Bally shares insights into being a carer and a diversity ambassador at Travelport

Created by VERCIDA for Travelport

 

When Bally Gill rejoined Travelport after seven years away, she received all the support she needed while she was a carer for her mother, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

 

 

I worked for Travelport for three years, before leaving to join a fashion retailer. I was there for seven years when the opportunity to rejoin Travelport came my way. I really loved working there the first time, so it was great to return, this time in a higher position. For the past four years, I have been a senior finance analyst at Travelport.

My mother had Alzheimer’s for 15 years before she passed away in 2020. When I started working for Travelport again in 2019, my mother had an incident where she had trouble swallowing some liquid and almost choked. It’s one of those things that is quite common for people in the last stages of Alzheimer’s, but it can be hard to understand if you haven’t had first-hand experience of the condition.

It was such a difficult time – after that incident, my mother was taken to hospital in an ambulance and she never really recovered – and it was such an enormous responsibility. I have two other siblings, but I had power of attorney, so I looked after her financial affairs. 

 

 

My siblings were with me for the whole journey, but there were times when I had to leave work, even during meetings, to care for my mother. When you are looking after an Alzheimer’s patient in hospital, consultations with doctors are usually at their convenience, so it was always up to me to rearrange meetings or adjust my work schedule.

But Travelport was always so incredibly supportive. I was never made to feel as if I was a hindrance or that I wasn’t being responsible in my role. It was the other way around – everyone at Travelport made sure they were being responsible towards me as an employee, which takes a load off your mind.

When you have all that support from your employer when you’re going through some major life events, you give back to the company tenfold. I really appreciated it. When I returned to work after my mother passed away, everyone made sure that I was ready to come back, that it wasn’t too soon. I always knew that if I needed to go home while I was mourning my mother, I was able to do that. 

Two weeks after her funeral, Covid struck, so it was hard for my family to grieve together. By this time, I had a new manager and when I explained to her what my family had been through, she was really good. We had plenty of conversations, not necessarily just about my mother, but to check in on my wellbeing. It’s so important to have an employer where you feel comfortable sharing things that are going on in your life, and their actions reflect that. I never felt as if I couldn’t tell people what was happening.

 

 

All Travelport employees have access to an online support service. It is run by an external company, so you can talk confidentially to people who are not colleagues, which can make people feel more comfortable about opening up. Within Travelport, the human resources department is always available if you need to talk and it’s easy to have a chat with any colleague with whom you feel comfortable. It’s very much a company that encourages you to share and talk to people. It is more like a community than a company.

I am proud to be a diversity ambassador for Travelport. It is part of making sure we’re an inclusive company with people from all walks of life, from all backgrounds and beliefs, and part of that is making sure carers are recognised and given all the support they need to succeed.

After the journey I went on with my mother, I take any opportunity I can to raise awareness about Alzheimer’s, whether at work or elsewhere. I have been on Alzheimer’s charity walks, I post about it on my social media, I talk about it. Without disrespecting my mother, I think it is important to talk about the upheaval, the distress and the realities of an illness that so many people still find scary or mysterious. If I can help one person learn more about this cruel disease, I have accomplished something.

 

About Travelport

Travelport is a worldwide travel retail platform. Our next-generation marketplace connects buyers and sellers that share our passion for delivering exceptional travel experiences. Unconflicted and independent, we are reinventing a simpler future for travel’s complex ecosystem. We are a truly global company, operating in over 180 countries. Our headquarters are in London, United Kingdom.

We’re a diverse and inclusive workforce, representative of the communities and customers we serve. We’re committed to eliminating inequality and unconscious bias, and to providing a work environment where all employees can confidently, and comfortably, share their opinions and challenge the norms.

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