Creating a pool of future mining industry leaders is Konkola Copper Mines’ (KCM’s) major focus under the company’s 50-year vision to continue to mine in Zambia.

A talent pool is critical to KCM after investing $3 billion in modern processing plants such as the 311kt Nchanga smelter, new concentrators at Nchanga and Konkola with a combined 15.5 million tonnes annual capacity, expansion of the Nkana refinery to 300kt annual capacity and expansions and upgrades to the mines and other existing facilities.

In 2015, the company recruited 37 university graduates in mining engineering, human resources and business and metallurgy as management trainees. This brings to 247 the number of graduate management trainees recruited since the programme commenced in 2006. Some of the trainees were awarded KCM scholarships to study at universities in India and Namibia before being employed by the company.

Management trainees are put through a rigorous in-house training programme to inculcate in them the KCM work culture to promote attributes of sound management, efficiency and global best-practice in addition to what they learn in universities.

The programme is also KCM’s contribution to plugging a skills gap for rare skills in Zambia’s mining industry as the company seeks to grow the numbers of the next generation of mining experts.

Talcisious Chanda, aged 24, is one of the new management trainees in KCM bubbling with confidence on the company’s future as he positions himself to make a huge contribution to its growth.

“I consider myself being at the home of mining in Zambia,” Chanda says.

The trainees extol their supervisors in KCM as ‘seasoned mining experts providing excellent guidance on the steps to globally benchmarked mining.’

“I have learned pretty fast that mining requires team work to resolve difficult situations, planning and adjusting schedules and dealing with both the expected and unexpected in order to achieve desired growth. This is a great attribute that is building us in KCM,” Chanda says.