Ellen Maama A. Hagan, CEO Laine Services Ltd.

---

 

Mrs. Ellen Hagan is a human resource practitioner with over 25 years’ experience. She is an executive member of the Governing Council of the Institute of Human Resource Management Practitioners, Ghana and has represented the Ghana Employers’ Association (GEA) during International Labour Organisation (ILO) conferences on numerous occasions.

Ellen is a graduate of the University of Ghana, Legon. She also holds an MBA from the Graduate School, University of Leicester.

Like most of people, she started out as an employee, first as a national service person at Mfantsiman Girls’ Secondary School in her home town Saltpond, followed by stints at Volta River Authority, and nearly a decade at SGS Ghana Ltd. During this period and based on her work experiences and training in human resource management she wondered about the absence of employment agencies in Ghana and most of West Africa. Wondering became a dream, to establish an employment agency and training centre for secretaries and administrative staff, key to the success of any enterprise.

Being Ellen, she had to live the dream, and take the plunge and switch from being an employee to become an employer. Thus was the birth of L’AINE Services Limited (the word L’AINE is French for first-born or eldest), a self-owned, self-managed wholly Ghanaian company. The reality became much bigger than the dream which is now not only an employment and training organisation, but a human resource centre which includes such human resource services as outsourcing, organisational development, salary surveys, rapporteuring, staff performance appraisals, career guidance, CV preparation, interview grooming, psychometric tests, among others.

Currently, L’AINE has about 3,000 members of staff made up of core staff and outsourced staff with its Head Office in Sakumono, Accra and branches, in Adabraka, Takoradi and Kumasi.

Additionally, she is a co-founder of Legacy Leadership Girls’ School, a secondary institution which aims at nurturing and guiding the leadership potential in girls.

Ellen was awarded “Strategic Leadership Award” by the World HRD Congress in India in recognition of her achievement in Human Resources development in Ghana.

She has also had conferred upon her an Honorary Fellowship from the Boardroom Institute of the Graduate School of Governance.

Her passion for writing has led her to be the very first Ghanaian to produce management training videos in Ghana using Ghanaian actors and presenters, where scenarios typical of the Ghanaian work environment and attitudes are portrayed. She has produced 8 management training videos so far, which act as a very effective way of correcting behaviour because Ghanaian participants understand the language and culture and therefore identify more readily with the subject.

She has also written articles for the HR Focus, L’AINE Services’s quarterly magazine which is distributed free of charge. The HR Focus is currently the only human resource magazine in Ghana.

Mrs Hagan has published in HR Focus on a wide range of subjects including sexual harassment in the work place, the gap between industry and academia, the employment issues in Ghana’s emerging oil industry, and staff attrition rate in the work place.

As a devout, practicing Christian, she has written and published some 20 articles in her church magazine, “the Christian Sentinel”, over the past decade. These articles have covered diverse issues that affect the daily lives of Christians, and non-Christians, at home, in their communities and in the work place. They include such topical Christian issues as staying in God’s presence, the profile of our souls, and the old adage, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. Mrs Hagan also writes about relationships in the home, between adults, and adults and children and grandparents. Inevitably, Mrs Hagan is able to speak in layman’s terms about HR issues in a Christian magazine, when she asks “have you considered old age?”

She has written plays on social issues which are broadcast on national radio and recently launched what is intended to be the first in a series of books she intends to publish for job seekers: “ALL ABOUT INTERVIEWS”.

Career counselling and guidance is another area in which Mrs. Hagan has focused a lot of her attention. She mentors the youth at tertiary level when they are about to enter the world of work. Following this desire to see the youth move forward in their work life and to open the eyes of the youth to job opportunities other than formal office work; to encourage them to think out of the box and to fulfil their career and life expectations, she established The L’AINE Foundation to source funds to concretise the youth’s ideas and plans. The Foundation has initiated programs to raise funds to support these dreams. She has participated in Career Fairs at Ashesi University, Central University College, St. Paul’s Anglican Church Youth, Seers Foundation, to name a few.

Having realised the handicap of undergraduates in becoming implementation-ready graduates and as her social contribution to bridging the gap between academia and industry, she has taken it upon herself every vacation to source internship opportunities from companies for undergraduates and the youth schooling in polytechnics.

