Last week’s list of ten finalists in this year’s Barbados’ Best Employers (BBE) programme had some familiar names.
But, as has been the case since BBE’s inception in 2010, there was no public sector representation.
The good news is that after years of rolling out the welcome carpet for statutory entities a couple of them signed up for the programme this year. Obviously, though, none made the final group.
It is a phenomenon that continues to concern Caribbean Catalyst Inc. managing director Rosalind Jackson. Caribbean Catalyst conceptualised BBE and holds it every two years in partnership with The Nation Publishing Company Limited and its BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY brand.
“We have tried to get statutory corporations and Government departments to participate as well because while it is very private sector focused, not by our chosing but by the reality, we need all the sectors to be firing on all cylinders,” Caribbean Catalyst managing director Rosalind Jackson said in a recent interview.
“Should we have sufficient critical mass and statutory corps and Government departments, we could easily put on a special category.
“At the end of the day we are talking about these strong HR and leadership practices and I don’t care what your organisation looks like at the end of the day, there are people in it that make it work or don’t work,” she added.
Veteran banker Horace Cobham, a member of the BBE review panel, also believes it “would be a great thing to see some statutory corporations, particularly the ones that are important to the success of Barbados”.
“I think it would be good to have some of them on board and take the challenge and take the benefits of that challenge. They will get benefits, they will get good quality independent feedback through a very professional approach. Then they would have an opportunity for employee interventions to help them chart a new course or the right course,” he said.
“The one thing that you will hear very easily is ‘but we are not the same’. There could be some credence to that…but guess what? You can line up two, three, four of them together and do an assessment for them and it would be perfect.”
Cobham said this “requires a paradigm shift” in thinking.
“In the private sector, people see the people who they have to deal with and interact with as customers, I am not sure it is necessarily the case in the public sector whether it is a statutory or Government department. But guess what? It just isn’t going to start just so. Sometimes it needs a catalyst,” he said.
Another review panellist Pauline Mager-Jordan said the focus on good customer service need not be restricted to the private sector.
“One of the things that I have seen in this that really warmed my heart is that there is a very high percentage of people who say ‘my organisation is focused on good customer service’. So it’s obviously travelled through and they are hearing it. Imagine if that could be translated into some of the Government departments in terms of client services,” she said.
Meanwhile, Vancourt Rouse, also a member of the review panel, was happy that BBE had emerged from the private sector. This was especially so because, he noted, the implication often was that the business community did not do enough.
“It is frequently asked now ‘what’s the private sector doing?, what are private sector businesses doing to improve competitiveness and improve productivity and those types of things?’. This type of initiative, this is entirely a private sector initiative, a private sector company is carrying it forward, is facilitating it,” he said.
“It’s about private sector companies who are being assessed and it’s a private sector review panel. So I find it a very, very strong statement about how you can take an initiative, as the private sector, to enhance and improve our national competitiveness, certainly, of our companies here.”
BBE 2016 will feature its biennial luncheon on June 21 from 12 noon to 2:30 p.m. at the Hilton Barbados in the Needhams Ballroom. The programme recognises and honours local organisations with exemplary human resources practices, policies and programmes.
Guest speaker at the luncheon will be Lori Stohs, a human capital consultant, facilitator and coach from Nebraska, United Sates. Her focus will be on human capital optimisation which is extremely relevant as businesses strive to create more engaged teams.