Makerere University has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Human Resource Managers Association of Uganda (HRMAU) to promote professionalism among employers.

This is aimed at promoting collaboration on issues of research, supporting students through internship programmes and promoting innovative HR solutions that will help to uplift profiles not only for HR managers, but also for students to make them more marketable as prospective employers.

According to HRMAU president Ronald Bbosa, the MOU is geared at setting up mechanisms for collaboration on research, publication of findings from research and innovations on aspects that can help the country achieve the National Development Goals.

“It is in our interest as a country that we move in the direction of recognising professional associations and make sure that they are governed by the Acts of Parliaments, such that we bring forth the ethical and moral conduct required to drive professionalism and deal with some of the challenges like corruption," Bbosa said.

"We believe that if professionals are bound by such codes of conduct, we should be able to have a better professional regime where people know that you can lose your practising certificate if found in unethical conduct,” he added.

Bbosa, during the signing of the MOU at Makerere on Thursday, cited the passing of the HR Professional’s Bill by Parliament as a step in the right direction.

“We believe that when we associate with universities and they bring products to the market, they should be practical in terms of the solutions and services they offer. This kind of MOU brings us closer to achieving our aspirations as a professional association," he said.

He explained that different disciplines have different codes of conduct they use throughout the training at universities, but the majority don’t meet them at workplaces, given the situations they work in.

“The one way of dealing with codes of conduct is by having a fallback position to the professional body, which is always interested in standardisation. If we have interventions backed up by support from the academia, we stand a better chance of taking our country to another level in terms of achieving NDGs,” he added.

Bringing professionalism in academics

Dr Sepi Wanyama, a human resource management lecturer in the department of marketing and management in the School of Business, said the MOU will help bring professionalism to academics, especially in the area of HRM.

“We are going to ensure that we collaborate with the association to develop programmes that are industrial-related and relevant and also collaborate in areas of research on practical aspects, that concern the industry and the profession of HR including internship placement, mentorship and coaching fresh graduates to prepare them for the field of work," Wanyama said. 

We want to see that we bring practitioners from the industry of work through the association to complement our efforts as academia in delivering programmes that are practically oriented," he added.

Makerere University vice-chancellor Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe observed the need to manage the human resource of the country at all levels.

“The fourth strategic goal of Makerere is to make it a professionally managed institution, we can only succeed to the extent that the HRM is well, otherwise if we don’t manage the human resource well, our productivity will also be very low,” he said.

Nawangwe added that HRM is an important factor in the success of Makerere University and Uganda at large noting that the most delicate and important human resource for Uganda is at Makerere and has to be managed well in addition to training other HR managers who are going to manage all the human resource around the country.

“I am very happy that Makerere University is entering into this MOU with the association, we value partnerships with professional associations because they bring some value and experiences from the industry which they can share and help in producing better human resource managers,” she said.

Nawangwe lauded the College of Business for the initiative saying this will help in building Makerere into a better university.