In a stage performance, it is the actors who earn the applause and critical
praise. Everyone knows the name of the greatest actors in history. Yet
no actor could perform without the help of a team of backstage people,
artists, prop managers, ticket sellers, costume designers and the panoply
of people who make an artistic performance possible. Few recognise the
names of those people, yet they are the ones who make everything possible.
So it is
in the business world. Everyone knows that Bermuda’s international business
industry fights way above its weight. An island with 65,000 people produces
a Gross National Product in excess of $4 billion a year, with insurance, banking
and trust leading the way. The corporate leaders are feted around the world,
their names as famous in the business world as those of actors in the theatre
community.
But business
in Bermuda, or anywhere else, would not be possible without the hard work of
legions of support services, whose stories are rarely celebrated. Much as our
homes would be uninhabitable if the trash were not routinely collected, so
business would be impossible without the myriad support services that, in a
well-managed economy, everyone takes for granted.
Some of
these business services are more obvious than others. Accountants and lawyers,
for example. Because much Bermuda business is technical in nature, these professional
technicians are sometimes almost as well known as the client base they serve.
Also, since many of them are locals who have “made good”, we tend
to read of their achievements and recognise their faces.
Public relations,
IT support, conference organisers, printers — an almost endless list
including, one might argue, restaurateurs, barbers and ferry pilots — carry
out their daily responsibilities to allow the great Bermuda commercial enterprises
to take centre stage in world affairs.
If support
service people do their jobs well, their contribution becomes all but invisible.
One of the least acknowledged, and most critical services in Bermuda’s
almost impossibly tight labour market, is personnel services.
The Bermuda job market is unusual, if not unique. First is the rule that
Bermudians must be employed whenever they can demonstrate the experience,
education and skills necessary to do the job. Partly because of that
rule, Bermuda has all but full employment. Anyone who wants to work is
working, sometimes in two or three jobs in order to make ends meet in
Bermuda’s expensive environment.
Plus, demand for new workers has been almost non-stop in the past few
years — but employment agencies are not allowed to develop what
might be called “inventory”. They can only respond to specific
needs as they arise. New workers — and Bermuda is not creating
them fast enough, so they tend to come from overseas — must wait
through a nail-biting period of time after they have accepted a job,
while the Department of Immigration does its necessary work to protect
the Island from fraudulent or unnecessary applications.
Most people looking for work usually need work, and need it right away
(other than those who are employed, but are seeking new challenges).
The agencies, therefore, cannot earmark people elsewhere for jobs in
Bermuda should they become available. Thus, neither jobs nor people can
be stockpiled. Yet, when an employer needs someone, they need them as
soon as possible. Who would run an employment agency under such conditions?
One aspect of the employment market that has changed recently is the
business of poaching. For the longest time, there was an understanding
among local employers that it wasn’t “cricket” to steal
other people’s staff. But for the past few years, the banks, in
particular, have suffered from this problem. They invest the time and
energy to bring staff in from overseas and train them, only to lose them
to better-heeled employers in the international sector, and have to start
the process all over again.
Following the 2005 hurricanes, with the influx of a dozen new insurers
to the Bermuda market, the international sector now faces the same pressure.
All of which said, these are the sort of problems that one wants to have
to face, the problems caused by growth. What makes these issues much less
newsworthy is the efficient employment agencies who service the Bermuda
market quietly, and allow everyone to simply get on with the job at hand.
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