HEART Teams With JPC to Improve Productivity

Senior Programmes Director at the HEART Trust/NTA, Grace McLean, has said that the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Jamaica Productivity Centre (JPC), is timely in light of the uncertainties in the global economy, and most importantly, due to the upcoming productivity conference.
“The HEART Trust/NTA sees improved productivity as one of the key drivers to the improvement of the economy, especially in these trying times with all that is happening across the world,” she stated.
“The HEART Trust/NTA sees the productivity conference as a major activity that will assist in the continuous awareness and consciousness of productivity within the nation. And so, we have decided to partner as a tangible means of working through the agreement that we have made through the MoU and we are expected to be greatly represented as a part of the conference,” she continued.
Mrs. McLean was speaking at a recent JIS Think Tank at the agency’s Half Way Tree Road headquarters.
The Senior Programmes Director noted that as a result of the low productivity in Jamaica, the organization will be training key staff members in productivity measurement.
“We will be making sure that our key staff members in the agency will be trained in productivity measurement and improvement. This will allow the HEART Trust/NTA to assist the JPC in going into enterprises and assisting them in creating the awareness, first in staff members, and secondly to assist them in identifying the key factors, and to see how we can work with them,” she pointed out.
“The HEART Trust/ NTA is very pleased to be associated with the JPC, because it is time for us to do something. It is time for us to accept the reality and it is time for us to collectively move a head to improve productivity in this country,” she emphasised.
Against this backdrop, Mrs. McLean disclosed that the MoU between the two organizations, will play a critical role in enabling Jamaica to improve its productivity.
“This MoU is very significant to the growth of the national training agency and, by extension, the Jamaican enterprises. There is a department within the HEART Trust/ NTA for enterprise based-training, which was formulated in 2004. This area of productivity is a key component, to ensure that we work with the Jamaican enterprises in moving them to a greater level of efficiency,” she said, adding that the agency will be assisting the JPC in other areas such as training.
“We will be facilitating the provision of productivity orientation and training sessions for our learners. Each graduate from our training institutions going into industries, will have a basic idea of what productivity is all about and what are the key areas that they need to focus on, in order to contribute to productivity within the different companies they will be employed in,” she affirmed.
The MoU was signed on May 13 this year. The HEART Trust/NTA will be doing a workshop on skills improvement through productivity at the productivity conference, which is scheduled to take place over three days from October 28 to 30 in Kingston at the Knutsford Court Hotel, and October 30 in St. Ann at Breezes Runaway Bay Resort and Golf Spa.