NASSAU, The Bahamas — Minister of State for the Public Service the Hon. Pia Glover-Rolle said when she was appointed to her post, she made it her mission to reform the public service – with a priority placed on creating better experiences and environments for public servants to do their best work.
Mrs. Glover-Rolle was speaking at the Career Day Fair for the Ministry of the Public Service National Public Service Week at the Mall at Marathon, Tuesday, November 1, 2022.
She said, “Since making that commitment, we (the government) have seen numerous union agreements rolled out, resulting in increased salaries and benefits for thousands of public servants. We have increased pensions, approved promotions, and paid gratuities and back pay. We also brought annual increments back so that government employees’ salaries can better absorb the high cost of living.”
The Minister of State noted that the government is now increasing the minimum wage for both the public and private sectors to ensure that it is empowering those who need it the most. “The increase from $210 to $260 per week represents a small but needed step towards ensuring that every worker in The Bahamas can make ends meet.”
She explained that on the government’s immediate agenda, it is moving forward with plans for the digitalization of all human resource management and document management processes. “Our goal is to increase efficiency and productivity within the public service while getting rid of tedious manual processes so that workers can focus on what really matters.”
She added, “We are doing an audit of the entire public service to ensure that our recruitment and hiring efforts match our workforce needs. This will also enable us to determine where further training and development is needed.”
Mrs. Glover-Rolle said the first new training initiative was launched just a few months ago as applicants were enrolled into the Public Service Professional Engagement Programme – also known as PS-PEP.
She said trainees in the first two cohorts of this programme are already receiving their one year of on-the-job training at various private and public sector organizations throughout the country. At the end of this training period, those who receive strong evaluations by their managers will be brought on as full-time public servants. Some will even be offered jobs within the private sector.
The Minister of State said running simultaneous to this training programme is the development of career paths within the public service so that every new hire can have a clear idea of what their career track looks like and what is required each step of the way.
