeye declined to speak with PREMIUM
TIMES. She said as a consultant, it was
unprofessional for her to speak about what
happened during the training.
Peter Ogunnubi, a psychiatrist at the Lagos
University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, says this style
of training is “archaic and barbaric.”
“It is a form of mental torture that can lead to
post-traumatic and personality disorder.” He says
this is even more so because the trainees didn’t
get the job.
Guaranty Trust Bank says this approach to staff
training has brought out the best in its employees.
“The curriculum adopted for the training
programme which all employees must undertake,
has been in use for the same period and you will
no doubt agree with me that our Bank has the
finest, most professional and knowledgeable
human capital in the country today,” says Pascal
Or, the bank’s official in charge of Brand
Management.
PREMIUM TIMES
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