IT IS EXTREMELY DISHEARTENING to read that the World Economic Forum’s 2015 Global Competiveness Report has demoted Barbados to 55 from a position of 47 in 2014 and 44 in 2013 among 144 countries.
Equally saddening is the fact that for three consecutive years, the report has cited “poor work ethic” as one of the main contributing factors to our lacklustre competitiveness.
While governments and the banking industry may have specific challenges that would reduce our competitiveness, it is at the individual level that everyone can improve on their work ethic.
I suggest that a meeting of the Human Resource Association of Barbados and the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations be convened as soon as possible to identify the causes and further devise plans, programmes and strategies to eradicate this scourge wherever it exists within our labour force.
Workers at all levels must rid themselves of sloth, absenteeism and all other negatives that contribute to a poor work ethic. Then we can truly become “firm craftsmen of our fate”.
– MICHAEL RAY
