The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Baha Mar yesterday said it was “more than satisfied” it will find the 5,000-plus full-time staff it needs from the Bahamian workforce, having already ‘contacted’ more than 10,500 persons in its expanding recruitment drive.

Robert Sands, the Cable Beach developer’s senior vice-president of external and government affairs, said its proactive recruitment strategy - both in the Bahamas and abroad - would “mitigate” against any concerns that the labour force lacked the skills, in the necessary quantity, to meet both its needs and those of other resort projects.

Emphasising that the $2.6 billion developer felt there was “excellent talent” in the Bahamian population, Mr Sands said Baha Mar had last weekend met with “more than 100” Bahamians, including students, in Halifax, Canada.

And the developer, in partnership with the Bahamas’ Atlanta-based Consulate General, was anticipating meeting with another 150 Bahamians in the US city this weekend.

All told, Mr Sands said Baha Mar had reached out to, and contacted, more than 10,000 Bahamians about potential employment opportunities with it. Of that 10,000, some 6,500 are in the resort developer’s database.

“Our position is that we feel very comfortable that we are going to be able to source our 5,000-plus employees, notwithstanding the challenges in recruiting large numbers of skilled persons,” Mr Sands told Tribune Business.

“We are satisfied we will meet the goals set by Baha Mar, because we are doing multiple things to help us achieve our goals.

Mr Sands was responding after an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) report revealed that there were “serious concerns” this nation will be unable to maximise Bahamian employment at Baha Mar and Grand Bahama’s Reef Village due to ‘skills gaps’ and a lack of qualified workers.

Unveiling a $400,000 project aimed at ‘Advancing Skills and Employment in the Bahamas’, the IDB paper noted that 60 per cent of Bahamian companies had identified the absence of ‘soft skills’ or under-qualification as their “main difficulty in recruiting workers”.

Analysing the implications with two resort projects set to create at least 6,000 full-time local jobs (5,000 at Baha Mar, 1,000 for the Reef Village), the IDB study said: “New jobs expected to come online from two new hotel expansions have raised serious concerns that the Bahamas has neither the employment services, nor sufficient skills and training programmes, to ensure that the maximum number of these jobs are filled by Bahamian workers.

“The Bahamian economy is facing growing challenges to upgrade the skill levels of its workforce and match them to higher quality employment, particularly to meet growing demand in the tourism sector.”

Yet, in response, Mr Sands said: “While concerns may exist, we believe we’re doing the right things to mitigate against the pitfalls they [the IDB] may see.”

Noting that Baha Mar’s talent search had taken it to London, Canada and the US, Mr Sands said the developer had contacted “multiple tertiary institutions” - colleges and universities - in the Bahamas and abroad.

Listing the steps taken, he added that Baha Mar had worked with the College of the Bahamas (COB) Centre for Continuing Education on Hospitality Short Courses, and undertaken initiatives through Junior Achievement and Johnson & Wales University.

The developer has also met with “more than 600 students” at government and private schools, both in Nassau and the Family Islands, providing them with documentation and hospitality career seminars.

And Baha Mar has already recruited 100 full-time staff, and held management and leadership training sessions for existing employees.

“We have a very diverse approach to this whole issue of recruitment,” Mr Sands explained. “We’re going to be responsible for sourcing, and preparing, good quality candidates for selection.

“Once we do this, we believe there’s excellent talent within the Bahamian population, and we are ready for that talent becoming the future staff of our resorts.”

Baha Mar will initially focus on so-called “service behaviours” among potential recruits, assessing personality, work ethic and attitudes, and whether they have the people-to-people skills required for interaction with tourists.

While this would not be Baha Mar’s sole focus, Mr Sands added: “These service behaviours benefit global, high-end, world class standards.

“One of our key areas, not exclusively, is looking for people who have the service behaviours that will help Baha Mar to be a transformative resort going forward, and then we will give them the skills necessary.

“We are more than satisfied that we will find the staff needed to open up Baha Mar on time.”