Francis Wade, president of Framework Consulting Inc, has made a successful business out of solving 'people problems' in companies. - Peta-Gaye Clachar/Freelance Photographer

Francis Wade is into the business of solving problems. "We focus on solving the toughest people-related issues in the Caribbean," said Wade, president of Framework Consulting Inc.

The firm specialises in ensuring that employees are tailored to meet the needs of the organisation. Whether it involves incorporating a culture change to motivate employees or assisting individuals in transitioning to a new organizational thrust. They also focus on time management and expatriate transitions to Jamaica.

Wade's company was started 16 years ago in the United States. However, three years later a subsidiary was opened in Jamaica.

"I always intended to come back to Jamaica. I just needed a company to come back with," said the Cornel University graduate.

"We now focus strictly on Caribbean clients about an even split between Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados," he said.

Unique market

With the help of two other partners, his wife Dale Pilgrim-Wade and Scott Hilton-Clarke, the firm is able to capitalize on a unique market.

Wade explained that the business in America, while it had it's merits, did not give him as great a sense of fulfilment as it does in Jamaica.

He explained that the issues which needed change in the Jamaican work-place were more life altering than some of the issues he encountered in North America.

"The stakes here (in Jamaica) are just so much higher. The sense I had of making a difference was just so much bigger," he said .

The company's thrust is to share information and ideas.

"The more we give away ideas the more we get," he said.

They achieve this by making available a host of information on their website in the form of podcasts, blogs, the e-zines First Cut and the One Page Digest, an e-book on effectively networking in the Caribbean titled 'The New Networking Caribbean 2008'.

The Jamaican audience is receptive to their ideas. One of the major challenges Wade believes exists in the Caribbean work-place is the issue of slavery.

Culture change

"When it comes to the work-place, the history that we inherited from plantation days is killing us but we don't talk about it enough," Wade said. He believes companies should have frank discussions about the way in which managers and employees replicate the behaviour of master and slave and work on improving that relationship. One of his agency's approaches is to initiate a culture change where managers can take the lead. They can say: "We're taking the lead and starting with ourselves and we're doing an inquiry into the ways in which we treat our workers as slaves that will get everybody's attention."

Then companies move forward to build better relations.