The Empowered Administrators Conference has always thrived to bring office administrators up to speed with technology. This year, the organisers felt that the Mahlaba family, well-known in KZN and outside KZN for their leadership role in digitalizing society should have bespoke presentations on critical and unexplored applications hardly used by office professionals. Their forte has been to introduce Artificial Intelligence to both young and old, kicking off with a Girls that code project for historically disadvantaged communities to various empowerment programmes at various municipalities and now at the EAC.
Sandile Mahlaba, indeed, an MUT alumnus, and KZN executive of Microsoft Public sector, presented the Microsoft Co-pilot and showed how it is integrated into Microsoft 365. “It works alongside you, embedded in the Microsoft 365 apps you use every day — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and more. The aim is to unleash creativity, unlock productivity and uplevel skills. In today’s world you should not be typing minutes when there is AI and even developing an agenda”, he said before taking delegates to step-by-step processes on using Co-pilot.
His better half, Teboho Semmelink took office professionals to another level by letting them understand the power they have on using their phones to visualise new office set-ups. “You spend eight hours on average in the office. The onus is upon you to ensure that your environment is conducive to your productivity and well-being. Things like basic lighting and having office greenery go a long way in creating a balanced office environment. You can create your comfortable office by learning how to use some of the APPS on your phone”, she said. After this, office professionals were given assignments to create an office that would make them more comfortable. The exercise was an eye-opener on how technology could be used to improve productivity and well-being.
The issue of office ergonomics is hardly tackled in organisations and the EAC organisers believe that by introducing this concept to office professionals, they could have the power to influence how they could create ambiance in their organisations. “Offices must be spaces that reflect an inviting customer-centric environment. Noting that there are budget implications, we put a lot of emphasis on how delegates should be guided by APPS such as Pinterest and Meta AI to design offices they envisage. In this way, they would be able to emphasize cost-effectiveness”, said Teboho.