Several business leaders, including a union head, have cautioned that the local workforce must root out complacency in the workplace if the Island is to retain the level of success it has achieved and safeguard the Island?s reputation as a leading business jurisdiction.

But at least one Bermudian businessman said separately that while there is clearly an issue, employers are between a rock and a hard place as if they let go workers who are sloppy or complacent in their work there is no one else to hire.

On Wednesday, Bank of Bermuda CEO Philip Butterfield called on a room of hundreds of Bermuda business leaders gathered for the annual general meeting of the Bermuda Employers? Council to join him in fighting complacency, including demanding better customer service ? and only paying for services delivered as promised.

Anecdotally Mr. Butterfield said that he had been moving house and was disappointed in local vendors failing on their promises, then wanting to be paid without so much as an apology.

However, a businessman who asked that he not be named told : ?There is a certain frustration that while you are hearing what he (Mr. Butterfield) is saying (about not accepting inferior service) but it is a difficult thing to fix.

?We (our company) had an incident this summer where some deliveries were made to completely the wrong addresses. The customers missed the opportunity of having the products they ordered and it took me a week and a half to correct the issue, including that the customers walked away with a relatively good taste in their mouth.

?But as for the person that made the mistake ? well you can?t really do anything because there is really no one else out there to hire. There is a great frustration in terms of how (as an employer) you can give that better quality of service that your customer wants.?

Mr. Butterfield said on Wednesday that poor customer service and a complacent attitude in the workplace had to be corrected swiftly or Bermuda?s future could be undermined.

?I am concerned that we are rapidly progressing towards a state of complacency; comfortable that the level of success that we have achieved to date will somehow be maintained without extra attention and effort on our part, despite external and internal signals that actually threaten our future economic and social stability.?

He continued: ?I believe we need to engage in collaborative and collective thinking here in order to get back on focus with customer service. It is essential for Bermuda and for our businesses that exceptional customer service become the byword for any visitor experience here, whether they are vacationing or are here to conduct business.

?They should be able to say that they chose and continue to choose Bermuda because of that exceptional service, along with our other attributes. We cannot afford to be complacent when so many others are looking at our success and trying to figure out how to beat it.?

Calling others to join him, Mr. Butterfield said: ?I would not want to be part of sitting and watching this community debilitate into second-class status simply people of goodwill, such as yourselves, chose not to become engaged. We have to talk about this and we have to fix it quickly.?

Chamber of Commerce President Charles Gosling, who was on hand to hear Mr. Butterfield?s comments on Wednesday, said yesterday that he felt much work had been done by the Chamber to invigorate the business community, but he recognised that complacency was a ?frustration that a lot of us have?, including complacency from business heads who sit back and allow competitors to set the agenda.

Mr. Gosling added that he agreed with Mr. Butterfield?s stance that you cannot just complain but you have to be part of the solution.

Both Mr. Butterfield and outgoing BEC president Eddie Saints said on Wednesday that Bermuda businesses had a lot on their plates with spiralling costs ? especially steep increases in health care insurance premiums.

Mr. Butterfield and Mr. Saints also said concerns over a legislative change to the Employment Act that could effectively do away with the collective bargaining power on overtime pay between employers and employees.

Mr. Saints also backed Mr. Butterfield?s views that the Island had to guard against complacency in the workplace.

In his speech, Mr. Butterfield said: ?I believe complacency has also had an effect that is, frankly, suicidal for a service-based economy. There is work we need to do to get this community on the right path.

?We have lost our way in terms of customer service and if this issue is not corrected it could ultimately accelerate our decline to becoming a second choice jurisdiction.

Bermuda Public Services Union General Secretary Ed Ball, who was also present at the BEC AGM on Wednesday, said yesterday that he agreed with Mr. Butterfield and had had dialogue with the bank head on the union?s position ?that we must try to protect our niche, whether it be tourism or business and the only way to do that is to work smarter and the only way to do this is to be better?.

He added: ?We should never think that we are indispensable; that the cash and the business will always be here.?

Mr. Ball also called on Bermudians to remember that there is ?another generation coming?. But he cautioned that the Island?s success should be looked at from the perspective of how it was achieved and how it can be maintained by Bermudians.

?Everyone wants to know how Bermuda does it. We invite people here but we should not sell the house in order to make our house guests feel comfortable,? he said.

It is a subject that Mr. Ball spoke on previously in an interview for the December issue of RG magazine, saying Bermudians can be guilty of having a ?different mindset? when it comes to work.

In the article, which looked specifically at if black Bermudians feel they have equal business and wealth-making opportunities to the white population, Mr. Ball called on Bermudian workers to adopt strong work ethics in the job market.

He admitted there was a problem: ?I think it is the familiarity that ?anything will go, it?s the Bermudian way? rather than people realising they are working for an employer and they need to give their best. There haven?t been hard times in Bermuda, which makes people take a different view. Every black businessman having problems with his Bermudian employees is because of work ethic.?

He said the message that workers need to help their employers is one going out from trade unions everywhere.

Attempts to contact Bermuda Industrial Union President Derrick Burgess were yesterday unsuccessful.