By Charles Gladden
BELIZE CITY, Mon. Nov. 10, 2025
The Belize Association of Human Resource Professionals (BAHRP) hosted its 2nd annual Human Resource Summit on Thursday, November 6, at the Biltmore Hotel in Belize City.
The Summit’s theme was, “Unlocking the HR Advantage.”
“Our focus is to collaborate and examine with HR professionals, strategies and tactics on how they can strengthen what they do for their employees; and in doing that, they create value for their customers, suppliers, investors, and the broader communities that they serve,” said Consuelo Waight, President of BAHRP.
The summit brought together over 100 HR professionals from various industries in the public and private sectors. The summit presented a panel discussion addressing the challenges every employer faces in the workplace, whether it’s local, regional, or global.
“You heard them talk a lot about the generations in the workplace, the pandemic, and the economic situation. So, we have also heard them talk about Belize having the lowest unemployment rate, about what that means internally for talent and talent competition, regarding employees having the choice to choose where they want to work, and for how long they want to work for you,” Waight mentioned.
“It’s always going to be about conversation, participation, and giving voice to the target audience that we serve, and learning with them to create new meaningful experiences … [We] should be talking to them about what matters to them, what their values are, then designing an experience based on their voice, versus trying to create an experience that we think is the way employees should feel,” she added.
Echoing Waight’s sentiments, Valentino Shal, CEO at the Ministry of Labour, highlighted that it’s about communication, despite the age gap.
“I don’t worry about the labels. Every era, person, company, or sector will always have challenges, and that’s the point of the discussion today: how will you know your role as a leader or manager? How to keep your people motivated and productive? So, it doesn’t matter if they’re millennials or Gen-Z, but what matters is how you can respond appropriately to their needs and communicate your expectations to your workers,” he said.
The panelists featured Henry Anderson, CEO of Development Finance Corporation; Filippo Alario, Chairman and CEO of The Belize Bank Ltd.; Andrew Roe, Managing Director of RF&G, Insurance Co. Ltd; Cornelio Acosta, Jr., Executive Chairman at Belize Water Services Ltd.; and Valentino Shal, CEO, Rural Transformation, Community Development, Labour and Local Government.
