NICO Group supports IPMM’s upcoming annual conference with K3.5m

* The 3-day conference brings together human resource practitioners, company directors and executives

* To discuss topical issues affecting human capital management

* The value that we can derive from all other resources as a country depends on the quality of our human capital

By Victor Singano Jnr, Correspondent

NICO Group has supported Institute of People Management Malawi (IPMM) with K3.5 million towards the institution’s 2022 conference scheduled for Thursday to Saturday (November 10-12) at Sunbird Nkopola Lodge in Mangochi.

The 3-day conference brings together human resource practitioners, company directors and executives across the county to discuss topical issues affecting human capital management.

NICO Group Head of Marketing and Customer Experience, Lorraine Phiri said human resources practitioners play a critical role in national development by contributing to productivity.

“The value that we can derive from all other resources as a country depends on the quality of our human capital,” she said.

“Such engagements among the country’s leading human resource managers brings about new ideas and innovations on how to unlock potential in our people and build a more effective workforce,” she said.

In his remarks,  IPMM Executive Director, Boniface Msesa applauded NICO Group for the support, saying the event accords HR practitioners a chance to share knowledge, interact amongst each other and share experiences happening in the business world.

“The human resource field is an environment on its own and this environment is always changing. It is important that as practitioners we stay abreast with all those changes.

He further thanked the NICO Group, which includes NBS Bank and Eris Properties, for the consistent support rendered to IPMM over the years.

This year’s conference is set to be patronized by over 500 HR personnel from various corporate institutions, up from 400 last year, and IPMM encourages the companies to include their executive management in order for them to appreciate more what their human resource experts are updating themselves.

The conference will be graced by Pepe Minambo, a Kenyan who is a renowned African motivational speaker and author, who — through his speeches made in various African countries and also globally — desires to inspire people to success — which is one of the pillars of IPMM that recognises employees as a source of success to any business.

According to The Standard of Kenya, Pepe Minambo is founding director of The Motivator Forum, an inspirational capacity building organisation and in his 25 years of residency in Kenya from the DRC where he was born, he has toured the breadth and length of the country, speaking to managers and employees of “many a blue chip company and students in learning institutions”.

He is an author with several titles to his name, that include: ‘Be Inspired Before You Expire’; ‘You Can Dream Again’; ‘How to Inspire Students for Remarkable Performance’; and ‘The Greatness Syndrome’.

In ‘Be Inspired Before You Expire’, he decries the influence of what he refers to as an expired person, saying like out of date medicine, such a person has the ability to contaminate minds with their negative thinking.

He described such people as those that see difficulties in every undertaking, giving “thousands of excuses as to why a task cannot succeed”.

He is quoted in an interview by The Standard that: “One should always avoid the average person mentality. An average person has an average brain that only absorbs some average information in school leading to average grades.

“Such a person will live an average life and die an average death with average mourners in attendance raising average shillings to cover funeral expenses.”

The Standard said nothing gratifies Pepe more than getting positive feedback from those who have turned their lives around after listening to him, some of whose experiences are documented in his writings.

“Either live a cerebrated life or a tolerated life. The choice is yours,” he is quoted as saying.