By Sharifatu Ja’afaru (Deputy Student Editor)
A female don, Professor Theresa Mmadu has challenged workers to cultivate the right attitude to work by taking their jobs as if working for themselves.
Delivering the 63rd Inaugural Lecture of the University of Jos, entitled, “The Job to be Done: How we work and Ought to Work”, she said many need to adopt the right attitude to work to get things to function well in the country.
She encouraged workers to always ask themselves, “If we worked for ourselves, that is, if we were self-employed, and our survival depended on this job how would we approach work?”
The professor of Human Resource Management spoke against “presenteeism”, whereby people report dutifully for work without being productive, urging people to do the work for which they are employed.
She enjoined people to love their jobs or take up only jobs they like as love of one’s job makes a difference. “Just as Steve Jobs rightly said, ‘the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.'”
Mmadu who is the seventh female professor in the institution to deliver her inaugural lecture and the first from the faculty of Management Sciences, said how we work is also influenced by many factors such as the use of time.
Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor Hayward Mafuyai who chaired the occasion described the topic as apt, coming at a time the institution is promoting the right work ethics.
He said it is important for all, be they academics, administrators, policy makers or researchers, to cultivate the right attitude to work.
The lecture which was attended by other principal officers and many other dignitaries ended with the presentation of a gift to the inaugural lecturer and her family by the vice chancellor on behalf of the university.
