ALISON BROWNE-ELLIS heads a team of 20 and is fully aware human resource relations can make or break an organisation.
It is therefore no surprise that she fully supports Cave Shepherd Card Services’ participation in the Barbados’ Best Employers (BBE) programme.
Ellis, who is director of the department, gave her endorsement when the 2016 edition of the biennial initiative was officially launched last Tuesday at the Savannah Hotel.
It was in 2010 that full-service human resource consulting firm Caribbean Catalyst Inc. pioneered the recognition of organisations operating with exemplary human resource practices and programmes.
BBE “seeks to publicly acknowledge employers who provide work environments which are conducive to high productivity and who support positive employer/employee relations”. From inception, it has been fully supported by sponsor The Nation Publishing Company Limited.
Ellis, who heads the team that made the finals in the small category, said: “In 2014, the Cave Shepherd card unit had the opportunity to see first-hand how this highly endorsed and widely accepted programme, led by a team of seasoned human resource professionals, provides participants with invaluable feedback that can be adopted to strengthen the HR practices and policies executed by successful companies.”
She said the decision to participate was “driven by the rapid and positive changes occurring to our product, customer service delivery, and the reshaping of our overall employee benefits and programmes”.
Before they took the leap into the employee evaluation programme, however, Ellis said she did her own assessment. She deliberately matched BBE against other such initiatives and concluded that it would “offer more tangible benefits that could lead to further improvements in our approach to human resource management”.
It is a decision neither she nor the team has regretted.
“Working with the Caribbean Catalyst team has always been a pleasure. Ros and her team made our participation appear seamless, the survey was well received by all team members who were encouraged to share their honest and candid feedback under the confidential survey,” she said.
“The interviews conducted by management and select team members were also embraced as it allowed the team to be a part of the process. Empowered with the survey findings and clear recommendations presented during the debriefing stage we saw many opportunities to enhance our existing programmes, while adding new initiatives to positively effect change in our most valuable resource, our people.”
The director said the Cave Shepherd team saw their involvement in BBE as an opportunity “not only to measure our progress but to gauge how we were performing against other organisations”. They were encouraged that “despite our size the results were comparable and in some cases even above other larger organisations”.
“Recognising our people as a unique source of competitive advantage, we were forced to make a greater effort to build progressive human resource strategies to boost employee engagement and productivity levels, which continues to be a challenge for many organisations and Barbados as a whole,” she added.
“Emerging as a finalist, our employee size of 16 in 2014, now standing at 20, was the only indicator that the Cave Shepherd Card team sat in the small category as the progress and accomplishments pursued by the unit were notably ambitious.”
Ellis is in no doubt that “organisational change requires continuous evaluation” and she emphasised that “this is where the considerable benefit derived from the independent assessment of our human resource management polices and procedures, as conducted by Caribbean Catalyst, was deemed to be very advantageous”.
While the Cave Shepherd team was not named among the “winners”, its members still feel victorious, since, as Ellis noted, “the findings shared under the programme have inspired us to enhance our focus on incorporating best practices aimed at ensuring the organisation’s long term success”.
“We readily admit, however, that working toward maximising employee engagement and productivity is no walk in the park. As we continue to push to improve our products and services and general operations, we do acknowledge that the mindset of some employees can hamper the desired level of results,” she said.
With BBE now back for its fourth edition, the business executive recommended it to all organisations.
“We fully endorse this programme and the great work executed by the Caribbean Catalyst team. Based on our own experience, we believe that this year’s participants will benefit tremendously, especially at a time where, more so than ever, our country continues to grapple with lower than acceptable productivity levels,” she said. (SC)
