GRAND CAYMAN, (GIS) –   Some 20 senior managers and human resources (HR) staff from the Ministry of Health recently attended a two-day training intended to enhance their recruitment skills.

SHRM Senior Certified Professional Susan White, a former Senior Vice President and Human Resource Executive at global financial services firm JP Morgan Chase, led the sessions. Key topics that she covered included job analysis, identifying competencies for various positions, and the assessment of competencies through behavioural interviewing.

Ministry of Health Chief Officer Jennifer Ahearn explains that behavioural interviewing is the process of determining how an interviewee will act in specific employment-related situations in order to find the right recruitment candidates.

“Ms White is a specialist in the area of talent development. This is a key goal for the Deputy Governor’s Five Year plan, but also a necessity for any agency or organisation that wishes to achieve sustainable success,” Ms Ahearn remarks.

“Another focus for the five year plan is leadership”, the Chief Officer adds, “And we thought this would be an excellent opportunity to build capacity at the top of our organisations while at the same time empowering leaders and HR teams to shape their organisations going forward.”

The Ministry’s Chief Officer, Deputy Chief Officer, Heads of Department, Deputy HODs and all HR staff from agencies within the Ministry took part. As such representatives from the Departments of Health Regulatory Services, Environment, Environmental Health, Counselling Services, and the Mosquito Research and Control Unit were among those present.

The workshop used hands-on exercises to guide them through activities such as identifying competencies and writing behavioural interview questions, all while conducting effective and fair interviews.

Human Resources Manager in the Ministry of Health Marcia Murray, who regularly attends Society Human Resources Management conferences in the United States, came up with the idea for the training as a cost efficient way of sharing the same expert level of knowledge as widely as possible within the Ministry.

Deputy Governor Franz Manderson says he was pleased to see agencies like the Ministry of Health using the Five Year plan as an impetus for staff development.

“Ultimately if we build the capacity of our leaders they will be able to better harness and keep the talent needed to create a better workplace and deliver world class services to our customer”, Mr Manderson comments.