Productivity Sessions Dispel Misconceptions About St. Lucian Workers

Contact: John Emmanuel

Tuesday, September 04, 2001 - The Ministry of the Public Service says it is surprisingly pleased at the outcome of a series of workshops here aimed at improving productivity throughout the public and private sectors. The Ministry’s Senior Training Officer Lydia Anslem says the sessions dispelled many of the myths and misconceptions about St. Lucian workers.

According to Anslem, based on dialogue among participants and persons in the private sector, trade unions and other stakeholders, the Ministry got a better understanding of where St. Lucia was in terms of productivity.

The Public Service official says although St. Lucian workers put in many hours on the job, it was difficult to assess whether that hard work was paying off. Instead she noted the need to change the manner of doing things and called for the work force to become more focused in ensuring that goals were realized.

Anslem says the notion that St. Lucian workers are lazy is simply a misconception. “The comment that St. Lucian workers are lazy has been made many times in many fora but we’ve found that this may not necessarily be so. There are many things affecting the performance of anyone, what they believe about work, what they think they stand to benefit from work, what they think they’re working towards and what is available to them in terms of carrying out the work that they need to do. All these things impact on one’s work methods and attitude to work and whether or not they are motivated to doing the work that they have committed themselves to do, ” said Anslem.

According to her, what needs to be done now is for both the public and private sectors to address many of the issues affecting worker productivity such as the structures of organizations, the planning and scheduling of work, and the way resources are managed.

Over 200 persons from both the private and public sectors were exposed to the productivity improvement concepts during the series of seminars held over a twelve month period.  

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