“Don’t hire people who hate people!”  Words of warning from Managing Director and Principal Consultant at the Development Consulting Centre, based in Trinidad and Tobago, Richard Solomon. Solomon was addressing Caribbean electric utility professionals in the fields of  Corporate Communications and Human Resource Management, at a Conference hosted by the Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation, (CARILEC) and JPS.  The Conference was held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston.

Solomon notes that, “The customer is too important to be left in the hands of persons who don’t even like them.”   He also added that it is critical for leaders to recognize when their staff have resigned (mentally), but continue to physically arrive at work.  This, he points out is a recipe for poor customer service and requires intervention – first at the leadership level rather than at the rank and file level where it is displayed.  Disengaged staff he noted, are first a symptom of leadership effectiveness in addition to other factors, he stated.  His session entitled, “Leaders Go First,” also outlined the critical components to deliver VIP service to all customers, regardless of status. Caribbean electric utility professionals used the week’s conference as an opportunity to exchange information on best practices, to enable them to serve customers better.

The CARILEC Conference also had the 2018 Occupational Health & Safety & Disaster Management Seminar running concurrently during the week, under the theme: “Safety by Design with Disaster in Mind.”