Barbados is in the midst of its most extensive public sector job evaluation in two decades, affecting over 20 000 public officers and state enterprise workers, but a union leader stressed that no redundancies are planned.
A sweeping review of posts across the public service and state-owned enterprises is underway, with potentially far-reaching effects on wages, salaries, and the skills profile expected of workers in a technology-driven sector, Barbados TODAY has learnt.
The National Union of Public Workers (NUPW), which has two top officials guiding the process, confirmed that the job evaluation—the first in 20 years—but ruled out retrenchments.
“The significance of a job evaluation is that, over time, as jobs change, the specific functions and tasks change as well. Some become redundant and then there are new tasks that didn’t form part of a specific job. Now what a job evaluation seeks to do is to recognise the current value of a job as opposed to the value of a job in the past,” said General Secretary of the NUPW, Richard Green.
“The last job evaluation exercise was conducted in Barbados about 20 years ago and what is intended is a recognition of the current value of jobs now in the public service. What is important for persons outside of the job evaluation, and even those inside the job evaluation, to note is that within a job evaluation, individuals within a specific position cannot be downgraded. This means that if you are in a job and the assessment of that job now determines that the value of that job is lower, it does not affect the persons who are in the positions.
“But the persons coming into that position, the new value would reflect the salary of the new position or the new person coming into that position. So technically, even with a downgrade, an individual cannot be downgraded. It has to be said, because that has been an area where persons have been a little confused in the past, that they believed that if their post is downgraded, that they would lose salary or whatever.”
Green noted that the review offers the chance for posts that have become more complex to better reflect their value, with the possibility of salary upgrades.
“We will assess the jobs in light of the skills that are required, the competencies required, the qualifications required, and the market value of that job should be reflected in the job evaluation exercise,” said the union head.
As lead bargaining agent for public officers, the NUPW is part of both the oversight and scoring committees. Green reported that after the recent validation of job descriptions, the process is now at the ‘job scoring’ phase. He emphasised ongoing union monitoring to ensure fair outcomes, given the potential impact on pay and terms.
He reiterated that no jobs would become fully redundant. Instead, duties may be added or altered to match changes in required skills and technology.
Green said: “There may be some functions that they no longer do. For example, no one uses a typewriter any more. They use a computer—either a desktop or laptop. So, while a person in the past would have been working typing on a typewriter, now uses a computer. So, with the inclusion of technology, it can add new functions to a specific job. So, it is not a tool where persons would be made redundant and lose their jobs for it.”
He revealed that some salaries are expected to rise as a result of the review: “There are some positions where salaries will increase. And going on the experience of the previous job evaluation exercise, there are positions where the salaries will increase. What we as a union seeks to assist the process with is trying to eliminate the possibilities of what they call anomalies where there may be inconsistencies between positions and jobs where lines of authority and so on might become blurred, where responsibilities and supervision may play a part.”
The union, he said, aims to ensure parity across the service: “That is one of the challenges that we as an organisation in assisting the process—to make sure that whenever it is completed, that as many of those anomalies are eliminated, and that the scoring is fair and consistent throughout the public service. The entire public service and statutory corporations will be impacted . . . over 20 000 public officers.”
Asked about the timeline for completion, Green said: “Here at NUPW, we normally don’t like to move with deadlines. We like to make sure that the process is fair and consistent . . . . We feel that those are more important than a specific deadline, based obviously on the impact that it could have on workers. Our focus is on the process, more so than the end. We will work with the responsible agencies with that in mind, but it is our focus as an organisation.”
The Cave Hill School of Business at the University of the West Indies is undertaking the exercise for the Ministry of the Public Service.
Officials have repeatedly affirmed that the exercise is about modernisation and fairness—ensuring pay appropriately matches contemporary roles—rather than shrinking the workforce.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
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