42 Business View Caribbean - Nov 2014
grams for cost-tracking, scheduling, as opposed to the
local competitors that we have down here,” he said.
“We even send some of our employees to the U.S. and
we put them in OSHA schools and give them a lot of
training. That’s what actually defers BSI from the rest
of the local competitors.”
The Trinidad operation maintains an organizational
structure for each project that mandates inclusion of
three ex-pats on board to help local staff with manage-
ment, which has traditionally yielded particularly high
marks on safety, quality and productivity. As for par-
ticular challenges in the market that those in the U.S.
or other places might not face, a skilled labor force is
clearly the top item.
That gap, however, is bridged by BSI’s provision of ap-
plicable training before workers get to the job sites.
That helps overcome the skills deficit created by the
lack of available trade schools in the country. The ab-
sence of those schools means workers traditionally
come into the industry on a lower level and are forced
to learn on the job as trade helpers until they progress.
“We take the employees ahead of time and we pro-
vide that training for them,” Gocool said. “For the last
turnaround that we had to do at Atlantic LNG, we were
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
