Our people
Our people are the driving force behind our progress
At Airtel Africa, our people are at the centre of everything we do. We’re building an inclusive, empowering culture that values every voice and supports ambition. By nurturing talent and promoting equality, we’re creating a workforce equipped to lead our sustainability journey across the continent.
Our approach to human resources management
Our human resources management strategy is built on strong governance, employee engagement and continuous investment in the development of our people. It's underpinned by comprehensive internal and external policies that uphold fairness, safety and respect. This ensures our workforce remains motivated, diverse and aligned with our sustainability commitments.
Our ongoing dialogue with worker and union representatives supports fair labour practices and ensures our employees have a voice. We monitor workplace concerns through incident reporting and resolution tracking.
We implement 360-degree feedback to drive accountability. We invest in employee development through training and leadership programmes.
We have rigorous health and safety processes and programmes. These are supported by our welfare initiatives which include comprehensive medical benefits and wellbeing programmes covering a broad range of topics related to a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
In 2024/25 our voluntary attrition rate was 10.4%, which is 0.4% higher than the previous reporting year.
Policy | Internal/external | Objective |
|---|---|---|
Equal opportunity statement | Internal and external | Reinforcing our commitment to diversity and inclusion. |
Diversity and inclusion policy | Internal | Ensuring we are an employer of choice with a diverse and inclusive working environment and a culture of high performance, wellbeing, skills enhancement and coaching. |
Recruitment and selection policy | Internal | Ensuring a fair and merit-based hiring process. |
Occupational health and safety policy statement | External | Demonstrating our commitment to maintaining safety in the workplace. |
Health and safety policy | Internal | Promoting workplace wellbeing and risk prevention. |
Sexual harassment policy | Internal | Creating a safe working environment, free from harassment for all. |
Grievance mechanism | Internal | Providing a structured approach to addressing employees’ concerns. |
Ethical labour management is a material topic
We uphold the highest ethical labour management standards, ensuring fair treatment, competitive compensation and a safe work environment for all our people. In addition to transparent hiring and promotion policies, grievance and whistleblowing mechanisms and an ‘open door’ culture, we adhere to all national and international labour regulations.
1
We've built a high performance culture that nurtures continuous growth, trust and innovation. Through employee-led initiatives that prioritise career development and wellbeing, we continue to develop an environment where our people can thrive. When we invest in our people, we invest in the future of our company.”
2
Rogany Ramiah
Chief human resources officer
Governance
Strong governance is central to our HR management ensuring accountability at all levels. The HR Committee, operating at both Group and OpCo level, meets quarterly to review policies, employee engagement and talent management. The Sustainability Committee provides additional oversight and the bi-annual talent council focuses on leadership development and succession planning.
It is mandatory for all employees to undergo annual ethical standards training, including anti-bribery and corruption (ABAC) and our Code of Conduct (CoC) to strengthen compliance and workplace integrity.
Our employee satisfaction surveys are conducted by Willis Towers Watson. Our open-door leadership policy and anonymous feedback platforms, such as our whistleblowing process, undergo regular internal and external audits led by the chief internal auditor.
To improve expertise, our people participate in continuous learning through various professional development courses and our internal online training platform, Percipio.
We measure our performance through key metrics, including gender balance, investment in training and development, engagement survey scores and health and safety indicators. This reinforces our commitment to building an inclusive, high-performing and well-supported workforce. In 2024/25, we enhanced our KPI for gender balance to include Group HQ as well as 14 OpCos, in line with Remuneration Committee recommendations.
Remediating potential negative impact
We are committed to fostering a transparent, accountable and ethical workplace through a robust internal grievance resolution process that enables employees to raise concerns confidentially or anonymously through an ombudsman hotline and email (ombudsperson@africa.airtel.com). We guarantee confidentiality and strictly prohibit retaliation against anyone who reports a grievance.
All concerns are acknowledged within 48 hours, and investigations are conducted discreetly by HR, internal audit, finance and other relevant teams. We regularly review and amend policies, implement preventive measures such as health and safety systems, and offer employee assistance programmes for professional support with work-related issues.
We measure the effectiveness of our grievance mechanisms through our ‘open door’ policy and employee engagement surveys and through analysis of all whistleblowing and grievance reports.
Supporting the UN SDGs
Our people strategy is focused on building a fair, diverse and inclusive workplace. We empower colleagues to grow, develop and lead while ensuring their rights, safety and wellbeing are respected across all our operations.
SDG 5: Gender equality – Expanding our network into rural and underserved areas empowers more women to connect, learn and access financial tools that support independence and family security. Within our own business, we are committed to creating a fair and inclusive culture where everyone – regardless of gender – can develop their careers and achieve their full potential.
SDG 8: Decent work and economic growth – Our mobile and financial services drive entrepreneurship and enable informal and small businesses to flourish. Across our operations, we prioritise local hiring and skills development, offering meaningful employment opportunities and supporting economic progress in the communities we serve.
GRI framework
GRI 2-7 Employees
GRI 2-25 Processes to remediate negative impact
GRI 2-26 Mechanisms for seeking advice and raising concerns
GRI 2-30 Collective bargaining agreements
GRI 401-1 New employees hires and employee turnover
GRI 401-3 Parental leave
GRI 407-1 Operations and suppliers in which the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining may be at risk
Key performance indicators (KPIs)
28.5%
gender balance in our leadership in 14 OpCos
(28.5% in 2023/24)
25%*
gender balance of our Board members
(27% in 2023/24)
$1.86m
total investment into training and development programmes
($1.2m in 2023/24)
426,393
total learning hours in 2024/25
(+28.8% vs 2023/24)
40
nationalities in our workforce
(43 in 2023/24)
0.53
total recordable injury frequency rate (TRIFR)
(0.79 in 2023/24)
* Cynthia Gordon joined the Board on 1 April 2025. If included the gender balance metric would be 30.8% women and 69.2% men