The Barbados Customs and Excise Authority (BCED) has identified as part of its strategic plan, the aim of improving operational efficiency, revenue collection and stakeholders’ engagement through its primary goal of modernizing its governance, policies and operations. To support the achievement of these goals, and under its flagship Executive and Professional Competency Based HRM Programme (EPCB-HRMP), the WCO conducted in partnership with IMF a virtual mission on competency-based HRM from September 14-18, 2020.

BCED is unique in that it does not have its own HRM capacity and relies exclusively (through legislated authority) on the Ministry of Public Service (MPS) to provide all the HRM processes (recruitment, staffing, training, performance measurement…etc).  As such, in attendance at this workshop was a total of 13 participants (10 women and 3 men) from BCED (9 Members) as well as four Members from the Barbados Ministry of Public Service.

This E-mission aimed at equipping and empowering both BCED and the MPS to (i) strategically manage human resources and (ii) promote the use of competency-based HRM within both organizations. During the mission, participants were able to draft a Competency-based Job Catalogue as well as a comprehensive and modern Competency Framework. In addition, they explored the legislative and operational measures to have an internal unit in charge of HRM.

At the end of this mission, the Comptroller of BCED committed to establishing an HRM steering committee and an HRM working group to (i) developing a realistic and measurable HRM modernization work plan and (ii) finalizing design of competency-based HRM tools. On its side and keeping business continuity in mind, the WCO will pursue the remote delivery of its capacity-building services to BCED HRM working group, especially with regard to the finalization of the competency based tools.

For more information on this activity and the WCO HRM Programme, please contact: capacity.building@wcoomd.org.