Not every gratuity in the Caribbean arrives on a restaurant bill. Across the region’s tourism ecosystem, thousands of employees earn a significant portion of their income through revenue-share arrangements, commissions, and performance-based pay structures that are far more complex than a simple tip pool. A tour guide in Ocho Rios earns a base salary plus […]
A guest at a Grace Bay resort spends $400 on a dinner for four. The restaurant adds a 15% service charge — $60. The guest also leaves a $40 voluntary tip on the card. That $100 in gratuity-related income now needs to be distributed to the server, the busser, the bartender who made the cocktails, […]
Grace Bay Beach has been ranked the world’s best beach so many times that it has become part of the Turks and Caicos brand. The resorts that line it — and those spread across Providenciales, Grand Turk, and the outer islands — drive an economy where tourism accounts for the overwhelming majority of GDP and […]
In most Caribbean territories, an employee starts work, gets registered with the national insurance board, and contributions begin. The process is linear. In the Turks and Caicos Islands, it is anything but. TCI employers are expected to begin paying NIB and NHIP contributions from the date a work permit is approved. But they cannot register […]
The Turks and Caicos Islands has no income tax. No PAYE. No corporate tax. No capital gains. For employers accustomed to the Caribbean’s typical multi-deduction payroll structures, TCI looks simple on paper. It is not. TCI employers must calculate, deduct, and remit contributions to two separate government agencies — the National Insurance Board (NIB) and […]
A hospitality group in Nassau called me last month with a question I have been hearing more frequently: they operate properties in the Bahamas and Jamaica, with plans to add Trinidad by year-end. Their HR director wanted to know whether it was possible to manage all three workforces from a single system — or whether […]
I have spent time over the past several months talking to HR professionals in Kingston, Montego Bay, and Ocho Rios. Companies ranging from 30 to 500 employees. Hotels, manufacturers, financial services firms, logistics companies, BPO operators, and NGOs. The technology stack was remarkably consistent across all of them: a payroll package (sometimes desktop, sometimes a […]
Jamaica’s business process outsourcing sector is a US$900-million industry employing north of 55,000 people across 70 companies. It is, by most measures, the country’s most dynamic employer — pulling in young Jamaicans, creating a path into the formal economy, and generating foreign exchange at a pace that few other industries can match. It is also […]
The Bahamas Employment Act 2001 has been the law of the land for over two decades. It is written in plain language across 53 sections. The rules on notice, severance, leave, and dismissal are not hidden in legalese. And yet, the Industrial Tribunal keeps hearing the same cases. An employment lawyer in Nassau put it […]
A general manager at a 300-room resort on Cable Beach told me something last month that I have not been able to shake. His operation budgets 15% of payroll for overtime. They consistently run between 22 and 25%. I asked him where the schedule lives. He pointed to a whiteboard in the back office. I […]
