Alan Newey is a valuable member of the CNB Safe team. He spends a large part of his year sharing his story with workplaces throughout Australia.
Alan is also conscious of his own wellbeing and makes sure he takes ‘Time out’ for himself, this includes visiting one of his favourite parts of the world, Bali.
Here Alan shares an experience he had during his most recent visit.
To keep people anonymous, I will not use names. Recently I have had some conversations with people at a hotel in Bali. In Australia during the Pandemic, we had Jobkeeper, State and Federal Government grants and many other types of government assistance.
Most of the people in Bali, who depend on tourism for their survival, had nothing and were left to their own devices.
This blog does not really have anything to do with safety but it made me think about what people could do in making sure everyone went home from work safely to their families, if we used the same resolve as these people.
One worker in particular, told me that one very well known 5 star hotel that I have stayed at, sacked everyone with no help at all.
The hotel has not reopened and none of these people will work there again!
They were thrown on the heap.
Where I’m staying now also had to lay off everyone as well, the difference being they received some small assistance and were told that every single employee, when Bali reopens, has a job with them.
Everyone is working here again and you would not find a happier group of employees. I would call them family, working and looking after each other.
This same employee, who has a wife and 4 daughters, told me of his struggles, his worry for his family and for other people’s welfare. To put food on the table, the families went down to the ocean with a fishing net, normally it would be by fishing line but they were desperate.
Some days they did not catch enough fish, other days they caught enough for everyone to share. If other families doing the same thing did not have enough for their families, they would all share with each other.
On the odd occasion, they had a great catch of fish and the families could sell the excess for around $2.50 a day (Could you imagine that?).
But this person told me with all the stress they went through, at the end of day they put something on the table to eat, were healthy and home with their families and friends and they could smile, knowing there would be a better tomorrow.
What inroads would we achieve if we used the same determination to look after each other in the workplace to go home safe.
I love this place.
Alan Newey