Also realising people excel when they pursue their passion, she has partnered with the University of Ghana Counselling Unit, Ashesi University and Central University to give several presentations on “How to find your dream”, “Getting into the corporate world”, “Internship programmes – how to run them effectively”.

Other Notable Achievements:

· Built a two storey building, now the L’AINE Services Head Office without the help of a loan.

· Two years later changed the landscape of Adabraka by putting up a 5-storey building complex: The L’AINE Office Complex (THE LOC).

· In order to relieve the staff of L’AINE from the burden of “rent advance” and to encourage them to save money to build their own homes, she built four 2-bedroom flats and two single room houses (called L’AINE PLAZA).

· Has transformed lives and found jobs for over almost 19,000 people without charging them for finding jobs for them.

· Has undertaken fundraising activities to help several under-privileged people pay their school fees as well as other training and educational ventures.

· Has been involved in several philanthropic activities, including helping to pay for heart surgery for a 9-year old boy.

· She has published gratis 4 books of 3 budding writers.

· A diocesan and circuit patroness for the Women’s Fellowship, The Choir, Christ Little Band, and for the Mt. Zion Society, a Patroness for The Boys and Girls Brigade, The Singing Band, The Zion Praise, Wesley Symphonic Choir.

· She is a marriage counsellor.

· She championed the production of the first ever documentary of Wesley Girls’ High School.

· She is the current President of her year group, Wesley Girls’ High School, Class of ’77.

She is married to Mr. Gilbert Hagan, himself an entrepreneur, and they have four children.

ARTICLES, MAGAZINES AND BOOKS PUBLISHED

NUMBER EDITION DATE TITLE

1 Volume 20 No.3/2011 2011 How to have a successful marriage

2. Volume 20 No.1/2011 2011 Staying in God’s Presence –

A possibility or an Illusion?

3. Volume 19 No.4/2010 2010 The Emperor’s New Clothes

4. Volume 19 No.3/2010 2010 The Profile of Our Souls

5. Volume 19 No.1/2010 2010 Do U Love Me?

6. Volume 18 No.4/2009 2009 Stop Work Pens Down

7. Volume 18 No.1/2009 2009 All Ye who Hear

8. Volume 17 No.4/2008 2008 The Changing World of Work

9. Volume 17 No.2/2008 2008 Situational Christianity

10. Volume 16 No.4/2007 2007 What is it about Time?

11. Volume 16 No.2/2007 2007 Parents, are your Plans for our

Good?

12. Volume 15 No.1/2007 2007 Where is my Tribute?

13. Volume 15 No.3/2006 2006 Is Cleanliness next to Godliness?

14. Volume 15 No.1/2006 2006 What then shall we say?

15. Volume 14 No.4/2005 2005 Be ye Perfect

16. Volume 14 No.3/2005 2005 The Woes of Maidservants

17. Volume 14 No.2/2005 2005 What are you doing about Paapa?

(Have U considered old age?) II

18. Volume 14 No.1/2005 2005 Have U considered old age? I

19. Volume 13 No.1/2004 2004 How to find your dream

20. Volume 12 No.4/2003 2003 A Woman’s Legacy – Building a

Sustainable Family Relationship

 

HR FOCUS MAGAZINE ARTICLES

EDITION (TITLE) MONTH/YEAR TITLE OF ARTICLE

HR Focus Issue 4 (Newsletter November 2007 “Why are your employees leaving”

Oil October 2009 “Where are all the jobs”

Sexual Harassment Dec 2009 “The changing world of work”

Bridging the gap between June 2011 “Bridging the gap between industry and

Industry and academia academia”

 

 

MANAGEMENT TRAINING VIDEOS PRODUCED

 

1. WE LOVE OUR CUSTOMERS
2. SHIFTING PARADIGMS IN MODERN DAY MANAGEMENT
3. COMPETING THROUGH PROFESSIONAL CALLS
4. STRESS MANAGEMENT - OUTPLACEMENT
5. THE TELEPHONE AND CUSTOMER SERVICE
6. PREPARING FOR RETIREMENT AND STRESS
7. THE NEW LABOUR LAW SIMPLIFIED
8. HOW CUSTOMER FRIENDLY WE ARE! (A VIDEO FOR THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY)

Next >