Debra Fraser, general manager of Salary.com Jamaica Limited. - Photo by Sheena Gayle

Salary.com, a human resources software services provider to medium and large firms based primarily in the United States, has expanded its sales, data provision and service arm to Montego Bay.

Salary.com Jamaica Limited plans to double its staff of 40 by March next year, transforming the Montego Bay Free Zone office into the company's international sales and service hub.

Headquartered in Boston, with two additional US locations, parent Salary.com has offices in China and the United Kingdom.

And while it seeks to grow its 7,000 customer base of mainly US corporates from its Jamaica location, Salary.com hopes to deepen its foray into the Jamaica marketplace.

"All customer service type positions will be built there," Debra Fraser, the firm's country manager, said of the planned Jamaica expansion.

"Jamaica is a great near shore opportunity in the same time zone and just three hours flying time from Boston. Managers from Boston who are here are engaged in training only."

Sourcing workers

She has highlighted too, the benefits the company is deriving from sourcing workers locally.

"We are leveraging not just line staff but personnel at all levels. We have three local managers including myself. We chose to locate a near shore operation in Jamaica because we could leverage the talent pool here," said Fraser.

"Jamaica has really great skills in terms of customer service and English speaking, skills which are much better than India and China where the language has not been mastered as well."

With its heavy information technology focus, the business is said to be reaping savings from the abundant pool of computer skills available locally.

"All of our positions demand interface with customer through computer use. It is more cost advantageous for us to employ talent here and so far we have been able to find the skills and make the savings in labour which allows us to hire even more talented people," according to Salary.com's Fraser.

Attractive packages

With the large number of new Jamaican hires coming from Kingston the company says is has been offering attractive remuneration packages including relocation allowance."

Typically the company sells HR software to firms, but also makes its solutions accessible online.

But getting its HR software, systems, and talent management business set up in Jamaica was not all smooth sailing for the company, which entered Jamaica last November.

"The government of Jamaica is still trying to catch up on how to help investors who want to hire and start business here. The free zone - the fact of its existence made its easy to rent office space and also facilitated the benefit of less taxation. But, things like utilities and the red tape involved in shipping have been very challenging," said the locally recruited country manager.

"We also had to figure out how to match the talent here with what we needed. An accountant in Jamaica is a little different from accountants in the States. Sales, we also found, was different. It took us several months to figure out who we needed and where."

But Fraser also said Jamaica Trade and Invest and the Montego Free Zone operators were supportive.

"JTI held our hand the whole way," she said.

avia.collinder@gleanerjm.com