23 Jun 2025

 The 3^rd Annual Employee Africa Summit to be held in Gaborone from Thursday  until Friday is expected to attract around 100 delegates, both locally and internationally.

Addressing a press conference in Gaborone yesterday, Employee Africa chief executive officer, Mr Mompoloki Makwana said the two-day summit themed: Empowering Workforce Resilience: Navigating Change and Innovation in Africa would bring together leaders, professionals and stakeholders to shape the future of Africa’s workforce in today’s changing field of work.

“We invited visionaries, industry leaders, policy makers, Human Resource professionals and corporate partners for two days of powerful dialogue, strategic networking, skills development and actionable insights focused on preparing Africa’s workforce for the future,” he said.

Mr Makwana said the summit was organised for expert to deliberate and exchange ideas on how best to create a working environment that cultivated resilience for the workforce.

“With the advent of technology, we have new structures on board, such as working from home or from a different country. Therefore, it is important to create an environment that promotes resilience for the transformation of the African workforce for the future of work,” he added.

Mr Makawana stressed that given the ever-changing field of work, skills set development was also not something to be done part time, but on full time basis.

“If you want to create empowered professionals, who are able to create value and perform exceptionally well, it is important to ensure employees are well skilled and capacitated to effectively execute whatever they’ve been tasked to do,” he said.

Employee Africa CEO said Absa Bank Zambia chief executive officer, Ms Mizinga Melu would deliver a keynote address, at the summit, on the element of leadership, change, as well as innovation. He said As you Rise, a book, which highlights the importance of resilience by Ms Melu made her the right person to share ideas on leadership and fostering the level of resilience, for a leader to able to engage with people from different backgrounds.

Additionally, Mr Makwana said the Minister of Sport and Arts, Mr Jacob Kelebeng would present on a topic titled: Redefining work: Sport and Arts as a Career,  which seek to ensure that sport and arts were not regarded as part time or extra-curricular activity.

Further, Mr Makwana said a Clinical Psychologist, Dr Portia Mazabane would deliberate on mental health issues, adding that people were depressed and facing anxiety and as such mental health was not something to brush aside, but needed to be conversed on.

“We also have Botswana Human Resources Development Council CEO, Professor Alinah Segobye to talk much more on HRDC mandate and achievements. So there are different sub-themes that we are looking at, for this year’s summit. The first one is diversity and inclusion, which plays a critical role in promoting a resilient workforce. There is a level of resilience that is needed on empowerment or understanding how to adapt and work with people from different cultural and racial backgrounds,” he added.

The second sub-theme, Mr Makwana said was globalisation. He said it was important to empower professionals to be able to perform, represent and brand themselves differently, as international experts. The third sub-theme, he said was lifelong learning, stressing, it was important to empower professionals to lead and work with teams from diverse backgrounds. Mr Makwana said achieving this also required leaders to be more empowered and knowledgeable. ENDS