Above: Kingston’s Spanish Court hotel

Local companies in Jamaica should put a greater emphasis on training their employees in a bid to improve their competitiveness and innovation, according to Reginald Budhan, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce.

“In the case of companies, you get employees with basic qualification, it is your responsibility to ensure that they continue the development process,” Budhan said. “You ensure that you build into your organization, structured ongoing training programmes, ensure that you set minimum training time for each category of worker and have a system in place to monitor it. Educated people are more likely to innovate.”

Budhan was speaking at the World Quality Day symposium organized by the National Certification Body of Jamaica at the Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston.

“If we fail to innovate, it means that we are going to fail to keep abreast of competition,” he said. “People need to know about innovation, the latest trend and what it is that the globe is expecting.”

–Jamaica Information Service