From The President’s Desk

We are living in interes ng mes.

The Jamaican public sector has serious expec‐ta ons regarding its future and there has been serious anxiety that has manifested itself into Industrial Ac ons or the threat of it. How did we get to this place and how do we move on from it? The answer lies in the change management process and how we listen to each other. It has to do with trust as well and when we have all the variables going in the wrong direc on, what we will have is serious discontent.

Cri cal to the management of any change process is communica on…What? How? When? and Where? are ques ons we should all try to answer to bridge the divide between employer and employee. My interac on with the GoJ change management process has shown that we have been inconsistent with communica on or we have not invested enough in communica on to make the change less stressful. Also, we o en believe that merely ac ng on our authority is enough to get everyone to fall in line as obedient li le civil servants.

The tone from the top is very important and workers need to feel that they are a part of the decision making about their own future. There will always be concessions in any change process but it must not always appear to be one sided and this is where the principle of collec ve bargaining comes in. Simply, collec ve bargaining is the process through which a group of workers combine their common interest and make representa on to their employer to arrive through dialogue at an agreement that both sides can be comfortable with while not necessarily being the best outcome for either side. Jamaica has been in crisis mode since the mid 1970’s and as a country we seemingly have not had a break moving from one crisis to another. When these crises are global it exacerbates the chal‐lenges, we have locally. Most of these crises manifest themselves economically and “bread and bu er” issues now become the primary concern of the worker as they see themselves dri ing deeper into poverty. It is the Collec ve bargaining consensus building mechanism that has allowed us to remain afloat through all crises. We cannot depart from its principles now.

The Compensa on Review in the mind of the worker is to be the answer to their “bread and bu er” dilemma and for the Government it is an opportunity to answer the call of the worker for be er compensa on in a simplified, equitable and predictable framework. In essence it appears that both par es want the same thing and should be working towards the common objec ve of be er compensa on however that message got lost and the hope of the review is becoming one of trepida on.

All is not lost and the recent res veness in the Public Sector presented an opportunity for all the stakeholders to have a reset and to go back to core principles in managing the change process. We must avoid the tempta on to be reac onary, we must iden fy the process, s ck to the process, and trust the process. Th dynamics of change will

mean that there will be disagreements as we seek to align desire with intent.

Leadership is important in this process and leaders must now demonstrate strength of character and not be emo onal in dealing with disagreements or become too encumbered in trying to avoid policy dri as long as this policy dri does not render the intent obsolete. It draws my mind to the struggles of Moses when he sought to lead the children of Israel to the promised land, his ac ons when there was an ideological dri caused him to act out of character and because of that he never got to go into the promised land, which was reportedly flowing with milk and honey. Minister Clarke is our Moses in this context and how he manages this process will determine how we enter the promised land called the Compensa on Review and that it will in fact be flowing with milk and honey.

O’Neil W. Grant, MBA President