Productivity Improvement: Managing for Quality Outcomes is the title of a two-day symposium to be held Thursday and Friday, July 24 & 25, 2003 at the Mona Visitors’ Lodge and Conference Centre at the UWI, Mona Campus. The Symposium is being organized by the Department of Government, Mona in conjunction with the Public Sector Reform Unit, Cabinet Office.
The Symposium will encourage discussion among public sector managers, members of the academic community and the private sector about productivity enhancement experiences, strategies that have worked, and challenges to improving productivity. The aim is also to develop policies and strategies for productivity improvement within an appropriate ‘change timeframe’.
Keynote speaker at the official opening ceremony on Thursday, July 24 at 9.00 .m. will be Dr. Marc Holzer, Professor and Chair of Public Administration at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, where he specializes in public sector productivity improvement. Dr. Holzer is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Public Productivity and Management Review, a quarterly international journal. He is also the Founder and Executive Director of the National Center for Public Productivity which helps to provide research and means by which local, state and federal agencies can further improve their efficiency and effectiveness.
Other speakers over the two day period will include Mrs. Scarlette Gillings, Managing Director of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund, Mr. Robert Gregory, Executive Director of HEART/NTA; Mr. Earle Jarrett, General Manager of Jamaica National Building Society; Mr. James Moss Solomon, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of Grace, Kennedy Ltd and Mr. Morin Seymour, Executive Director of the Kingston Restoration Committee.
Participants at the Symposium will seek to establish links between modernization initiatives and a systematic programme of productivity improvement; to discuss international and national productivity enhancement experiences and examine modern techniques for measuring productivity. They will also examine managerial capability building strategies for productivity improvement and identify policies and strategies for productivity improvement at the national and organizational levels.
Further information on the Symposium may be obtained from Judith Johnson at the Symposium Secretariat, Department of Government, at telephone number 977-5935 or e-mail govt@uwimona.edu.jm.