Transformation often unfolds in the flow of everyday work, rather than through bold announcements. In the British Council’s human resources operations across Africa, that change is taking root under Derrick Afriyie’s deliberate, data-driven leadership.
When Derrick joined the British Council years ago, HR was still largely a paper-driven domain. By 2017, he had introduced a performance dashboard that began to change how the organisation’s HR teams operated, turning manual, slow processes into agile, measurable workflows. Response times that once spanned days shrank to hours. Managers in Accra, Nairobi, and elsewhere could watch bottlenecks form and fade in real time. The dashboard was no longer just a tool but a new language for HR teams, bringing clarity and accountability.
By 2018, the tool became an integral part of everyday operations. What had been an experimental pilot evolved into a system embedded in daily meetings and team routines. Compliance standards, once feared as audits, became ongoing conversations. Instead of waiting for reports every quarter, teams tracked their own progress through self-service, reshaping culture from anxiety to ownership.
By 2019, Afriyie’s role expanded well beyond dashboards. The British Council’s 2018–19 Annual Report highlights the broader digital vision: to deliver better customer service to front-line employees and to provide robust data for decision making through a digital HR transformation that spans geographies and functions. The organisation committed to deepening its digital infrastructure, recognising that modern HR needed to be seamless, accessible, and data-informed. The report highlights how digital audience and engagement numbers rose from 222 million in 2017–18 to 262 million in 2018–19, thanks to amplified usage of MOOCs, Learn-English sites, digital English learning platforms, and Office 365 deployments. This platform-level momentum provided fertile ground for Afriyie’s digital HR efforts.
Across multiple African countries, the shift from paper to pixels was palpable. Leave requests, contract changes, and payroll inquiries, once bottlenecked by manual paperwork, moved online. Derrick had championed a cloud-based HR Information System (SuccessFactors) that enabled employees to submit and track requests through self-service platforms. The pilot chatbot introduced the previous year, initially an experiment in automating routine inquiries, had matured into an accepted first point of contact, answering standard policy questions instantly and reducing the workload on HR employees.
This was not just about efficiency; it signified a shift in the experience of HR itself. Employees no longer needed to physically visit offices or wait days for routine tasks. Instead, they leveraged digital devices for HR services, increasing comfort level with digital tools to manage their work lives on their own terms. In Accra and beyond, this change resonated deeply, fostering autonomy and faster service.
Meanwhile, the original compliance dashboard grew more sophisticated. Once simply showing service-level agreement compliance in red, amber, and green, it now integrates live payroll data, audit notes, and real-time HR case statuses. Risk was no longer hidden beneath paperwork; it was visible, tracked, and addressed proactively. This integration of data sources embodied the Council’s strategy to become a digitally enabled organisation, a priority clearly articulated in its 2019–20 Corporate Plan.
Beyond the technology, workflows and team dynamics were transformed. Weekly stand-ups, once dominated by paper forms and manual sign-offs, became collaborative sessions where HR teams shared real-time metrics and resolved digital hitches on the spot. Training on new forms or policy changes happened in these moments—fast, informal, and effective. Managers reported feeling more agile, better equipped to anticipate issues rather than simply reacting.
This digital momentum paralleled broader trends across the British Council. The Annual Report detailed how digital engagement surged, emphasising that these HR changes were not isolated but part of a larger organisational shift toward digital transformation. In tandem, structural reforms provided scaffolding for the change. The 2019 Tailored Review called for secure funding for shared services and prioritised strategic workforce planning and leadership development, goals that aligned seamlessly with Derrick’s drive to embed data-backed decision-making and governance structures.
Afriyie’s influence extended into procurement, too. A 2018 whitepaper he authored laid the groundwork for digitising procurement workflows, creating transparent, timestamped digital trails, electronic sequencing of approvals, and enhanced auditability. By linking HR and finance dashboards, he ensured that budgets aligned with workforce realities, a vital step for an organisation operating across multiple countries and currencies.
Throughout the transition, Afriyie’s focus remained on human trust because technology only works when it is trusted and systems aren’t changed unless they help people trust the process over panic. His experience showed that without trust and clear communication, even the best tools could falter. For him, digital transformation was not about novelty but reliability.
By mid-2019, Derrick’s pilot had matured into a steady glow across British Council operations in Africa. Audits, once dreaded, became routine check-ins. Errors and delays gave way to precision and anticipation. The digital pulse beneath it all connected people, processes, and data, allowing the Council to operate faster, smarter, and with more transparency.
In a complex organisation navigating culture, geography, and compliance, such quiet revolutions endure. At their core is Derrick Afriyie, the architect of a digital transformation that elevates how people experience work, trust systems, and embrace change.
The journey continues. But as HR teams tap into digital devices instead of shuffling papers, and dashboards light up with live data instead of stale reports, it is clear that Afriyie’s vision is becoming reality, one reliable, human-centred system at a time.
Nelson writes from Lagos
