Dr Lois Parkes’ journey

HER father Wilbert Parkes is widely known for his contribution to sports development in Jamaica and was even given a national award for his commitment to this sector, but while she lacks any sort of athletic ability, Dr Lois Parkes has adopted her father’s spirit for nation building and in her own way is making her contribution through her work as the chief personnel officer in the Office of the Services Commissions (OSC).

Parkes spent most of her earlier years in her parents’ shadow since she went to the New Day All-Age school where her mother was a vice-principal, and then Campion College where her father was a teacher and head of the school’s Physical Education Department. But when her mother lost her battle with cancer prior to her tumultuous teen years, Parkes and her three sisters had only their father to look to for guidance and direction.

“My father was the quintessential single father. He is my hero,” she said.

Despite his hectic schedule with championing several causes in the sports arena, the famed cricket coach was able to play a very active role in his daughters’ development, even as he adjusted to being a widower.

“I admire many things about my father, but one of the things that I admire the most is that when we all got to the stage where we started to prepare for CXC and we had to study more and so on, my father would set his watch and wake us up at one or two o’clock in the morning and he would sit up with us and he would do that until we would get into the rhythm of developing that discipline for ourselves,” she said.

This sort of discipline was crucial to Dr Parkes’ success at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, where she pursued a degree in English literature and graduated with honours. Upon leaving UWI, she was offered her first job as the head of the media monitoring unit in the Office of the Prime Minister, and after a year there, joined the staff at the OSC where she has worked ever since.

While at UWI, Dr Parkes did a sociology course that explored industrial relationships, and this helped to spark her interest in human resources. So after leaving that institution, she went and did a course in human resources at the Institute of Management and Production and then a one-year diploma programme in personnel management and industrial relations. She also did her Master’s at UWI in human resource development, and graduated in 2000 with a first class honours degree.

With every academic milestone crossed, Dr Parkes witnessed some amount of upward mobility in the OSC. In 1999, she became the acting assistant chief personnel officer and after several other positions, she became the senior deputy chief personnel officer in 2006. In 2007, she took a break to focus on her academic pursuits, after she was granted a Commonwealth scholarship to pursue her doctoral studies in human resource management and industrial relations at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

“It was a phenomenal experience, not only in terms of the studies, but also in terms of the connections that I made,” she said.

Despite having to undergo two surgeries while in New Zealand, Dr Parkes persevered and was able to graduate in 2012. That same year, she became the chief personnel officer for the OSC. This means that she supervises the provision of policy advice given to members of the constabulary, public, judicial, municipal and parish councils’ services commissions, as it relates to appointments, training, discipline and retirement of employees.

“It has been a fantastic journey, and I think I had the opportunity to work on a wide variety of reform initiatives across government,” said Dr Parkes of her experience working with the commission so far.

Dr Parkes also lectures part-time at the Management Institute for National Development as well as the University College of the Caribbean, where she shares her knowledge on matters relating to human resource management and public sector management. She also has her hands full at the Tarrant Baptist Church, where she is the director of the church’s chorale and is involved in several other aspects of the church.

Dr Parkes said she hopes to spearhead the implementation of a senior leadership development strategy for the public sector, particularly as it relates to succession planning for the positions of permanent secretary and other senior positions.