RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

T&T’s em­ploy­ers are be­ing urged to safe­guard their work­force and boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty by of­fer­ing home­own­er­ship in­cen­tives.

Speak­ing at the Home For Me 2022 sem­i­nar held at Cara Ho­tels, Pointe-a-Pierre, on Sat­ur­day, the pres­i­dent of the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Cavelle Joseph-St Omer says it was in the best in­ter­est of com­pa­nies to as­sist their em­ploy­ees with home own­er­ship, es­pe­cial­ly since this will en­cour­age loy­al­ty and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

Joseph-St Omer, the di­vi­sion­al man­ag­er of Ude­cott, said it was every em­ploy­ee’s dream to own a house, not­ing that em­ploy­ees can­not give their best and be pro­duc­tive if they have to wor­ry about rent, mort­gages or food.

“With COVID we saw so many peo­ple be­ing evict­ed from homes, un­able to pay rent. Now is the time that em­ploy­ers could sup­port their em­ploy­ees’ dreams of own­ing a home. An em­ploy­ee who knows that an em­ploy­er has in­vest­ed in them will be more com­mit­ted and loy­al. An em­ploy­ee who owns a home and has a mort­gage to pay will not be jump­ing all over the place. They will stay com­mit­ted to work­ing with you. It al­so re­sults in fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty, peace of mind and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty,” she said.

Joseph-St Omer said many em­ploy­ees do not know the process of build­ing or own­ing a home. She said in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions like Google of­ten as­sist their em­ploy­ees with home own­er­ship.

“Some com­pa­nies have home­own­ers in­sur­ance loans that can be ac­cessed through the com­pa­ny, where they give you a de­posit to a home, that is a re­al ben­e­fit to an em­ploy­ee,” she ex­plained.

She added: “When ne­go­ti­at­ing a col­lec­tive agree­ment, ne­go­ti­ate for hous­ing al­lowances. Some­times you hear con­ver­sa­tions about per­cent­age in­crease but now is the time to as­sist with home own­er­ship.”

Mean­while, Patrice Ramkaran, the founder and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Ramkaran Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Lim­it­ed, who has pi­o­neered the Home For Me ini­tia­tive since 2017, said the sem­i­nar was meant to em­pow­er peo­ple.

She said peo­ple of­ten ex­pe­ri­ence chal­lenges with fi­nanc­ing, em­ploy­ment sta­tus and the cost of re­al es­tate when they try to achieve home own­er­ship.

“This was why we start­ed this ini­tia­tive. We de­cid­ed to in­vite oth­er stake­hold­ers this year to as­sist as­pir­ing home­own­ers be­cause shel­ter is a hu­man right,” Ramkaran said.

Mean­while, the pres­i­dent of the T&T Con­trac­tors As­so­ci­a­tion Glenn Ma­habirs­ingh said con­struc­tion ma­te­ri­als were no longer in short sup­ply in T&T and the chal­lenges with ship­ping and freight had im­proved over the past two months. He said guid­ing peo­ple in­to the home­own­er­ship process was im­por­tant, es­pe­cial­ly at this time.

“Home build­ing is a com­plex process. The as­so­ci­a­tion can guide on meth­ods of con­struc­tion. We al­so have sem­i­nars on top­ics like qual­i­ty con­trol and con­crete, roof­ing, and ap­proval process­es for build­ing process­es,” Ma­habirs­ingh said.

He not­ed that the Ukraine/Russ­ian war had dri­ven con­struc­tion ma­te­r­i­al prices up but with­in the last six weeks, the price of steel has de­creased.

“In terms of tim­ing to build­ing, now is the best time to build. Now is the best time be­cause we do not know what will hap­pen in the fu­ture and ma­te­r­i­al prices may go up. My rec­om­men­da­tion is do not wait, do it when you can do it,” Ma­habirs­ingh said.

He not­ed that there is no short­age of ma­te­ri­als cur­rent­ly and al­though there have been bi­tu­men chal­lenges since the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery was closed down, con­trac­tors could over­come these chal­lenges through prop­er plan­ning and get­ting their or­ders in time.