THE SIDE HUSTLE BLUEPRINT FOR HR OFFICERS IN NIGERIA

Brenda Eze worked in a glass-walled office on Victoria Island, Lagos — the kind where the lights were too bright, the meetings too long, and the smiles too polished. At thirty-one, she was everything her colleagues admired: dependable, composed, and endlessly professional.

Every morning, she left her small apartment in Akoka before dawn, navigating Yaba’s restless streets and crossing the Third Mainland Bridge with a travel mug of coffee in one hand and her laptop bag in the other. By 8 a.m., she’d already been through a dozen emails — recruitment reports, payroll adjustments, and the usual flood of employee complaints.

Her colleagues called her “Madam HR.” Her boyfriend, Chuka, called her “too serious.” And her younger sister Ada always teased, “Brenda, abeg, rest small.”

But Brenda couldn’t rest. Her ₦350,000 salary looked decent on paper but disappeared in days — rent, bills, and helping her mother back home in Enugu. The math never added up.

A Spark from a Casual Comment

One slow Friday afternoon, her colleague Titi joked over lunch, “With all this your HR grammar, Brenda, you fit start your own consultancy.”

The words stayed with her. That night, instead of watching Netflix, Brenda wrote a LinkedIn post titled “Five HR Mistakes Nigerian Startups Make.” It was just something to vent her thoughts — or so she thought.

By Monday morning, the post had over 15,000 views. Dozens of comments, hundreds of likes, and a handful of DMs from small business owners asking if she could “help them set up HR.”

When the first person offered to pay ₦50,000 for her services, Brenda hesitated — then said yes.

That yes changed everything.

Building a Side Hustle from Scratch

Brenda began consulting after work. She’d get home through Lagos traffic, change into joggers, and sit at her small desk by the window, crafting HR manuals, contracts, and policies for small businesses that couldn’t afford full-time HR staff.

Ada nicknamed her “Madam HRpreneur.” Chuka half-joked that he was dating a CEO. Brenda smiled but kept her focus — balancing her 9-to-5 with her late-night side hustle.

Within months, she had three steady clients. By the sixth month, she created a short online course, “HR for Small Businesses in Nigeria,” shot on her phone, designed with Canva, and sold on Selar. It sold out in a week.

Turning Knowledge into Freedom

Some colleagues whispered that she was “doing too much.” Her manager cautioned her to “focus on her primary job.” Brenda nodded politely — and kept building.

By the end of the year, her consulting income had overtaken her salary. Her mother noticed the new calm in her voice.
“You sound lighter these days,” she said one evening over the phone.

Brenda laughed. “Maybe I finally figured out who signs the real paycheck.”

The Blueprint

Brenda’s story is now a quiet revolution among Nigerian HR professionals. Her journey proves that HR officers don’t have to be stuck behind office desks forever. They can build independent income streams from what they already know.

Here’s the blueprint:
 1.  Monetize your expertise — Offer HR consulting, create digital templates, or host paid workshops.
 2.  Leverage LinkedIn visibility — Share insights and establish your authority.
 3.  Use tech tools smartly — Platforms like Selar, Paystack, and Canva make running a side business easier.
 4.  Start small, stay consistent — Test your ideas before leaving your job.

For HR officers in Nigeria, the real promotion doesn’t always come from HR.
Sometimes, it comes from hustle — and the courage to start.

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