An experienced local human resources professional who helped create a stalled first plan designed to reward businesses for recruiting and promoting Caymanian staff has said the government has to back up the legislation with action.
Mario Ebanks, deputy chairman of the Business Staffing Plan Board when it drew up the first employer accreditation plan in 2008, said it had stalled because of a lack of will, despite being backed by Parliament.
“I don’t know whether it was because the administrative side of government didn’t want to put the work into it to unravel the different parts of the regulatory framework, which was at that time immigration and other departments like trade and business licences and whatnot, or whether the problem was that the political directorate was not committed to it.”
He was speaking after government minister Michael Myles last month revealed proposals to grant companies that recruit, train and promote Caymanians a special seal of approval.
Myles, the employment and immigration minister, also unveiled changes designed to streamline the work of the Business Staffing Plan Board by freeing it from routine work permit processing so it could concentrate on getting more Caymanians into work.
He explained that companies that demonstrated a track record of hiring Caymanian staff could mean not only public recognition, but a streamlined process when they needed work permits.
Myles added, “The Business Staffing Plan Board will see good corporate citizens and they will select these particular companies.”
Promotion of Caymanians
He said the board would be better placed to support companies aligned with government goals and that “when they submit, say, 10 work permit applications, we don’t need to focus on them”.
Qualifications for company accreditation would include providing Caymanians with internships, scholarships and a track record of promotion up the corporate ladder.
Ebanks, who was also a co-founder and long-time president of the Cayman Islands Society of Human Resources Professionals, said: “I think the scheme can work if it is properly thought out and that businesses, individuals are consulted properly and that government understands the various motivators of different levels of business and what it’ll take to motivate them to do the right thing.
“That’s the first order of business … to consult, engage and understand the different sectors of our economy.
“They can’t rush this thing through and promise it’s going to be the be all and end all, but not do the work and properly consult and ensure that you have the systems in place to make sure that it works.
Ebanks said the business staffing plans themselves were a good concept from the beginning. “But [Cayman] didn’t have the resources within the immigration department, now WORC, to properly enforce, monitor and process the business of business staffing plans in terms of training, succession planning, conditions in relation to scholarships or whatever so the whole thing was just a joke.
“Because of not having the systems and the proper alignment, that’s why it hasn’t worked so far and probably why it wasn’t implemented because it didn’t have all of the foundation that in needs.”
Ebanks insisted, “Unless the new system has all these boxes checked off, it’s only going to be a soundbite or a headline and it’s going to achieve very little or nothing.”
Economic downturn hit plan
Ebanks also highlighted that the 2008 global economic downturn and the uncertainty is caused contributed to the system never getting off the starting blocks.
“Because of that, the government at that time decided they had to be very careful about putting in place any kind of programmes or schemes that would cause any more work or due diligence or headaches for businesses so they kind of held back progressing the employer accreditation system, although it was sort of given a kind of pilot test.”
He said a consulting firm had been asked to help run a pilot programme, although he was unaware of the outcome.
“Again, I think it died because there was no alignment, no commitment, no political push for it and people did not see the benefit, so it just sort of floundered for many years.”
But Ebanks maintained, “It’s worth doing. I think it’s an excellent concept and if you get employers who can do certain best practices, whether it’s training, whether it’s social programmes, whether it’s employing Caymanians, progressing Caymanians and all those good things that need to be done, I think it will help the country [and] help the economy.”
He highlighted that Cayman was a service economy and its major resource was its people.
“Having a strong, vibrant labour force and good employee/employer relations and good human capital development is a great aspiration.”
Related Videos
The private sector has always provided the major source of Government’s revenue and it needs to be treated with respect. Obviously they should be encouraged to employ Caymanians and many of the major firms have Caymanians in senior positions. However I foresee problems if they are required to advance local staff just to meet quotas and avoid difficulties with work permit applications. Promotion in any business has to be based on job performance and Govt needs to take this into account. I should mention of course that the country’s largest employer already excels in meeting these objectives without coercion.
Wrong answer. The Business Staffing Plan and affirmative action compliance architecture should be abolished and replaced with a supply-side capability programme:
Government scholarship funding restricted to STEM and vocational degrees at Russell Group or Ivy League institutions, conditional on a mandatory three-year international secondment at a blue-chip firm in London, New York, Toronto, or Hong Kong before graduates return to Cayman.
Competitive professional formation is driven by people forged in demanding international environments, not by people placed in roles through regulatory pressure on local employers.
The BSP regime produces compliance hires, not competitive professionals; it places Caymanians in environments for which they are underprepared, limits their development, and leaves them structurally exposed as AI displaces precisely the mid-level white-collar roles they currently occupy.
No accreditation framework or work permit condition will build a Caymanian data scientist, cybersecurity specialist, funds lawyer, or fintech engineer capable of operating at the level Cayman’s financial services sector requires. Only genuine formation at rigorous institutions followed by sustained competitive experience in deep markets produces that.
Every dollar CIG spends funding non-vocational degrees at mid-tier universities, and every hour WORC spends administering BSP compliance, is a dollar and an hour not spent building the pipeline that would actually allow Caymanians to compete on merit rather than rely on regulatory preference – and regulatory preference, once understood to exist, devalues every Caymanian appointment it touches.