Meeting the challenges of the new normal

5 August 2020

The last few months have been traumatic for all of us – here in South Africa and globally. As we watched Italy struggle with unprecedented deaths and then the rest of Europe and the USA, we were shocked by the impact the coronavirus was having. On 5 March 2020, South Africa announced its very first confirmed case of COVID-19. Little did we understand at that time the impact this would have on us individually, within our families, in KBC and on the South African economy.

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New rules were made overnight – no handshakes, cover up, keep apart, wash hands, no meetings, no schools, no hugs for grandparents, working remotely, no visiting, no client meetings, new tools like Zoom and Teams, no alcohol and no cigarettes (for those who needed them) … Everyday there was something new. Lockdown and hard lockdown. Then it was testing and deep cleaning, self-isolation and legally imposed masks … All of this in a few months.

I recall focusing on all of these things daily – the KBC staff jumped into action with COVID-19 protocols for doing business, developing eLearning programmes, meetings and more meetings online, communicating with staff and seeing how we were going to survive with no training coming in. So many things to think about as we reshaped KBC to meet the challenges of the new normal.

But what is really inspiring is what has been going on inside the heart of KBC – the belief that we will be safe, that our clients will be safe and that we will make sure that we can do business – despite the challenges. I have often used the word ‘resilience’, but now understand that it comes from deep within and shows its face in adversity. Our KBC staff have embodied resilience – the ability to recover from difficulties.

In April KBC saw no revenue and in March we started training slowly in limited numbers. Our team looked at every opportunity to reduce costs so that we could continue operating – and we did. We cannot make up for the losses during those months, but I am confident that the second half of the year will be so much better. It is not yet business as usual – will it ever be? – but my thanks to the staff who daily deliver our services to our clients under difficult conditions, supported by a team at the Centre. My thanks to you all.

We are still in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis and more is to come. I encourage you not to dwell on what might be coming, but to rather look deep inside yourself and your faith and help others to do the same – your families and our clients. Let them see the power of resilience so that one day as we stop to look back briefly we will recognise that strength, that resolve, that faith that helped us to bounce back.

I applaud the resilience of those colleagues who have been positively diagnosed with COVID-19 and are recovering, and we mourn with those who have lost loved ones. Look deep within yourselves for there lies your strength.

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