Assisting the Maltese Workforce Deal with the Challenges of Sustainable Development

For Malta's waste management strategy to succeed in attaining the proposed changes and targets, there is the need to achieve the cooperation and collaboration with all sectors of society. The Maltese workforce is a sectoral group that has the potential to play a major role in waste management. From research being carried out amongst hotel employees, it is evident that workers are willing to be actively involved in the design and planning of training on waste management. Most of the employees interviewed stated their interest in having training that ought to be relevant and useful to them. Almost all the employees interviewed believe that when training is designed through an open process between management and staff, it is highly probable that all the employees would attend thus achieving optimum value of the training. For some of the employees, the waste management issues that were of great concern to them centred primarily on the waste collection service whilst others felt largely concerned with the need for a total change in Maltese culture by means of education. All the employees interviewed said that should the hotel implement a waste management plan, each worker would feel the importance of contributing towards its success only when such a plan is preceded by adequate training on waste management. However, many were apprehensive about the lack of space for separate collection bins in some areas of the hotel and believe that the management ought to address this situation during the initial stages of the waste plan. The Direct Attention Thinking Tools (DATT) by de Bono were used in the design of the interview questions as this helped the researcher direct the employees to the specific issues needed for the research project. The DATT tools also assisted the employees in prioritising their ideas, in finding the strengths and weaknesses of their suggestions as well as identifying other members of staff who would be involved in the waste plan and how these would be affected.

• Introduction

• Aims and Objectives

• Results

• Future Work

• References