EFC addresses Caribbean employers on collaborative employment practices
Wednesday, 13 August 2014 00:00
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Employers’ Federation of Ceylon (EFC) Director General Ravi Peiris travelled to Jamaica to address the 32nd Annual Business and Workplace Convention of the Jamaica Employers’ Federation (JEF), on how Sri Lanka’s employment relations have moved from confrontation to collaboration.
As the only Asian presenter at the JEF’s 32nd Annual Convention, Director General of the EFC, Peiris was more than happy to explain to Jamaican employers how Sri Lanka’s employment relations have evolved over time.
The ‘Them and Us’ perception between workers and employers, that was so prevalent when the EFC was formed in 1929 has today, been replaced with a collaborative relationship where workers are engaged by employers when workplace issues are addressed.
Peiris spoke to an audience of over 500 delegates about the key role that the EFC had played during this transition. “The EFC embarked on a more proactive role of attempting to prevent disputes rather than intervening once a dispute had arisen,” he said.
Peiris was careful to paint a realistic picture for conference delegates and stated that Sri Lanka’s transition had not been without its challenges.
He noted that the “adversarial approach” was still sometimes prevalent in Sri Lanka’s labour relations framework, and the country still struggled with balancing efficiency with equity for workforces. This imbalance is partly due to the Sri Lankan notion that security of employment would always be there for workers.
Peiris went on to point out the lessons Sri Lanka had learned in building a collaborative corporate culture: how to treat employees fairly in a consistent manner; how enhancing the self-esteem of workers helps to create empowered employees; the importance of shortening the distance between employees and management and developing effective communication mechanisms.
Although it may seem unlikely, the parallels between Jamaica and Sri Lanka are quite significant. Both countries are islands, which were former colonies of the British Empire.
The Employer’s Federations in both countries have a long history, being formed whilst still under British rule, following a growing number of revolts over wages and working conditions. The EFC, is older than its Jamaican counterpart which was formed in 1958.
Each Federation has a membership base that continues to grow, and both are themselves members of the International Organisation of Employers (IOE). They are also both the sole employer representatives to the tripartite structure of the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO), in their respective countries.
The EFC and JEF have both expanded their portfolio of services to meet the ever changing demands of their employer members. HR consultancy services and training and development programs are just two examples of services that both federations have developed over the years with great success.
Yet the company vision for both remains the same as the day they were founded: to strengthen the ability of employers to optimise workplace harmony. When asked what he felt Sri Lanka now needed to do to move forward, Peiris said that businesses needed to look inwards. “Employees need to ask themselves, ‘Am I relevant and required by my workplace today? If not what should I do?’ and employers need to ensure that they remain sustainable, in a continually changing corporate environment.”
He concluded by saying that as well as promoting environmental responsibility, Sri Lanka needed to ensure that enterprises have the right employees with the right skills and competencies, if the country wished to sustain the collaborative corporate culture that it had strived so hard to develop.
