National Flour Mills sends senior managers home
(Trinidad Guardian) No further layoffs are expected at National Flours Mills Limited (NFM) following a restructuring exercise in which some senior management positions were made redundant.
That was the assurance from the company in a statement yesterday, one day after four managers were served with dismissal notices.
Sent home were Pamela Niamath, General Manager, Business Support Services; Cheryl Edwards, General Manager of Operations; Robert Subryan, General Manager of Finance and Cheryl Lee Kong, General Manager of Sales and Marketing.
NFM said the positions were made redundant following a job evaluation exercise which shows that its organisational structure had too many layers— eleven from top to bottom.
“Best practice within manufacturing companies, however, suggests an optimum design of much fewer layers. The current structure at the executive and management levels is not aligned with these objectives,” the company said in a media release.
As a result, the general manager layer was eliminated, “facilitating the widening of the span of control of the Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Operating Officer.”
“Remaining managerial positions will be amended to better reflect their revised responsibilities and accountabilities,” NFM said.
Noting that its “functional architecture is very costly” the company reduced “the number of layers and increase managerial spans of control” which includes upskilling at the lower levels and delayering at the top.
The release continued: “No further layoffs are expected and NFM will soon commence an exercise working along with its employee representative unions to upskill the workforce through a competency development programme.
“This will benefit both employee and employer from the value that would be created through a more effective workforce.”
NFM said in its efforts to become more efficient and effective, it had been working to resolve several challenges including decreasing profitability caused by increased competition, rising raw material prices and increasing staff costs.
The company has embarked on continuous improvement initiatives and work has been completed on a new strategic direction which focuses on growth and “development of a lean, cost-conscious, competency-based organisational structure.” (Jamaica Gleaner) The banning from priestly ministry of former
Bishop of Mandeville
Gordon Bennett for sexual harassment has come as a shocker for the local
Catholic Church, but
Archbishop Emeritus of
Kingston, the Reverend
Charles Dufour, has questioned whether illhealth might have contributed to his actions.
“We are grieved that a man we knew to be a good man apparently is alleged to have engaged in such behaviour. Having known that his character had been deeply affected by his depression and stroke, one wonders how much this contributed to his actions,” Dufour said in a statement to the press released on Saturday afternoon.
Baltimore Archbishop William Lori has announced ministerial restrictions for Bishop Bennett and Bishop Michael Bransfield, who resigned from the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston last year. Bishop Bransfield was accused of sexually harassing adults and committing financial improprieties.
According to a story carried in The Associated Press on Monday, Bennett served in Baltimore from 1998 until 2004, when he was appointed Bishop of Mandeville in Jamaica. He resigned in August 2006, a few months after the archdiocese learnt of an allegation of his sexual harassment of a young adult in Jamaica.