Pres­i­dent of The Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (HRMATT), Cavelle Joseph St-Omer, says greater dis­cus­sion of strat­e­gy be­tween a com­pa­ny and its em­ploy­ees is key to avoid un­for­tu­nate stand-offs, as seen at Caribbean Air­lines (CAL).

Speak­ing af­ter the launch of the sec­ond edi­tion of the HR Lega­cy awards at the Hy­att Re­gency on Tues­day night, Joseph St-Omer said that in chal­leng­ing times both sides must be aware of the planned way for­ward.

She not­ed that com­pa­nies like CAL are of­ten crit­i­cised for un­der­tak­ing mar­ket­ing cam­paigns but of­ten these plans are geared to­wards build­ing cap­i­tal which can ben­e­fit the com­pa­ny in the long run.

“We are work­ing in dif­fi­cult times and com­pa­nies are now try­ing to use the cap­i­tal that they have to in­vest in things that will gen­er­ate ad­di­tion­al in­come for them. It is man­ag­ing that dy­nam­ic that com­pa­nies must con­tin­ue to di­a­logue and con­tin­ue to un­der­stand both sides and see how we can come to a con­sen­sus in the in­ter­ests. That’s be­cause there’s a com­mon in­ter­est in see­ing a com­pa­ny sur­vive more than any­thing as we all have a vest­ed in­ter­est in the suc­cess of our com­pa­ny,” Joseph St-Omer ex­plained.

Asked what chal­lenges hu­man re­source pro­fes­sion­als face in the work­place, the HRMATT pres­i­dent said not every­one ap­pre­ci­ates or un­der­stands hu­man re­source pro­fes­sion­als and what they do. She in­di­cat­ed that get­ting the sup­port and the buy-in from the ex­ec­u­tives of or­gan­i­sa­tions goes a long way.

“Get­ting fund­ing for some of our ini­tia­tives will go a long way as well, be­cause hu­man re­sources al­ways has a bad rap, as you know, and it has al­ways felt that we are not do­ing enough. But it doesn’t mean that prac­ti­tion­ers are not mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions. It’s just that we have to man­age with lit­tle re­sources,” Joseph St-Omer stressed.

This year, she said the Lega­cy Awards has added new cat­e­gories in­clud­ing recog­nis­ing re­gion­al com­pa­nies that have made ma­jor strides in HR prac­tices.

“We are recog­nis­ing this year, our re­gion­al broth­ers and sis­ters. HRMATT has been do­ing a lot of work with our re­gion­al coun­ter­parts in the is­lands and we would like to point out the great work they are do­ing. A lot more in­for­ma­tion can be found on our web­site in terms of how to go about nom­i­nat­ing an in­di­vid­ual or one em­ploy­er and or­gan­i­sa­tion con­sul­tant, for ex­am­ple. But any­one who is push­ing the en­ve­lope mak­ing that change, break­ing bar­ri­ers, and mak­ing the work­place a safe and good pace for every one of us, can be nom­i­nat­ed,” Joseph St-Omer out­lined.

Giv­ing more in­sight in­to the awards, she said of many shifts and changes hap­pen­ing in the work­space, HRMATT felt that more than ever, there is a need to recog­nise the ef­forts of HR prac­ti­tion­ers and cer­tain­ly cel­e­brate or­gan­i­sa­tions do­ing right by their em­ploy­ees.

“So, for that rea­son, the in­au­gur­al awards were host­ed last year, and we con­tin­ue in the same vein this year, as we kick-start­ed 2023 vi­sion, and nom­i­na­tions are now in­vit­ed. The sec­ond edi­tion of the lega­cy awards will be held on No­vem­ber 11,” Joseph St-Omer con­clud­ed.