Uganda’s Human Resource leaders have been challenged to embrace changes in organizational culture if they are to remain relevant with the times.
The advice was given by internationally renowned motivational speaker and leadership coach, Lincoln Mali from South Africa while giving a keynote presentation at a leadership dinner hosted by the Human Resource Managers Association of Uganda (HRMAU).
Lincoln, a professional banker with over 18 years of experience currently works as Standard Bank’s Group Head of Card and Emerging Payments across Africa in Personal and Business Banking.
In his keynote address Lincoln gave professional advice, high level insights and practical examples on the theme of the day, “Harnessing organizational culture and demographics for strategic business achievements.”
“There is a big generation gap dominating many companies. Millennials today are coming into the workforce in big numbers with different perspectives on how to execute tasks. They are confident, curious, value diversity, have high expectations and are thirsty for knowledge; human capital leaders have to create an enabling environment and embrace them as a reality,” he noted.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts by 2020 Millennials will make up 50% of the US workforce and 75% of the global work force by 2030.
Speaking after the dinner the President of the association Patrick Ngolobe noted that Lincoln Mali’s presentation was very inspiring. He advised fellow professionals to put their theories into action.
“Human Resource leaders and captains of the industry must rise up to the challenge of organizational culture, we must model and reinforce culture that we desire through our behavior, character, systems and models and have less talk and slides; leaders who do not catch-up to this reality will be out of business and jobs sooner rather than later,” Mr. Ngolobe said.
He added: “As an association we believe constant exposure to global best practices is important for the personal and professional development of our members which directly links to the quality of our labour market both at the side of the employees but also within the work environments we continue to enhance, a reason as to why we continually bring high profile presenters such as Lincoln to share their experiences and encourage members of our profession to improve their skills.”
The HRMAU dinner is the first major event Lincoln has spoken at in Uganda. An internationally renowned and respected motivational speaker, he holds a BA LLB (Rhodes University); MBA (Henley Management College – UK) and an AMP from Harvard Business School.
He has been a main speaker at a number of high level global conferences including the WeLead Women’s conference on the topic “Fathers with daughters – role models who shape lives and create leaders” held in Johannesburg in March.
Lincoln thanked HRMAU for inviting him to the dinner and Stanbic bank Uganda for making the trip possible.
