KCM offers excellent career opportunities across the different business units with the opportunity for employees to make a difference in their respective fields. We seek a broad range of skills to drive our business and together transform challenges into opportunities.

As part of KCM’s strategy to meet the company’s current and future skills requirements, we significantly invest in employee education and skills development programmes. We also provide no-interest loans for educational purposes to our employees, their spouses and children.

KCM is committed to developing local skills and talent and the majority of our employees are Zambian nationals. A critical component of our ability to operate successfully is the need to train and retain Zambian skills, through the local employee development programme. The percentage of expatriate staff members is at 1%, which is one of the lowest proportions in the Zambian mining industry.

We operate in a dynamic environment that requires our employees to have advanced technical skills and knowledge. We have ongoing programmes aimed at ensuring our talent is trained and skilled adequately for the environment we operate in.

Scholarships and Staff Development Programmes

KCM has a longstanding tradition of offering scholarships and further professional development opportunities to KCM employees, including:

• Training programmes: KCM provides regular (in-house and external) training programmes, including degree programmes at universities in Zambia and abroad. We have sponsored over 250 students for fulltime degree and other tertiary programmes at local and foreign universities in a commitment to enhance skills development.
• Global Leadership Programme (GLP): The GLP is one of KCM’s flagship training programmes. Our high potential employees are selected to gain further leadership training through international assignments within the Vedanta Resources Group. To date, the GLP has enabled KCM to train a pool of young Zambians through leadership programmes in Australia, South Africa, Namibia and India. The programme ensures that knowledge transfer and internationally benchmarked skills and learning are brought to Zambia.
• Management and Leadership Training: Our senior managers are regularly sent for leadership training at leading international business schools to gain best practice global expertise.
• Exchange programmes: We also send our employees to benchmarking exercises at other international mining operations. Some of these operations have included KGHM in Poland, Olympic Dam in Australia, and Los Pelambres and Escondida in Chile.

KCM’s employee education and skills development initiatives include:

Graduate Development Programme (GDP)
As a leading mining company, we understand the importance of developing high potential graduates into future leaders. The GDP is a comprehensive two year rotational programme designed to mold young talented and highly motivated graduates into well-rounded professionals through rotational assignments, rigorous assessments, presentations and panel reviews.

The programme aims to take graduates coming from a university environment and shape them into viable candidates who can operate in a business and industry oriented environment. Most of the training occurs on the job across the KCM business units with substantial technical training and managerial skills development.

The programme is a stepping stone for graduates entering KCM to build a long successful career within the company.

Apprentice Programmes
Ongoing learning and advancement is supported through apprentice training which is offered at Kitwe Trades School, a company-owned school and one of Africa’s largest private vocational training schools. The school offers several technical and management courses.

A recent US$ 2.6 million investment in the Kitwe Trades School has ensured an upgrade of the curriculum and facilities to increase enrolment to over 200 students per year.

Kitwe Trades School offers an extensive range of skills programs including:

• Automotive electrical skills
• Electrical skills
• Instrumentation
• Heavy equipment repair
• Metal fabrication
• Fitting
• Rigging
• Mechatronics
• Pump fitting and maintenance