Facebook Post on Guide Dogs Association of the Blind Ltd
In recent days, there was a posting authored by Ms Sherizza Hareani on our handling of our professional relationship with Mr Dennis Walker, hosted on Ms Lim Lee Lee's Facebook page.
We wish to address the issues raised by Ms Hareani in the posting. As with any reasonable and well meaning employer in Singapore, we are always mindful of our employees' interests, needs, personal growth and sense of fulfilment and achievement during their employment with us.
Our concerns relating to Mr Walker are no different and we were as his employers obligated to take his best interests, needs, personal growth and sense of fulfilment and achievement into consideration when we are deciding on his future within our organization.
During the course of this year, it became apparent that it was no longer cost-effective for Guide Dogs Association of the Blind Ltd (GDAB) to continue to have Mr Walker in our employment. As Mr Walker was previously engaged as a pre-condition for receiving assistance from Guide Dog for the Blind (GDB), GDB's unilateral termination of the MOU between GDB and GDAB (inspite of GDAB's willingness to accede to GDB's increasing demands not originally envisaged in the MOU) had resulted in the unfortunate situation that Mr Walker was reduced to working solely as an orientation and mobility instructor ("OMI") when he was qualified as a guide dogs mobility instructor ("GDMI"). Our understanding of the MOU was that Mr Walker was to be employed primarily as a GDMI to service guide dogs received from GDB under the auspices of the MOU. We were also made aware that Mr Walker was increasingly dissatisfied with his role as OMI.
With the GDB MOU no longer viable, GDAB sought to deliver the promises to its clients by engaging Guide Dogs Victoria (GDV), a premier guide dogs school and provider in Australia and the Taiwan Foundation for the Blind (TFB), one of the top providers of OMI and daily living skills in the Asian region.
Under our agreement with Taiwan Foundation for the Blind, OMIs will be seconded to GDAB for a minimum period of 2 years on a rotational basis to conduct the necessary courses on behalf of GDAB. Under our agreement with GDV, our selected applicants are assessed by GDV and provided with not only a guide dog, but intensive training within their facilities, followed by after care for a period of time upon returning to Singapore. This arrangement also ensures that our guide dogs team are also supported throughout with regular checks and assessments. As may be seen in the recent introduction of Cassandra Chiu and her guide dog, Esme, the program with GDV has borne fruit since it was initiated in March this year.
Mr Walker's continuous employment costs the organization approximately S$100,000 a year. In view of the complete outsourcing of his role through our arrangements, it was not financially prudent to maintain Mr Walker's employment when the services were completely outsourced for less than that amount.
Due to the uncertainty of funding, the Board of GDAB was faced with a catch 22 situation: whether we should maintain Mr Walker's employment until funds were exhausted during which he would be kept in a redundant and certainly unfulfilling role, or to allow Mr Walker the opportunity to find suitable and fulfilling employment but to do so, would be to let him have the benefit of a suitable severance package and time to do the necessary job searching outside of Singapore. The decision had to be one that was made in the long-term interest of GDAB, and more importantly its stakeholders such as its donors and clients. It is important that GDAB continue to offer free services to our clients, which is what we are doing now.
In November, we were told that Mr Walker had plans to return to the United States of America for Thanksgiving, it was only humane to conclude Mr Walker's professional relationship with us a week before his intended departure. We imagine that this would allow Mr Walker sufficient time to settle his personal affairs here in Singapore. We even offered to take over the ongoing lease of his flat so that he does not need to bear any unnecessary financial costs arising from the termination. We believe that GDAB's treatment of Mr Walker had been a fair and respectful one, particularly when Mr Walker had fractured his kneecap in a swimming pool incident in Cambodia in January, Mr Walker remained under full pay and allowed to travel home to the USA to convalesce.
It is with great regret and sadness that we witness rude calls to our office from a vocal minority of our clients, subjecting our staff to verbal abuse and distress. We understand and acknowledge the acute unhappiness felt by this vocal minority but felt that the decision was made to ensure that all our clients, regardless of their feelings towards the termination of our employee, may continue to receive free care and assistance.
We wish to urge these clients to consider our decision objectively. In all fairness, our clients should support our decision to let Mr Walker to leave earlier so that he may have sufficient time to consider his future professional plans. Moreover, an advance team from our OMI partners will be arriving in the beginning of January 2012 to conduct a prior programme interview with our clients from 5 January 2012 to 11 January 2012. To this end, all interested blind persons may approach our office to schedule an appointment GDAB will do our upmost to reduce any inconvenience the service disruption will do to our client.
In the matter concerning our GM, we must say that our outgoing GM, Ms Teo Hui Ying, was kind enough to stay on to offer transitional support to our incumbent GM Ms Lim Meow Luan. As Ms Hareani may be aware, our office is modestly staffed. In order not to disrupt the administrative support the office can give to our clients and delivery of services, we acted to recruit Ms Teo's replacement and to offer both parties sufficient time for hand-over in an effort to limit any possible disruption to our services. This is an extremely common practice in any organization.
The GDAB wishes to take this opportunity to thank everyone who is interested in the affairs of GDAB. All of your actions can only show that you wish GDAB well and be a much better organization.
Guide Dogs Association of the Blind 15 Dec 2011