GREAT BAY--N.V. GEBE marked its 66th anniversary today with Temporary Manager Iris Arrindell paying tribute to generations of employees who have helped keep St. Maarten moving, while also committing management to stronger communication, greater employee support and continued improvement in the company’s service to the community.
In an anniversary message centered heavily on GEBE’s workforce, Arrindell said 66 years represents far more than the age of the utility company. It represents generations of employees who have served the company and St. Maarten through good times and difficult periods, including storms, outages, uncertainty, change and other challenges.
“Through all of it, one thing has remained constant: our responsibility to serve people,” Arrindell said. She stressed that while GEBE is responsible for providing electricity and water, those services are ultimately delivered by people working throughout the organization every day.
Arrindell recognized employees working in the company’s plants, employees repairing lines, answering telephones, assisting customers, processing bills and working throughout GEBE’s offices, warehouses and field operations. Much of the work required to keep essential services functioning, she noted, takes place away from public view.
That human side of the company, Arrindell said, is also the reason behind GEBE’s new People Serving People social media video series. She said the initiative is not simply intended to show GEBE as a company, but to introduce the community to the people behind the organization and the services it delivers.
Members of the public often encounter GEBE through a building, a bill, an outage or an immediate problem they need resolved, Arrindell said. What they may not see is the employee who left home early that morning to come to work, the worker standing in the heat trying to restore service, or the customer service representative handling one difficult call after another while still attempting to remain patient and respectful.
“Our employees are part of this community too,” she said. GEBE employees live in St. Maarten, raise their families here, shop in the same supermarkets, drive the same roads, send their children to the same schools and experience many of the same challenges as the customers they serve.
“So when we say People Serving People, that is exactly what we mean,” Arrindell said.
Arrindell used the anniversary to offer what she described as a sincere expression of gratitude to GEBE’s workforce, particularly in light of the pressures employees have endured during some of the company’s most difficult periods. She acknowledged that recent years have not always been easy for GEBE and have also placed significant strain on employees.
Staff members, she said, have had to answer countless questions, including questions they could not always answer because they themselves were waiting for information. They have listened to frustrated customers and faced criticism, some of which was fair and some of which was extremely difficult to hear.
Arrindell also addressed more serious situations experienced by some employees, saying some members of staff have been shouted at, threatened and subjected to verbal abuse. Others have even faced physical confrontations while attempting to perform their duties, while some employees have experienced hostile encounters away from work while simply trying to live their personal lives.
“That is not easy. And management understands that,” Arrindell said. She acknowledged that frontline employees can sometimes carry the weight of decisions they did not make and become the public face of problems they did not create.
Despite those pressures, she said, employees continue to return to work, put on their uniforms, sit behind their desks, answer telephones, go into the field and continue serving the public. “For that, this company owes you more than words can properly express,” she said.
Arrindell was also clear that GEBE’s challenges are not necessarily all behind it, saying the company may continue to face difficult days, difficult decisions and situations that test both management and staff. She said it would be unrealistic to pretend that every difficult road has already been travelled.
However, she stressed that challenges do not have to define the company. “What should define us is how we respond to them,” Arrindell said, adding that GEBE must continue moving forward, improving, learning from what went wrong and finding better ways to serve.
Most importantly, she said, the company must continue remembering why it exists and who it is there to serve. “We are here for the people of St. Maarten. And we are here for each other,” Arrindell said.
A significant part of Arrindell’s anniversary message was directed not only at employees, but also at management itself. She said serving the public should never mean GEBE employees must accept disrespect or feel that they are alone when difficult situations arise.
Employees deserve to be treated with dignity while performing their duties, she said, and should have a workplace where they feel supported, where their concerns are heard and where they know management stands behind them. Arrindell said that responsibility requires a clear commitment from management.
“We must work just as hard for our employees as we expect our employees to work for this company,” she said. She identified several areas where management must continue to improve, including better communication, listening more closely to employees, providing the tools and support staff need to perform their jobs, recognizing good work and creating opportunities for employees to grow.
Arrindell said management and employees must also confront difficult situations together rather than leaving staff to carry those burdens individually. “GEBE cannot ask its employees to give everything they have and then forget to take care of the people doing the giving,” she said.
“That responsibility belongs to management, and we take it seriously,” Arrindell added.
While GEBE now has 66 years of history behind it, Arrindell said the organization still has a future to build. That future, she stressed, will not be built by one manager, one department or one particular group of employees, but by the collective efforts of everyone within the organization.
“Every person here has a role,” Arrindell said. She acknowledged that disagreements and frustrations are inevitable within an organization and that employees will sometimes question why certain matters cannot move faster.
Those differences, she said, are part of working with people, but should never cause GEBE employees to lose sight of the fact that they ultimately form one team. Arrindell said she hopes the organization will continue becoming better at looking out for employees and for one another.
Closing her anniversary message, Arrindell thanked employees for remaining committed to GEBE and St. Maarten through the company’s changing circumstances. She thanked staff for their patience, sacrifices and willingness to continue showing up and serving the community.
“Let us be proud of what we have accomplished, honest about where we still need to improve and hopeful about where we are going,” Arrindell said. She acknowledged that more difficult roads may still lie ahead, but said GEBE should approach those challenges in the same manner employees have faced those of the past: together.
“Happy 66th anniversary to the entire GEBE family,” Arrindell said. “May we continue to take care of our people, take care of each other and never lose sight of the privilege and responsibility we have to serve this community.”
She concluded by thanking employees for their continued service and asking for God’s blessing upon the entire GEBE family.
