The Importance of Asking 'Why?'

Saltera Training has been operating for 21 years in Queensland and there’s nothing like a birthday for some reflection and reminiscing. The main thing I come back to, when I do this, is my ‘why?’. Why does Saltera exist? Why do I get out of bed to work here? They’re big questions.

I am extremely proud to know without a shadow of a doubt that Saltera exists to help. It exists because everyone working here cares. I get out of bed each day because I know I can have a positive impact on someone’s life: not in a metaphorical or vague way, but in a measurable and very real way. What I do each day matters. What my Trainers do each day changes lives.

From my own experience as a younger person, I found my late teens really scary. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I left school and was at risk of drifting a bit. If not for the advice of some incredible people, I could honestly have taken a number of dead-end paths. I am so grateful to people like my parents, my uncle Hugh and a few others, for genuinely caring about me and my future. I was pointed toward the Construction Industry based on some of the articles I was given, like the one in the Department of Employment, Small Business and Training (see here). And I was good at it. I will never forget that feeling of a quiet pride when I realised I was going to be ok. I was going to have a career.

I get out of bed because I want the young people coming through Saltera to have that feeling. And I want the way we guide students to that feeling to be super flexible and available anywhere, anytime. Saltera is contactable 24 hours a day. Not many people know that. And we hand-pick our Trainers based on their levels of empathy and how much they will care about the students they work with. It’s a pretty good ‘why?’ isn’t it?

– Richard Ellis,
General Manager