Feet on the Ground

Having spent her first career working as cabin crew, Syahidah Saaid was looking for something a little more grounded. She tells us why she sees her role in Platform Safety at Grab, not just as vital, but as contributing to the greater good.

This is my second career. Not my second job. My second career, and, on paper at least, it couldn’t be more different than my first. I spent six years working as a cabin crew for Singapore Airlines. As a young adult who was crazy about travel and exploring the world, there was no better career. Exotic locations. Adventure. Excitement. It had it all. But after some time, I knew that I’d had enough, and that I wanted to get my feet on the ground (literally) to take a different direction.

That direction, as it turns out, was towards Grab.

Working in Platform Safety at Grab seems like it’s a world away from cabin crew, but in reality, they’ve a number of things in common. First, it’s about people. My role at Grab is to ensure that the app is safe for everyone to use - for our consumers, our partners and the community. And second, our team (or crew!) at Platform Safety are all dedicated to working together, to giving and taking, because that’s how we can achieve more.

In many ways Grab feels like a second family to me. I’m a part of the netball team which is an amazing outlet for all of us. It’s more than just the playing (I admit it, we’ve only won one match so far) - it’s the whole social aspect of it. We hang out together, go to dinner together when we can, it’s just great fun. And that sense of community is there throughout the whole of Grab - whether it’s in a social club aspect or just in your day to day working with teammates.It’s a common sense of purpose that we’re all working towards.

You’ll hear a lot of Grabbers talk about impact. It’s not some corporate statement that we’re all supposed to blindly reference, it’s something we all genuinely believe in. Yes we’re a business, but our business is to make the lives of people in Southeast Asia that little bit better, from consumers to driver- and merchant-partners, we want to make sure that the impact we have is positive and helps everybody grow. So my role is to help sort out the issues concerning safety on the app. It’s simply about helping people.

So, not that different from my first career!

The one huge difference though is the amount of time I get for myself. One of the things that most appealed to me about Grab was the culture they have when it comes to work life integration. The company has an understanding at its core that time away from work can be more valuable than time at work. It’s not just about having the time to do the things that you love, it’s about having the time to reset yourself, to look after yourself, to make sure that the time you spend at work is quality time.

Which makes the time away from work even more amazing.