Continuous Training & Worker Well-Being Vital To Tourism Sector
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has issued a challenge to hoteliers to provide continuous training opportunities for their workers while finding the time to check in on their well-being while on the job.
She also suggested that as their properties become profitable, they must “carry along your people” as this has been the secret to success for many small societies.
Ms. Mottley underscored the importance of the sector which has been the main economic driver for Barbados for over 50 years, as she addressed the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association’s 1st Quarterly Meeting, under the theme: The Vision for Barbados and Tourism, at Hilton Barbados Resort, today.
She stated that tourism workers all had the same family issues to deal with from time to time, and in light of this, managers must be cognisant of the need for their workers to navigate the complexities of their personal lives while balancing their work life with dignity.
The Prime Minister contended: “How many of you as managers in here find five or 10 minutes, as many of you do, I’m sure, to be able to just go one side, you are talking to either a housekeeper or you’re talking to a waiter… They are no different to you or me. They have the same families at home that are drawing on them.”
She continued: “Tourism in this country provided a lot of people over the last 50, 60 years with opportunities to move from poverty to move into middle-income status, and at the very least, lower middle-income status.
“In many instances, we have to set about, and Ian (Gooding-Edghill) and I have discussed this deliberately, to create a construct that allows our workers to be the best that they can be, knowing that the owners and managers have their back. Equally, allowing our hotels and tourism product to be the best that they can be knowing that your workers have your back, because you cannot be there 24/7 when they are interacting with people.”
Ms. Mottley said she wants to see workers, managers, and pioneer owners of properties celebrated more often, adding: “If you don’t celebrate your workers, tell me who [will]?”
The Prime Minister reminded the audience that tourism workers were “the ink that prints the cheques for the money to come”, pointing to the need for the island’s tourism to be competitive.
She also touched on the importance of understanding the linkages between tourism, agriculture, and culture to the sustainability of the tourism product.
On the subject of continuous training, she noted: “This is so critical, and I accept that you cannot “bite off” everything one time, but we can find the top 10 products in agriculture, the top 10 products in manufacturing that we will support as industries, not just Barbados, but across the entire Caribbean.
“And that, in addition to the absolute obligation for training and retraining, and not one-off training because our people learn according to habit. So, it is better to give them a half day every other month than to give them two or three days up front and then don’t touch them again for another year. They need the refreshing and the renewal of training locally and regionally,” Ms. Mottley stressed.
The Prime Minister added that the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association needs to meet with all regional institutions that provide hospitality training to find ways to deliver the training to workers in different modalities.
There were also addresses from BHTA’s Chief Executive Officer, Ryan Forde, who gave an overview of the Secretariat’s achievements for the past year, and Chairman Jevon Griffith, who focused on the achievements in the sector and projections for upcoming months.
Author: Julie Carrington