Workplaces share best practices to enhance productivity |29 July 2023
The Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs, along with various stakeholders, organised an activity at the International Conference Centre Seychelles (ICCS) yesterday morning to showcase best practices for productivity.
This was the second activity for this year’s Productivity Week where multiple private, governmental, and parastatal organisations had set up stalls to educate youths from various secondary schools and professional centres about the importance of productivity and what they were doing to promote it in their workplaces.
Mary-Vonne Francis, the director of the Productivity Unit in the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs, said this new concept emphasises the importance of tangible actions that organisations could take to increase productivity and improve their operations.
“People work every day, so what are the things that you are doing as an organisation, something tangible to increase or improve productivity. You do not have to re-invent the wheel,” she explained.
Ms Francis gave examples such as the performance-based management system and staff welfare, as well as the use of incentives, both monetary and non-monetary, to boost morale and productivity.
“We look at everything to boost morale to increase productivity.”
The primary focus of the ministry is on service delivery and Ms Francis has urged organisations to explain the applicable standards and identify areas for service delivery improvement.
Explaining the reasoning behind inviting the youth to learn about good practices in workplaces, Ms Francis stated that it was crucial for young individuals to understand what constitutes good practice.
She stressed the significance of adopting good practices from both the employers and employees' perspectives.
“This is so that when they enter the world of work, they have a notion of what is good practice. We always put emphasis on good practice having to be adopted on both the part of the employer and the employee. So what are they doing to get the results that they want in a workplace? This is the line of thought that we want to get across today,” stated Ms Francis, who also expressed her satisfaction with the large turnout and active participation at the event.
Ms Francis said it was not a matter of organisations copying from each other, but rather seeing what works for others and see if it can be applied to their own organisation, in their own way.
The Seychelles Meteorological Authority (SMA) shared a good example of a result-based management tool that it has been using for a while to measure performance-based management, and which has worked wonders for them.
SMA’s quality manager, Marie-Eve Denis, was explaining how the system works and how it also calculates the 50 percent of the 13th month salary, depending on the score and the five set objectives, throughout the year.
The Public Utilities Corporation (PUC) was also sharing its best practices by showcasing its employees’ daily activities. The company was also presenting various job vacancies, aiming to clarify job descriptions and necessary qualifications.
Anne Chetty, the career development officer highlighted the paths that students from institutions like Seychelles Institute of Technology (SIT), and Seychelles Business Studies Academy (SBSA), could pursue to enter PUC, either through work-based experience or structured training and development programmes.
“Sometimes when there is a list of vacancies, not everyone knows what it is about. So we can show them what the work entails and we have our officers to explain the job description and what qualifications are needed to do the job.”
The manager for training and development at the Seychelles Trading Company Ltd (STC), Dorine Agricole, elucidated the structural hierarchy of STC that was on display. “This is to ensure that we have the proper communication and operation strategy laid down, such as the levels of seniority.”
She noted that this was complemented by the Standard Operating Procedures which directs the operations in general. The company also displayed some of the activities which help to enhance productivity. One of them was the weight loss programme, which helps to keep the staff healthy, and thus reduce the number of sick leave.
The accompanying photos show some highlights of the fair.
Sunny Esparon
Photos by Yann Dinan
