Organising extra charter flights for family to visit a mining site for Christmas
Posted on: 20 October 2015
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If you manage a mining workforce on a 'fly-in, fly-out' basis, it can be common to get an influx of resignations around Christmas, as workers look at spending Christmas, New Years and the long school holidays with friends and family. Organising charter flights for families to visit workers on the site for Christmas can be a great way to reward workers for staying around and may even end up saving you in the long run with increased retention.
Be flexible on how many people each worker can bring
While some families may only have one child, others could have 8. While it can be tempting to offer a limited amount of seats, asking for takers early or offering some flexibility on the number of flights you run, Christmas is not the time to split up families, and you may find some families don't take up the offer due to other, extended family commitments. Try to be as flexible as possible. It may make sense due to constraints on site facilities to offer an earlier run on Christmas Eve, then a Christmas Day flight as well.
Make the flight fun
While Santa often uses reindeer, rumour has it he'll sometimes take a charter flight to remote sites and give the children presents. Why not leave a seat for him and organise a sack of lollies and fun gifts for the kids on flight in case he does show up?
For older kids and parents or carers, it can be great to show some clips of life on the mine site so they can understand a little more about what their parent is doing when they are away from home.
Organise a tour on site
While you probably can't release your workers all day, you can make the day more interesting for the family by giving them a tour of the site. Younger kids and parents often like seeing the recreation facilities and accommodation so that they can truly imagine what their parent is doing when away from home. They may end up being quite jealous of the food, gyms or TV areas! This can help to make the time they spend away from home easier for everyone.
Organising a charter flight to site for your workers' families can be an effective way to make workers feel happy and content on Christmas Day, while a long way from home. Given the busy time of year there is no time to waste in making a booking.