Life changes on the daily, from little things to ones that can significantly affect all aspects of a person’s life. Fortunately for Medibank employees, the company strongly advocates for flexibility, which allows life’s sudden movements to be accommodated for.
When his life went through an important transition, Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC) Customer Consultant, Ranjith Cebreco, assumed his only option was to hand in his resignation. Late in 2017, Ranjith and his partner Krystal welcomed a baby into their lives. When Krystal was in the process of planning her return to work, she was made aware that her role had been made redundant.
“The redundancy of the position was a hard hit for Krystal and me. She was only planning to go back part-time and the only other role that the company could offer her was more than 1/3 of a pay cut,” Ranjith says.
“With the rising costs of childcare and the fact that we, unfortunately, don’t have family in Melbourne, we’ve really had to re-assess.”
To help out, Krystal’s parents, who are based in Adelaide, offered them a room in their house to help them save on rent and help out with childcare, an offer they have chosen to take.
Ranjith began his career with Medibank in January 2018 and says that he has loved every minute of it, which made his decision to leave even harder. To his surprise, his resignation was met with opportunities he didn’t realise were available to him.
“I knew Medibank is very flexible, which allows employees to work from home, but I didn’t think that it would be something I could do on a permanent basis so that’s why I had planned to just quit completely.”
Ranjith (second from right) with some of his OSHC teammates.
Upon hearing his decision, Ranjith’s manager Vinnie Sharan sat down with him to discuss his options.
“I told Vinnie that I really did enjoy my job and the team but moving to Adelaide is what would help my family. He didn’t accept my resignation straightaway but instead said we’d look at all options and see what works because I was a valued member of the team.”
As a result of this conversation, Ranjith and Vinnie came up with the solution that would see him working from home in Adelaide on a permanent basis in the same role. This is something he says has given him the biggest sense of relief and gratitude.
“Initially, my plan was to move to Adelaide and go back into the hospitality industry, which is my background. Before I resigned, I couldn’t sleep for two nights because the thought of moving interstate unemployed was very stressful,” he admits.
“With the opportunity to work from home, I’m relieved of the worries about finding a new job, and with the absence of the commute, I can now spend the extra time with my family.”
Ranjith with his daughter Charlotte.
One of Medibank’s four values is ‘One Team’, and in this case, Ranjith truly felt Vinnie living this out during the process of finding a way for him to stay in his role.
“When Vinnie presented the different options I could take up so that I wouldn’t have to leave Medibank, I felt very touched. It made me feel like a really valued member of the team and was definitely overwhelmed with emotions!”
Sometime in the future, Ranjith plans to go back to university and finish his Masters in Biotechnology. Having had such a supportive experience with Medibank, he knows that when this time comes, he will be able to find a way to balance a career he enjoys, studies he’s passionate about, and the most important thing to him – his family.