Salt of the Earth: Chandra Morris
Ask Chandra Morris what makes a workplace tick and she will point you straight to the people. As BCI’s People and Culture Officer, she looks after the behind-the-scenes engine room of the business: the systems, the performance reporting, and now the administration behind the company’s training. It is detailed, ever-changing work, and she loves that no two days ever look the same.
Chandra came to BCI from a career in project management, having spent years delivering wastewater and vacuum sewage systems right across Australia. Today she brings that same organised, get-it-done energy to a very different challenge: helping to shape the culture of Australia’s largest industrial salt project.
Warm, funny and quietly resilient, Chandra is living proof that the right people with the right attitude can build almost anything.
Learn more about Chandra’s journey below.
What was your career before joining BCI?
I started as a receptionist and eventually moved into project management and quality assurance. We delivered wastewater and vacuum sewage systems right across Australia. It was a great grounding in keeping a lot of moving parts on track at once, which turns out to be pretty useful in this job too.
You have just stepped into a new role as People and Culture Officer. What does it involve?
I moved into the officer role with a focus on the operational and back-end of people and culture. The advisors look after the recruitment side, the interviews and all of that, and I manage the systems, performance, reporting and change management side. I also am the main point of contact for our training function, managing induction builds, system functions and cleanup as well as training queries. Every day is genuinely different. I always have my priorities to focus on, but there are constantly new tasks, shifting deadlines and plenty of moving parts.
What does culture mean to you, beyond the title?
To me it comes back to doing right by the business and bringing the right people together to build a successful company, all of us working towards steady-state operations. When you have the right people, the culture follows naturally. That is when you get the fun Fridays, the teammates you genuinely enjoy working with, and a good vibe right across the office.
What is the hardest part of building culture across a remote site and a head office?
When you are removed from the day-to-day, it can be hard to see where the real pain points are. For me, the answer is always finding people with the right attitude. The ones who turn up with a “let’s do this, let’s build it together” attitude. That sense of camaraderie, of being in it together rather than each of us doing our own separate job, is everything. We are all working towards the same goal – winning as one team!
What do you love most about working at BCI?
Definitely my team. We work hard, but we also love a good bit of banter. When things get hard or we are flat out, we manage to keep a lightness and an energy going, and that is what carries us through the busy times.
What is something people might be surprised to learn about you?
I love to sing. I sing constantly, and it has clearly rubbed off, because now my son sings constantly too. I am a huge fan of Broadway and musicals, anything from Funny Girl and Barbra Streisand to Wicked. I used to play the piano as well. Music has always been a big part of who I am.
What is the best career advice you have ever received?
One of my previous directors kept a plaque in his office that has always stuck with me. It read something like: “When you are up to your neck in alligators, it is easy to forget that your original objective was to drain the swamp”. To me it is a reminder to stay aware of where you are, to read the room, and to keep sight of the bigger goal even when the day-to-day gets hectic.
What is something you have been really proud of?
Coming through a really tough period in my life and building a career and a life on the other side of it, beyond what a lot of people might have expected, is something I am genuinely proud of. Having my son, getting married, the life I live now and the job I do, all of it means a great deal to me.
The other thing I am proud of is a BCI moment. I helped to run our performance sessions, and I have stood up and spoken in front of the whole company a few times. That was something I was never comfortable with. I could do it in a meeting room, but never in front of an entire company. Pushing through that and doing it anyway felt like a real win.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
No matter what life throws at you, you will be okay, and you will come out of it. That is it.
