HEART cutting in-person recruitment over coronavirus fears
RAYHARNA WRIGHT, acting director of employment and career services in the HEART/National Service Training Agency Trust (HEART/NSTA), says as part of its COVID-19 protocol, the entity will be seeking to reduce face-to-face recruitment and will instead be using technology in the processing of applicants.
“We remain guided by the Ministry of Health’s guidelines that would have been put out, while understanding that it is very critical now for us to protect our stakeholders,” said Wright, who spoke to The Gleaner following the HEART/ NSTA North West Region’s annual regional stakeholder consultation session at the HEART College of Innovation and Technology in Montego Bay.
“Clearly, we will be scaling down on larger community interventions just to ensure that persons are not affected by these engagements that we would normally put on to tell persons about our products and services,” added Wright.
OUTREACH PROTOCOL
According to Wright, the HEART/ NSTA has developed a protocol through which it will be utilising social media to reach out to stakeholders.
“With the help of social media, we can continue to engage our stakeholders ... . We’re going to use smart ways, through technology, to ensure that we remain in touch with our stakeholders,” said Wright.
Her comments came hours after Jamaica confirmed its first case of COVID-19. The affected patient, a woman who recently travelled from the United Kingdom to Jamaica to attend a funeral, reportedly developed respiratory symptoms and a subsequent test revealed that she had contracted COVID-19.
During his contribution to the 2020-2021 Budget Debate in Parliament on Tuesday, Finance and the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke earmarked J$7 billion in contingency funding to address the novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2.
In the meantime, Wright said that the use of technology to reach out to applicants would not adversely affect HEART/NSTA’s recruitment numbers. The organisation receives roughly 100,000 new recruits each year.
“The numbers won’t be sliced, because what we find is that even though our stakeholders look forward to our face-to-face intervention, they also look forward to our social-media platform, and they actually go there to get information about our products and services,” said Wright.
“So I don’t see the numbers being affected tremendously by this new development.”