The National Transformation Initiative (NTI) is creating access to gold standard training for everyone, as staff from across a range of properties recently experienced.
Having started in October, NTI recently wrapped up international gold standard professional butler and house management training with global expert Simeon Rosset, of Scotland. He is CEO and Head Butler of Rosset Bespoke Butlers and Rosset International Butler School.
Discussions between Invest Barbados, TVET Council, the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association and NTI materialised with Mr. Rosset coming to Barbados to conduct a four-week pilot training for 12 students, with the intention of a longer-term arrangement in the future. NTI will share an update on that pilot programme separately.
His visit coincided with an outreach to NTI by Ms. Madaline Headley-Woodroffe, of The Gazebo, who was proactive in her desire to retool her team before the Barbados Employment and Sustainable Transformation (BEST) programme was announced for the tourism sector in the Throne Speech on September 15. As a result, NTI Director Dr. Allyson Leacock visited Gazebo and discussed the option of having Mr. Rosset conduct bespoke training for their team after his clearance from quarantine just before beginning his one-month pilot.
This customised training for Gazebo took place on October 31st and achieved what NTI is striving for: that every establishment, whether big or small, in Barbados offers the best experience across the island.
As a result, the small team at Gazebo, which can boast of patrons like Barbadian icon, Robyn Rihanna Fenty, and British television personality, Simon Cowell, experienced on-location training at their Payne’s Bay, St, James, beachfront grill.
Dr. Leacock believes this training is a key filip to the NTI’s remit to help companies prepare tourism-specific training plans as part of the BEST programme.
“Our access to Simeon’s services were well aligned with Gazebo’s proactive approach to the NTI even before the announcement of the BEST programme. The relationship has allowed us to showcase a fresh approach to training that enables our tourism workers to learn new skills and approaches for the future world of work both during and after COVID.
“The attention to detail, our understanding of our identity, and appreciation of being the best in class in everything we do will have far-reaching implications for Barbados’ positioning as a superior destination,” Dr. Leacock explained.
Extolling the island’s virtues, Mr. Rosset detailed the importance of such training at this time in Barbados: “Post-COVID, people are going to be a lot more fussy about where they go. They are going to be looking for so much when they are making that decision, that people are really going to have to step up to still be competitive.
“So, Barbados has the amazing local charm. It has some of the friendliest people in the world,” he stressed, “but they are also going to need that really high level of service … They are going to need to be able to provide that European-style speed and accuracy within their service because people look on a world stage about where they are going to go, and Barbados needs to be able to push them to make that decision to come here.”
Mr Rosset completed his training in Barbados on November 26.
About Simeon Rosset
In the 16 years since starting his career at Leeds Castle where he worked as Head Butler, Simeon Rosset has gone on to work as an exclusive international Butler working in castles, shooting estates, super yachts and palaces across Europe. In that time, he has worked for “A” list celebrities, royalty, dukes and duchesses, oil companies and banks, serving people such as HRH The Prince of Wales (Prince Charles); HRH The Princess Alexandra of Kent, tenor Luciano Pavarotti, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
About NTI
NTI is part of Government’s Retraining and Retooling programme (ReRe), itself a construct within The Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) Programme.
“The Re-Re Program, which involves the Retooling, Empowering, Retraining and Enfranchising of workers has to be at the core of the International Monetary Funded (IMF) program over the next four years. This is the next phase of the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) program that is a comprehensive retraining of Barbadian workers in an effort to make the workforce “globally fit for purpose”.
– The Hon. Mia Amor Mottley Q.C. M.P. Prime Minister of Barbados September 18, 2018
