Greater focus needed on HR development

A Government Minister has expressed concern that the public sector has not given human resource (HR) development the level of prominence that it deserves.

Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development, Donville Inniss, made the point as he led off the debate on the Employment Sexual Harassment (Prevention) Bill in the House of Assembly yesterday morning.

According to Inniss, greater focus is needed in this area, especially given the large workforce on Government’s payroll.

“You cannot have an organisation with in excess of 20 000 workers and have a very centralised human resource department. Matter of fact, I think the focus has been more on personnel administration as opposed to human resource development, and to me there is a significant difference between the two. The latter one is the one I think is far more relevant to our situation in Barbados, because there is talk about identifying opportunities, identifying strengths and weaknesses among workers and providing the right kind of enabling environment that allows that worker to achieve their full potential,” he said.

Inniss’ comments came as he contended that such could not be achieved in an organisation as large as the public service in a very centralised manner. But, he noted that efforts are being made to address this deficit, as over 6 000 public servants throughout the entire system have been trained or retrained in the fundamentals of good human resource development and good human resource administration.

He mentioned the need to improve HR development within the public sector, as he spoke to the efforts of the Government to improve the work environment for workers and put legislation in place to protect their rights, without infringing on the rights of employers. This, he said, includes the Employment Rights Act giving employees the right not to be unfairly dismissed; establishing the Employment Rights Tribunal to uphold those rights; the amended Holiday with Pay Act; a new Shops Act; as well as the enactment of the Minimum Wage Board Act and the establishment of the Minimum Wage Board.

“…We proclaimed the Safety and Health at Work Act of 2005 which replaced the Factories Act. We also assessed the Government owned and occupied workplaces to ensure compliance with that particular Act as well. So everything was not just about legislation, it was also bringing the right policy framework into place to ensure that legislation also works,” he said.

(JRT)ﾄ