The Managing Director of DHL Express Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), Charles Brewer, has said that the company has made great strides in evolving their leadership structures in SSA and since 2011, the number of female employees in leadership roles have more than doubled.

Brewer declared that the days of hierarchical approach to leadership are over, adding that the organisation is seeing younger generation has the future.

"Four years ago, 15 per cent of our leadership roles across SSA were filled by women, compared to over 35 per cent now and we are committed to further increase the number of female staff members at management level. Similarly, there seems to be an ongoing debate about how to manage and lead the millennial generation - for us, we see the younger generation as the ones who will move our business forward, therefore recognising and accepting the differences and similarities between them and Generation X is crucial to business success."

"Gone are the days of a hierarchical approach to leadership, you have to keep things flexible and open the lines of communication. Employees of today want to have positive work-life balance, do meaningful work and understand the growth paths available to them. If you are able to capitalise on their ambitions and goals, your business will see the benefits," says Brewer.

Research by the global performance-management consulting company, Gallup showed that employees, who are more engaged, are psychologically more committed to their job than those who are not.

"At DHL, we believe that having a motivated workforce will lead to great service quality which will translate into loyal customers and sustainable and profitable business operations.

"Lengthy and rigid performance reviews are also no longer effective - in a fast paced environment such as ours, we find micro-mentoring more effective.

We focus on smaller and more regular feedback sessions that may be a five-minute discussion over lunch but it has a structure and it is shorter, less formal and more frequent. Reverse mentoring is just as important - you now have a dynamic, tech-savvy generation at your fingertips, it's important to learn from them and get some fresh new ideas,” Brewer said.