Roadtown, Tortola - Six public servants were honoured as the Government’s Employees of the Quarter for the first quarter of 2009 at a ceremony held in their honour last Thursday, April 23, at the Prospect Reef Resort’s Callaloo Restaurant.
Honourees for the first quarter are Mrs. Helen Seymour of the Deputy Governor’s Office; Mrs. Cynara Duncan of the Conservation and Fisheries Department; Ms. Aretha Thomas of the Department of Information Technology; Mr. Joseph Daley of the Ministry of Health and Social Development; Mrs. Dian Liburd of the Premier’s Office and Ms. Harriette Riviera of the Ministry of Education and Culture.
His Excellency the Governor, Mr. David Pearey, congratulated the honourees and spoke highly of the Employee Recognition Programme. “It is a programme that to my mind never tires. It is a programme that always remains very relevant and is dear to my heart and my own ideas for how a public service should be run.”
The Governor said, “This is all about recognition and we can never exaggerate the importance of recognition. There is a visible manifestation of recognition within the public service but recognition should be a part of our daily behaviour no matter what level we perform at.”
The Governor told the gathering about the importance of everyone, particularly managers, of recognising good behaviour and performance. “It can give an enormous boost to morale, to feelings of value that persons who work with them are recognising and noticing their performance.”
Director of the Human Resources Department, Mr. David Archer, delivering brief remarks at the ceremony said, “The joy of my job is when I see persons move from point A to point B and more so when I see persons stop to recognise them.”
“We in the public service have a goal and a mission. We have talked about a world class public service and that goal and vision does not belong to the Department of Human Resources but to the wider public service. Every time we issue these awards we are getting a step closer, and I guarantee you pretty soon you will recognise when the arms of these employees of the quarter recipients reach out to the other arms; we are going to get there, but most importantly, we have to get there with consistency.”
Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Deputy Governor’s Office, Ms. Arlene Smith, also delivered encouraging remarks at the ceremony on behalf of the Deputy Governor.
The awardees in their remarks, delivered by Ms. Aretha Thomas and Mr. Joseph Daley said, “Our success as public servants is largely due to collaboration and cooperation at various levels. Therefore we are keen to acknowledge the contributions of our co-workers and supervisors whose support continue to be instrumental in our achievements as public servants.
In order to be effective public servants we must remain mindful of the importance of team spirit. It is very rare for any individual to be effective without the support of an efficient team, and so we accept these awards in humility and also in tribute to those with whom we work each day.”
The Employee of the Quarter initiative was launched in 2005 with Thursday’s ceremony being the 15th of its kind. This initiative was created as a means of recognising public servants who exceed expectations and set an example for their fellow public servants.
Honourees are nominated by co-workers and participate in interviews and a selection processes conducted by the Employee of the Quarter Steering Committee. This service-wide ‘ministerial level’ recognition programme is administered by the Department of Human Resources-Employee Relations Unit.
British Virgin Islands News