TCI Labour Market shortages impacting Electricity provider, FortisTCI 

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, June 25, 2022 – In the wake of their new apprenticeship program energy company FortisTCI has revealed they are woefully short on skilled labour. Representatives of the company spoke at the apprenticeship launch explaining the difficulty the company is facing.

“Recruitment is one of the things that we do have challenges with, particularly in the technical area.  The engineers, the linesmen, the operators, we are limited locally with finding those skills…the labour market is under tremendous stress right now, it has been a difficult challenge for us.”  Fortis TCI President and CEO Ruth Forbes said.

While she could not provide a concrete number on how many unfilled positions existed she explained what the company needed.

“We have talked a lot about transitioning to more sustainable sources of energy, we are looking for skills in that area, also on the data analytics side and we’re always looking for engineers, technicians, I.T. persons, cybersecurity,” she explained “we’re also looking for skills on the business side, we have accounting roles that are currently open that we are unable to fill because we can’t find any qualified accountants and the list goes on.”

In terms of how badly the lack of workers is affecting them Forbes said they had been able to manage so far despite the fact that it was not ideal. In the meantime persons in the company we’re taking it as an opportunity to upskill themselves and Fortis was able to promote a batch of nine individuals recently.

FortisTCI has a history of seeing opportunities for growth in talented young people and providing them with opportunities to hone their talents but with the advent of this worker shortage they are going a step further to grow the skills base in the Turks and Caicos.   A FortisTCI university is ‘most definitely’ in the works they say.

The shortage is not due to them losing employees at all as young people employed to the company have glowing reviews of their workspace. Director of Human Resources Claudia Munnings explained that the company was enthusiastic about creating an environment for growth.

“One of the things that we are focusing on is our employee experience and transforming that experience… the thing that most motivates persons is the opportunity for growth.. you can grow where you are planted and it’s very important for people to accept the opportunity to grow in the areas where they are and embrace those opportunities for training, learning and development so that when the opportunity arises to move upward they are prepared for it . That is something that we have pushed.”

Munnings explained that they were constantly pushing their employees further in their careers but the gap persists. The recently announced apprenticeship program at FortisTCI is one step in closing the gap.

“One of the things that we are looking at as an extension is extending some of the training courses we have internally to members of the public.”

While the construction of a university remains in the works they are currently working on other way to funnel students into the industry.

“We see ourselves strengthening our relationships with the TCI Community College and with High Schools and even the primary schools, getting in there as soon as we can. We’re always looking for ways to bridge the talent gap in the Turks and Caicos Islands. ”

The TVET program by the TCICC is one the company has its eye on currently as well.  For people already qualified FortisTCI is still accepting applications for its apprenticeship program, which offers Associate and Bachelor’s degree graduates an opportunity to experience the business environment within its three major divisions, the job will begin on August 2, 2022 with the top 4 candidates.

They will be allowed to work for a period of two (2) years and will rotate within a specific division for the first 6-12 months for broad exposure with a specific placement for the subsequent 12 months based on their proficiency. Munnings promised it would pay well with many of the benefits afforded to employees.