The rapid adoption of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) presents both workforce risks and opportunities for the mining industry, requiring organisations to rethink how they plan, develop and deploy talent, the Head of People & Culture at GCB Bank, Nana Kwabena Yeboah, has said.

At the 7th Biennial HR Conference of the Ghana Chamber of Mines in Accra, Mr Yeboah said the emergence of new technologies should not be viewed solely as a threat to jobs, but as an opportunity to build safer, smarter and more productive workplaces.

He was a panellist at a breakout session on the topic, “Skills and workforce planning in an era of automation, AI and energy transition,” moderated by Meshack Baah, Director, Human Resource, at AngloGold Ashanti Obuasi Mine.

The session also featured the Executive Director of L’Aine HR, Kofy Hagan.

The conference was organised on the theme: “Future-ready people: Building the workforce for Ghana’s next era of mining.”

Discussions focused on talent retention, future skills, productivity and industrial relations stability.

It brought together CEOs, HR leaders and industry stakeholders to examine the skills and strategies required to build a resilient and high-performing workforce for the country’s next era of mining.

Workforce planning

Mr Yeboah said workforce planning must move beyond traditional headcount projections to focus on work organisations.

He identified curiosity, adaptability, resilience and digital fluency among the critical capabilities that organisations must cultivate as the nature of work evolves.

Mr Yeboah said reskilling initiatives would deliver greater value when they were directly linked to future roles and business requirements rather than being pursued simply as training activities.

He stressed the need for organisations to focus on sustained employee development, citing the GCB Bank’s approach to building future-ready capabilities through its online Digital Academy, where employees undertake structured digital skills development over a period of about six months.

Mr Yeboah also emphasised the importance of treating workforce transformation as a people issue, particularly as organisations undertake digital and technological transformation.

“At GCB, we see digital transformation as a people issue first, rather than a technology issue,” he said.

Career paths

Mr Yeboah further said that not every employee aspired to people management roles or had the capacity or interest to pursue them.

He, therefore, urged employers to explore dual-career pathways that allow employees to advance either through management or specialist tracks. 

“Those who want to be in management must be assisted to reach that potential, while those who do not should have opportunities to progress through other career pathways,” he said.

Mr Yeboah also called for greater use of workforce analytics and credible local and global research to help organisations anticipate capability gaps before they become operational constraints.

He said collaboration between mining companies, universities, TVET institutions and other relevant partners was critical, particularly where specialised capabilities required several years of training and development.

Mr Yeboah encouraged mining companies to work collectively through the Ghana Chamber of Mines to develop pipelines for critical skills and better manage the supply of talent needed by the industry.

He said such a collaboration could also strengthen efforts to improve the participation and representation of women in the mining workforce.

Mr Yeboah also advocated continuous learning as an integral part of how organisations operate.

He said the changing nature of work made it increasingly important for organisations to identify and develop talent based on capabilities rather than relying solely on industry-specific experience.