JBDC Urges Employers to Embrace Cultural Change

The Jamaica Business Development Corporation (JBDC) is calling on employers to embrace a change of culture within the organisation in order to improve employee engagement.

The entity’s Chief Executive Officer, Valerie Veira, said that the workforce has become more multigenerational and diverse, with groups such as baby boomers, Generation X, millennials, and Generation Z operating in one space, and “we have to be aware of the new needs”.

“Whereas, before, we used to be comfortable with a pen and note pad, the millennials want the tools that they are used to, so we have to be open to that. The organisation has to adjust to new ways of doing things and new attitudes,” she noted.

Miss Veira, who was speaking at a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) Think Tank, said employers must lead the charge to make the workplace culture more conducive to the various groups.

“You will always have resistance… as you will have [someone] that says ‘this is the way it is supposed to be’ but you, as the leader, have to be the one that helps to drive that process. There has to be a sensitivity to new ways of doing things and we have to be open,” she said.

Employers will receive practical tools to help change the culture within their organisations at the JBDC’s upcoming Employee Engagement Conference 2091.

“One of the aspects of the conference is a round-table discussion where employers will be able to seek advice from two experts regarding what is happening in their organisations and what can be done to improve it,” said 3M InterAmerica’s Business Human Resource Manager for Jamaica & Trinidad, Desrine McFarlane.

“This conference is not just about coming and listening but also about implementing even one new thing to change the culture,” she told JIS News.

The Employee Engagement Conference 2019 will be held October 16 and17 at the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston under the theme ‘Employee Experience 3D – Design. Develop. Deliver’.