Finally, after weeks of activties that included taking the ministry on the road so as to get the attention of business owners and the public in St. Kitts, the brand-spanking-new Ministry of Small Business and Entrepreneurship opened its doors this morning.
Members of staff at the new Ministry of Small Business and Entrepreneurship were on Friday August 25 exposed to a last minute afternoon session of “psychological contractual engagements training”, which will help guide them as they interact with members of the public.
The training, which was conducted by motivational speaker, and former Speaker of the National Assembly, Curtis Martin, was held at the offices of the Small Business Development Centre, the Ministry’s business arm, on Princess Street in Basseterre.
“They being a new team in place we actually had a conversation around team engagement, work ethics and the way of working,” noted Mr Martin. “
We went through some of the traditional, psychological contractual engagements in terms of how we work vs. the modern role profiling of how we need to incorporate behaviours in what we do.”
According to the motivational speaker, he is a firm believer that a country needs to hire behaviours and not people. Explaining why not people, he stated that it was in behaviours basically where a lot of the action takes place, concluding that the country needs people with the right behaviour.
Although the Minsistry did not provide any explanation of what is meant by “psychological contractual engagements training” online sources suggested that the psychological contract refers to the unwritten, intangible agreement between an employee and their employer that describes the informal commitments, expectations and understandingsthat make up their relationship.
The psychological contract shouldn’t be confused with a written employment contract – they are two very separate things. An employment contract sets out the legally-binding agreement between the two parties – but that contract on its own provides a very narrow and reductive view of the employee-employer relationship as a whole.
Friday August 25 was the original date for the launch of the new ministry, but because it clashed with the VAT Reduced Days that had been declared for Friday August 25 and Saturday August 26, the new launch date was moved to tomorrow Tuesday August 29 at the Royal St. Kitts Hotel Conference Room, starting at 9:30 a.m.
Source: Handout, St. Kitts and Nevis Government Information Services.
