CXC® Charting Roadmap from Fragility to Agility with Regional Disaster and Business Recovery Protocol

At the 2026 Jamaica Employers’ Federation (JEF) Convention, Mrs Sheree Deslandes, Director of Corporate Services at the Caribbean Examinations Council shared the organisations approach to operational disruptions such as the recent Hurricane Melissa in 2025.

In one of the first day’s sessions, Mrs Deslandes spoke to CXC’s experiences and strategic plans for digital assessment, business continuity planning and a proactive human resource approach as means which organisations can adopt to be future-ready and resilient in the face of any disruptive events.

In her remarks, Mrs Deslandes highlighted the notion of companies moving from Fragility to Agility in order to build resilience into the organisation’s culture and structure. “CXC looked at four main factors in order to accomplish this essential shift: E-Transition, moving from paper to digital; Automation, replacing repetitive manual steps; Standardisation, so anyone can run a process and Rmoving Redundancy, so no single person or system is a fail point. The process isn’t just about efficiency — it also about operational continuity under pressure.”

She continued, “In the case of Jamaica, these strategies helped us to streamline our response to the approach and passage of Hurricane Melissa. Our HR team mobilised our Western Zone Office (WZO) in Kingston, ensuring our teams were safe, counselled and empowered to support after the storm. CXC® leadership was on the ground in Jamaica, collaborating and engaging with the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information (MOEYSI) and within days, modified examinations procedures were in place to assist students in the parishes hardest hit by the hurricane.”

This year’s JEF Convention focused on the theme “Rebuilding with Purpose: Turning Crisis to Opportunity”.