By Elvin Bailey
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In recent times, the growth and performance of your Social Security institution has been put firmly in the public domain. We have explored and explained how it is and why it is that the Fund has done as well as it has. We talked about our investment policy and the returns on the investments made. We wrote about the level of compliance and our efforts to persuade and coerce persons to pay up. We talked about the amount and value of benefits paid back by the system. We talked about our giving and the goodwill that it generates. We talked about the quality of the leadership and the directorship, but we have not talked about training, at least not sufficiently. Yet this training and exposure has been critical to the success of the organization.
Take this year as an example. Up to the end of June, the institution had completed 85 person-days of international training for its members in areas as diverse as Health & Safety, Information & Communication Technology, Health Care Management & Financing, Pension Management as well as the standard meetings of Social Security that are held by CEISS, CISS and ISSA. We have also done ‘distance’ courses in Social Security Protection.
The benefits of such training and exposure far exceed the cost of such training. Participation in these exercises allow for the all important networking. Who you know in life sometimes is more important than what you know. So when we can have face to face conversations with the Director General of ISSA, when we can share notes with Directors of Funds that have existed for much longer than ours and have faced similar and different challenges to ours, then we not only learn, but we develop access to persons who can offer advise to us as we approach our crossroads.
We also get an opportunity to assess whether we are on the right paths and what pitfalls to expect as we move along. We benefit from the technical papers presented, from the research results and from the shared experiences. Last September, we presented a paper on our 10 years of offering Self Employed coverage at a conference in Bermuda; this year, Trinidad & Tobago asked us for further guidance as they prepare to introduce such coverage in their country. Trinidad & Tobago, with the fourth oldest social insurance fund in the Caribbean, is looking towards us for guidance!
The fact that we are invited to these conferences also indicates that the world considers us, St Kitts & Nevis, to be important partners; partners whose opinion is sought and valued. We are shapers rather than mere implementers of policy. Thus our decisions are well thought out, thoroughly discussed and in line with international norms. That alone should give our members considerable comfort!
We are also careful to involve ourselves in ‘grassroots’ training too, not just in the esoteric. So, we expose our staff [and Board] to basics such as Performance Appraisals, Customer Service training, training in the legislation, investigative techniques, auditing, office management, and supervision and information management.
Sharpening of the minds is sufficiently critical to the institution that we have developed a policy paper and have instituted a succession plan that involves training. We encourage staff to develop themselves and reward them for their successes at examinations at all levels. There are also members of staff who have completed academic training at the expense of the institution; and have returned to serve.
Added to this is the training of the young people that is done by us that was explained in last week’s article entitled “A Success Story”.
If we stand still, the world will pass us by. If we do not train, we will become obsolete and irrelevant. If we do not sharpen our collective minds, we will once again become mired in poverty. We do not want that now, do we?
