By Marlon Madden
The Barbados Immigration Department is going through a transformation as part of a succession planning process that officials are hoping will give the department a new and improved image.
This was disclosed on Friday as 16 immigration officers graduated from an intensive institutional strengthening clinic and training programme.
Minister of Home Affairs, Information and Public Affairs Wilfred Abrahams said he was hoping that the training and development taking place at the Immigration Department could be replicated across other government departments, as he expressed concern that it was difficult to readily identify successors in some areas.
While he did not single out any department, Abrahams said: “When we look across the landscape of government there are certain people you know are the heads of departments; there are certain people you can identify as being at a certain point in the development of Barbados.
“But when we look below that it is not easy to identify successors in departments, it is not easy to identify the persons in departments who are going to take the next step forward because we seem to believe it is going to ‘take care of itself’. It is not going to take care of itself. The successors have to be trained,” he said.
Abrahams said he believed the training on which the immigration department had embarked, would set it apart in its delivery of services. He called on stakeholders to “continue to support this department as we endeavour to be national team players in the branding of our tourism product and the protection of our borders”.
He said the programme, which involved intense training spanning several areas relating to immigration including legislation, policies, border security and emotional intelligence, “sets the ideal benchmark for training intended to capture the institutional knowledge that was lost due to the exit of veteran staff”.
He said the training was intended to help inform the succession plan needed to build the capacity of middle managers and prepare newly-promoted individuals to assume leadership positions in the department.
“Everybody is not going to be a leader and everybody is not going to be a manager. But for those who have management potential, they must be given every opportunity to train themselves and get the qualifications that give them the best chance to advance based on their productivity, acumen and based on merit,” said Abrahams.
“This clinic and your exuberance place this department in a prime position to lead in the service industry as a government department. Often it is said that government workers don’t work and they are not professional [but] you have proven that statement wrong and you are the poster department for service excellence,” he said.
“This is what we need across the entire spectrum of Government. We need the next leaders, we need the people who are going to take our departments, our policies and initiatives where they can go. We are limited by the productivity in the different departments in Government. I am happy to say I don’t feel limited at all in immigration,” Abrahams declared.
The five-week training programme is the brainchild of Chief Immigration Officer Margaret Inniss. She told the first batch of nine women and seven men that a part of the capacity-building was to better position the Immigration Department to help Barbados become a more competitive jurisdiction.
“We are merely in the reconstruction of how we do business within the Barbados Immigration Department. We are in reconstruction of our image; we are in the reconstruction of repositioning Barbados; we are in the reconstructing of [broadening] security, trade and development and so the concept of institutional strengthening. To have a clinic is really a concept to bring Barbados beyond where we could be,” she said.
Immigration Officer Terry Simmons noted that as the Government seeks to increase the population through managed migration, the department will become even more critical and transformation was therefore necessary.
He urged his fellow immigration officers not to be afraid of “thinking outside the box”, as he called on them to “bring new, larger and richer goals” to the department while holding the hands of those who needed guidance.
“Immigration officers are now positioned to strengthen the knowledge base of the department. We, as middle managers, must be up to the task of strengthening this department,” he said.
“It is important that everybody here today lifts our standards and we make sure that this department is a success,” added Simmons. marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb
