Bermuda Employers? Council president William DeSilva has urged companies to give employees incentives to boost performance and profits.

Mr. DeSilva said his company Bermuda Gas was in its third year of performance management and the results were encouraging.

He said: ?More companies need to involve employees in decision-making where practical.

?More companies need to encourage trust between employers and employees where appropriate.?

Mr. DeSilva spoke to during a break from the International Labour Organisation Caribbean employers roundtable conference which the BEC is hosting this week.

His comments were echoed by Caribbean ILO director Grace Strachan who said employees didn?t just respond to extra pay for increased performance and that other incentives should be examined.

Mr. DeSilva added: ?Flexi-time for young people today is extremely important.?

Pressed for details of how the Bermuda Gas performance scheme worked Mr. DeSilva said a team had spent a year setting it up and that performance evaluations were done every six months.

Bonuses were then worked out on individual performance and on the performance of the company as a whole.

He said companies wanting to try it should have a dry run to allow employees to acclimatise while evaluators needed to be properly trained.

?Employees have to understand they are not being evaluated on their personality but their performance. It is not about whether they are liked or disliked.?

And he said the evaluation sessions covered not just what an employee had done but what was now expected of them.

At the opening ceremony at the Hamilton Princess on Monday Acting Premier Ewart Brown also called on employers to reward good workers.

He said: ?The labour contribution to the success of business should be recognised and reflected in higher wages and better benefits, received not solely through brinkmanship at the negotiating table but through a recognition of the partnership that is the success of every business and economy.?

Dr. Brown said the value of labour was not determined by the ability to stop the machine but by the ability to move it more efficiently.

Ms Strachan urged employers and employees to work together to help stay competitive.

She said Caribbean enterprises would find it extremely difficult to compete unless they can enhance their productivity.

She said: ?I believe that still far too many managers and workers continue to practice a style of adversarial industrial relations that has characterised such relationships in this region for far too long.

?In today?s global environment it is becoming more apparent that this approach cannot deliver the outcomes that either management or workers seek.

?Indeed we in the ILO would argue that it is an outmoded belief that enterprise growth and workers organisations and welfare are conflicting objectives.?

@EDITRULE:

The roundtable for Caribbean Employers Organisations organised by the ILO ends today.