The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Dozens of colleges and universities descended upon Atlantis yesterday as the mega resort hosted its first career development fair in a bid to help employees further their education and personal development.

Dr Lawrence Taylor, Atlantis’ vice-president of learning and organisational development, told Tribune Business that the Paradise Island resort brought in multiple higher education institutions and technical schools to partner with its own departments ranging from the casino to the marine water park.

“We got the departments to present as well because team members may want to go to different departments,” he explained. “We saw over 600 of our team members who were able to come through, and we had business partners who have left information with us because some team members are on vacation and were not here but expressed interest.

“So when they come back, we’ll be able to share more information with them. So this definitely was a success. This was really about helping our team members with their career and development goals and their educational goals. We had lots of schools here - the University of the West Indies, University of The Bahamas, Walden University, DeVry. We had Les Roches out of Spain who do a lot of executive programmes as well.”

The main objective was for Atlantis employees to sign up for a certification programme from a college of their choice. “We have some that will go back and get GEDs, we have some that will go back and get bachelors degrees, and we also have some that will go back and do Master’s degrees,” Dr Taylor said.

The Department of Education was also present to discuss various scholarship opportunities, and Dr Taylor added: “This was our first time doing this and it was such a hit. People are already asking when are we going to do this again? So it will be annually as of now. We had a lot of business partners who came from out of country to participate, so a lot of planning went into it. But we now know that we will definitely do it at least annually.”