Nelson Island re-imagined to inspire hope

The Nel­son Is­land Her­itage Park off the coast of Care­nage has many lay­ers of his­to­ry.

From the eras of First Peo­ples, Span­ish and British colonis­ers, and In­den­ture­ship, to World War I and II, and a prison for cham­pi­ons of so­cial jus­tice.

The is­land has fea­tured in some of the piv­otal mo­ments of the coun­try’s his­to­ry.

Now un­der the Na­tion­al Trust, its tur­bu­lent past is giv­ing way to a sanc­tu­ary.

A serene, re­flec­tive, and nur­tur­ing space for fam­i­lies and com­pa­nies alike to hit the re­set but­ton.

Its re­mote lo­ca­tion cou­pled with well-ap­point­ed fa­cil­i­ties was the ide­al lo­ca­tion to stage the an­nu­al re­treat for the staff of LSA Health­care Ser­vice Ltd (LSAH) to ‘‘Re­new & Re­set.”

Leela Ram­s­ingh, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor at the com­pa­ny said: “LSAH has been in busi­ness for 19-plus years and staff re­treats are an in­te­gral part of build­ing our cor­po­rate cul­ture. We val­ue our staff and take pride in in­vest­ing and strength­en­ing re­la­tion­ships among our em­ploy­ees.

“This year LSAH, en­gaged two of the best coach­es in the in­dus­try, Ani­ka Plow­den—Corentin, Art and Well­ness Coach and Char­lene Pe­dro, CEO Cor­po­rate Train­er & HR of Con­ven­tus Con­sult­inc.”

Against the back­drop of gen­tly crash­ing waves and cool trop­i­cal breezes cradling the his­toric site, LSAH staff were vir­tu­al kings and queens for the day on their “pri­vate” is­land.

They bond­ed, ex­change ideas, and had en­joy­able qual­i­ty time.

The re­treat was time­ly as Men­tal Health Aware­ness was be­ing ob­served in Oc­to­ber and dis­or­ders such as anx­i­ety, de­pres­sion and so­cial with­draw­al af­fect peo­ple in the work­place from all walks of life.

Kings and Queens for the day, LSAH employees having a ball on Nelson Island.

Over the past two decades, LSA Health­care Ser­vice Lim­it­ed has built a rep­u­ta­tion as a pre­mier Health­care busi­ness, fo­cused on im­prov­ing the lives of in­di­vid­u­als through hy­giene, specif­i­cal­ly Wash­room Hy­giene.

The pan­dem­ic would have placed ad­di­tion­al stress­es on staff.

The com­pa­ny be­lieves wash­room hy­giene is one yard­stick for mea­sur­ing how or­gan­i­sa­tions val­ue their staff and cus­tomers.

Ac­cord­ing to Ram­s­ingh: “A wel­com­ing and com­fort­able wash­room ex­pe­ri­ence con­tributes to the at­mos­phere de­sired for suc­cess, whilst boost­ing em­ploy­ee morale and the cus­tomers’ im­pres­sion of an or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

Ram­s­ingh con­tin­ued: “Al­though COVID-19 is slow­ly re­duc­ing its grip on so­ci­ety, the pan­dem­ic will have long-term im­pacts on the work­ing world.

“De­vel­op­ing team co­he­sion and sol­i­dar­i­ty is more im­por­tant than ever for im­prov­ing em­ploy­ee re­ten­tion. Team build­ing and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes like “Re­new & Re­set” can check all the box­es for cre­at­ing stronger re­la­tion­ships, en­hanc­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion, in­creas­ing em­ploy­ee loy­al­ty, and im­prov­ing peo­ple skills. The re­sult we hope to achieve, is an en­gaged, high-per­form­ing, pos­i­tive work­force.”

The re­treat had the de­sired im­pact as LSAH staff who im­mersed them­selves in the team build­ing and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment ac­tiv­i­ties while en­joy­ing amaz­ing views and the awe-in­spir­ing his­tor­i­cal site.

“Staff were re­freshed and res­olute and that is im­por­tant for LSAH as the No. 1 hy­giene ser­vice provider in T&T,” said Ram­s­ingh.