The team of consultants at Caribbean Catalyst Inc. has been busy in the field for the past six weeks working with companies which are participating in the Barbados’ Best Employers (BBE) Awards.The awards were created to recognise and honour local organisations with exemplary human resources practices, policies and programmes. This prestigious biennial initiative was conceptualised by Caribbean Catalyst and is being produced in partnership with Barbados Business Authority, a publication of the Nation Publishing Co. Limited. Caribbean Catalyst Inc. has completed most of the management interviews and is working to complete all of the staff surveys by late August. Ros Jackson, managing director of Caribbean Catalyst Inc., said: “Our panel of reviewers – Ann Hewitt, Dr Hensley Sobers and Harold Hoyte – will be meeting early next month to review all the information presented from the assessments done both from top management’s perspective, and the staff’s perspective to determine the finalists in each of the three categories: small, medium and large companies.”Jackson also noted that in each category, companies were demonstrating some very progressive human resource (HR) practices. She said she was confident that a number of worthwhile local best practices would emerge and would be highlighted and could help more companies focus on constructive ways to improve both their HR practices and their productivity.The awards luncheon for the BBE programme is being held at Hilton Barbados on Thursday, September 30. This function will see a winner emerge from the finalists in each of the three categories.Caribbean Catalyst Inc. is pleased to announce that Steve Houchin, managing partner of International Leadership Associates, would be guest speaker at the awards luncheon.Houchin is a master facilitator and leading author on The Five Practices Of Exemplary Leadership, the highly acclaimed model of leadership behaviours detailed in The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner, with whom he has a long-standing working relationship.The teams at Caribbean Catalyst Inc. and Nation Publishing look forward to an exciting and informative culmination of the inaugural BBE programme. (PR)
