At the recent Jamaica Employers’ Federation (JEF) Convention, the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC®) received high praise for its swift, practical response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa last October.
The hurricane caused significant disruption across the island, damaging more than 800 educational institutions and impacting over 250,000 students. In the face of this crisis, CXC successfully activated its Regional Disaster and Business Recovery Protocol—a comprehensive contingency plan previously tested during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 La Soufrière volcanic eruption, and Hurricane Beryl in 2024.
Speaking at the convention, CXC’s Director of Corporate Services, Sheree Deslandes, explained that the organization did not have to improvise its crisis management. Instead, the response capacity was “strategically built into the organisation’s operational architecture well before the storm made landfall”.
In a presentation titled “Hardwired to Recover: HR, Disruption, and the Architecture of a Modern Caribbean Workforce,” Deslandes detailed how the regional examination body routinely plans for natural disaster disruptions during the critical May-June examination window.
Following Hurricane Melissa, CXC worked closely with Jamaica’s Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information to implement a package of humanitarian concessions for students in the hardest-hit parishes. These concessions for the January and May-June 2026 Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination® (CAPE®) and Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate® (CSEC®) exams included:
- Refunds for candidates who did not feel prepared to sit for their exams.
- Late registration options without financial penalties.
- Modifications to School-Based Assessment (SBA) requirements and submission deadlines.
Convention attendees lauded the intervention as “cogent and practical,” with Training Consultant Tishauna Mullings publicly calling the agile resilience demonstrated by CXC “inspiring”.
When asked about the organizational structures driving this protocol, Deslandes highlighted the critical, central role of the Human Resource function, describing it as the “architect, anchor and activator” for regional bodies navigating climate risks and digital disruption.
“Is your HR function built for the storm you haven’t seen yet?” Deslandes challenged the audience of Jamaican employers. She detailed how CXC is modernizing HR systems, restructuring reporting lines, and embedding a recovery-ready culture. Deslandes emphasized that HR must be viewed not merely as a support service, but as a “strategic edge for productivity and resilience” in the modern Caribbean workforce.
CXC’s insights arrive at a critical moment for Jamaica’s public and private sectors. As organizations continue to navigate post-Melissa recovery efforts, the JEF has made workforce resilience, skills development, and disaster-resilient operations a central theme of its current programming to ensure the nation is ready for the next shock.