In his first three months as Sodexo’s first Communication Technician, Carl de Chavez had solved every issue that had come his way.
In turn, Sodexo provided Carl with opportunities that would help him continue to upskill and grow in leadership responsibilities.
“They funded my schooling, tools and equipment, gave me a car to travel between sites with and even put together a small team to help me to manage the workload,” Carl said.
I feel really lucky to have had so many individuals help me out and support me. Sodexo has pushed me to grow and achieve things I didn’t think were possible.”
Back to square one
Once a network engineer in the Philippines, Carl felt as if he was back at square one when he immigrated to Australia in October 2012.
Reflecting on his current role, Carl demonstrates how grit, determination and the right support system can propel anyone into long-term career success.
“When I first came [to Australia], it was really hard for me to get a job,” Carl said.
“I was back to zero. I was an engineer in the Philippines, but I had to tell myself to let go of that and to just get any job so I can work my way up.”
Carl found his first job in Australia as a kitchen hand at a fast-food chain. Within a year he became assistant manager.
Despite the pay increase that came with this promotion, Carl had a family to provide for. From there he made the decision to move on and become an Airport Baggage Handler with Sodexo. In this role, he met Milan Novakovic—the Village Manager at the time.
“Milan helped me out a lot with my career after discovering I was qualified in Computer Engineering back home,” Carl said.
“He and Sodexo really became invested in getting me to a position where I could use my skills, passions and education to contribute back to the business.”
Changing it up
Milan helped Carl start learning maintenance tasks on weekends while working weekdays at the airport.
As Carl began to excel in maintenance and take on communication technician tasks, his skills were quickly recognised by his Area Manager who had, until then, been looking to outsource communication support.
“When I was told the Area Manager, I wasn’t sure what it was about. But when I sat down with him, he asked me directly if I wanted to work in Maintenance as a Communication Technician,” he said.
The role didn’t exist at the time, but Sodexo saw a need for it, recognised my skills and created the job for me, preferring to promote internally rather than outsource support.”
The sky’s the limit
Carl’s ambition, skill and determination, propelled by this support has seen him excel time and time again to his current position when a new project to upgrade the communication network for all sites called for his skillset.
Carl said Sodexo engaged him with this new project out of an appreciation for his pre-existing expertise and extensive knowledge between the sites.
“My long experience at Sodexo allowed me to become familiar with the connections at all the sites, making this new project easier,” Carl said.
“I’m now working on 21-25 sites at a time, and I’m still not done chasing my goals.”
Carl is still working his way up, hoping to become a certified network engineer again with Sodexo’s support.
I'm appreciative that Sodexo still looks after me and challenges me. I feel hopeful that I can become a network engineer again with Sodexo behind me,” Carl said
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