Orane CHAIRMAN AND chief executive officer of Grace, Kennedy & Company, Senator Douglas Orane has pointed to the efforts made by the company to align employees' actions with the group's strategy, in his Interim Report to Stockholders for the period ended 31st March, 2001.
"This is an important policy that we have put in place to ensure that our employees fully understand and work towards achieving our corporate objectives," he said.
The annual Group Business Conference is an important plank of this policy where over 300 management and specialist staff participate in discussions on the programmes drawn up by the various Divisions to achieve specific goals designed to successfully increase overall earnings and to grow the group's business internationally.
Mr. Orane said that the group's slate of policy prescriptions known as the 2020 Vision now includes the objective of earning at least 50 per cent of the group's profits from economies outside of Jamaica by 2005.
Convinced that ownership in the company adds to the benefit of both employees and employers, Grace, Kennedy has taken steps to encourage "an ownership culture among its employees." There has been a positive response to the first tranche of the stock offer to its staff which was made in April of this year. In other staff-related developments, Grace & Staff Community Development Foundation facilitated an important initiative when it hosted a College Fair where recruiters from seven colleges in the U.S.A. interviewed some 1,400 students across the island with a view to determining those who could qualify for scholarships. A further community development initiative was undertaken by Grace & Staff with its self counsellor, Curtis Sweeney, conducting classes in reading and mathematics for some 50 young men between the ages of 15 to 25 from the neighbouring community of Rae Town.
This tradition of involvement with worthwhile community efforts was continued when the management and staff of the Food Trading Division undertook to raise some $1 million for the Jamaica Cancer Society during the period from April through August.
