I have since realised that my earlier formulation for effective communication in the sugar industry fell well short of the mark. For I have just discovered records of the dynamics of discourse and decision-making which obtained as far back as the colonial seventies – an era that will most likely invite cynical eruption from within the current dispensation.
Reference here is to three Reports of Personnel (read Human Resources) Management Conferences held by Bookers Sugar Estates Ltd. in 1970, 1973 and 1974. Of course the documentation is only representative of what was at least an annual activity which began in the early sixties and continued throughout the seventies and eighties. The reports reflect a period when differing ideas and views about the management, operations and the sustainability of the industry were invited from all levels and given due consideration at the highest decision-making level of the board.
Participation at these fora was not limited to the HR practitioners, but also involved field, factory and general (read administrative) managers, accountants – all who had a contribution to make towards the viability of the industry, the careers it offered, and to the economy of which it was such a vital part.
Agendas ranged from topics as familiar as ‘The Viability of the Guyana Sugar Industry,’ to others including ‘Education and Training’; ‘Development of Job Evaluation’; ‘Integration of NIS [1969] and Company Benefits’; ‘The Practicality of Implementing a 40-hour work week’; ‘Industrial Welfare and Safety’; and many others.
Well researched papers were presented on the various topics, which after intensive scrutiny and debate in carefully structured workshops, were crystallised into recommendations for consideration by no less than the Board of Bookers Sugar Estates.
As the then Personnel Director announced in 1974: “The Workshops will deal with subjects in depth; and the estate items are those which, as usual, call for frank exchange so that we can arrive at some consensus… we are holding discussions, clearing our minds and making recommendations which may or may not be accepted by the Board but… over the past years many of the recommendations which we have made from these conferences have become policy.”
The point to be made here is that not only was opportunity provided to share in, but, more importantly, to initiate the decision-making process, by making recommendations on substantive policy issues that were bound to reach the boardroom for final and, indeed, successful adjudication. Such a process meant that policy decisions had wide and deep ownership by those who were also responsible for implementation. Consequently accountability was clearly and fairly established.
This process, far from being limited to human resources managers, also applied to the technical and operational membership of the industry. All combined to conceptualise the strategic policies, design the work plans, and to implement these in the real confidence that they were part of the executive management team.
The communication process was so professionalised in execution and objective in its intent that sanctions, inevitable as they must be, were accepted in good faith.
One can only wonder how much of the foregoing remains in current institutional memory, and how much, perhaps, conversation, confidence, teamwork and trust can be recaptured by turning around to a management style that presaged the advent of institutionalised democracy.
Finally, I turn to the following quote from our conference records, thirty-five years ago:
“…we need to review the effectiveness of our current communication process. We need to work out adaptation and possibly new means of getting the industry’s side effectively across… what is distressing is that we seek only to communicate during times of crisis rather than working labouriously and continuously on this whole question of communication. Have we implemented the idea of informing workers of the state of the negotiations?” (Keynote Address by the Personnel Director, Personnel Management Conference, July 18-20, 1974).
Yours faithfully,
E. B. John
