The sky was covered with some very dark nimbostratus rainy clouds. I left home and briskly walked to the car park. As I got halfway, it started drizzling. In a few minutes, my white top was soaking wet. I proceeded to opening the car door and jumped inside. I turned the car heating system on and in a few seconds, I was feeling warm and looking forward to the day. I was in a happy mood as I drove to work.
My organization had transitioned to remote work for 99% of the staff members, as part of risk management as a way of curbing staff from contamination of the infectious coronavirus. There were only two of us in the office, myself and another colleague who occupied an office adjacent to mine. She had gone on for two days complaining of an odd irritation of her throat and mild headache. She decided to go for testing for Covid 19. Because of the ‘weak’ symptoms, Laura (not her true name) hoped that she was negative of the coronavirus.
Laura’s results came out on Saturday 2nd May 2020. As I was reading material in preparation for my class attendance, at around 12 noon, I got the most dreaded phone call from my supervisor. He had just received bad news from Laura, that she had tested positive to the Covid-19 virus. Chances were very high that I too could have it.
On May 5, 2020, I drove to work quite early, as I knew it was only me in the office. As the day drew towards lunch break, I started feeling a tingling feeling in my throat. The human mind has a funny way dealing with undesirable feelings and thoughts. I kept telling myself that it was nothing, and that it was an odd sore throat and that I should not worry. I attributed the feeling to the day I got wet from the drizzling rain.
On May 6, 2020, the sore throat was quite apparent. I gaggled warm water with salt and headed straight for work. By mid-morning, I was feeling feverish with my whole body feeling as if someone was pricking me with needles all over. I felt weak; my eyes would literally close off on their own. I knew something was terribly wrong. A few minutes before lunchtime, I left work, got into my car and forced myself to drive back home. All my body needed was a bed for me to lie down. The 40-minute drive home appeared to be taking forever to go by. The moment I got home, I headed for the shower, took some ginger and lemon tea and went to bed.
On May 7, I woke up with a worsened fever, headache and sore throat. By that time, my husband was also complaining of a sore throat. We hesitantly called our primary care Doctor, who by then was operating tele-health. Once we described to him my symptoms, he immediately asked us to collect referral letters for Covid 19 testing that morning. As the time moved by, my husband was complaining of fever and headache. We headed straight to the Covid 19 testing centre.
At the testing centre, it did not take us time before we were ushered in. The centre did the testing by inserting the Real Time Reverse Transcriptase, (RT)-PCR Diagnostic Panel into the nose for respiratory specimens. The insertion was very uncomfortable but it had to be done. The nurse advised us that our results would come out in 3 days latest. She also advised that we immediately go on self-quarantine whilst we awaited the results. This was near impossible given the set-up of the town home we stayed in. Given that schools and colleges had closed, our daughter and son were home as well as my sister’s daughter. The bedrooms are all upstairs. We needed a lot of air and hence were forced to go down the stairs daily to access the outside of the house. This meant mixing up with the kids.
On May 8, my joints were aching badly, the headache had intensified, I started experiencing shortness of breath like the way asthmatic people struggle under an attack. Thank God, the centre prescribed some inhalers for us. For all the other symptoms, we were advised to use the commonly used flue medication. This was nowhere near treatment of any of the coronavirus symptoms. For a person like me who had underlying conditions like high blood pressure, my deterioration rate was faster than that of my husband. In 3 days, I felt so much pain and could hardly sit preferring only lying down on the hard surfaces like the floor. Going up and down the stairs was near impossible as I struggled to lift up my legs from one flight of steps to the other. Every step I took resulted in severe shortness of breath.
Besides the flue medication, I resorted to herbal remedies. I did almost everything that that came up recommended on what’s app circles like chopping onions and tying them on my neck and chest, drinking lots of hot water with lemon, ginger and garlic, vinegar, green tea, rubbing Vicks, steaming myself with boiling water that had a mixture of lemon, ginger, garlic and Vicks whilst covered in a blanket. All this offered temporary relief.
The strange experience was that at one point I would look and feel stable and then the next minute, things just turned for the worse, feeling so ill and hopeless. The good news however was that I never lost appetite. Instead, I craved for traditional Zimbabwe meals.
On 9 May, whilst I had lost 6kgs in terms of my weight, I woke up feeling better, with a bit of struggling whilst walking. I took a shower getting ready to take the ‘seemingly’ long walk down the stairs. I had devised ways of managing the walk down stairs that helped me to manage the difficulty. I decided to make myself a cup of green tea. As soon as I switched on the water jug, turning around and trying to reach out to the kitchen chair, I started coughing. In my entire life, I have never experienced such a heavy, uncomfortable, life-threatening cough. I felt my airwaves shutting down as I continued to whiz whilst I coughed so hard from deep down my chest and abdomen. The cough was continuous. I did not have my inhaler on me, I tried calling my husband for help, but he could not hear me. By that time, I had fallen down on the kitchen floor but still coughing and struggling to breath. My sister’s daughter, who by now had also caught up with the deadly disease, heard some strange sounds I was now making. She called on to my husband who rushed down with the inhaler. He made me to lie on my tummy, forced the inhaler into my mouth using one hand whilst at the same time, using the other hand to beat my back up and down. I slowly felt my system stabilizing. I remained on the floor for a while until I had fully stabilized. He held me up and walked me into the lounge where I spent the whole day lying on my tummy and taking hot fluids, oranges and nartjees.
On 10 June, I continued with the Covid 19 infection struggle. I felt so much pain all over my body. Coughing was a nightmare; my chest was hot with a lot of discomfort. I felt as if I had deep open wounds inside my chest. Whilst the sore throat had gone, I could hardly yawn. I experienced some deep pain at every yawning. I dreaded it. My body continued to feel pain all over, as if someone had been punching me mercilessly. The cough would come every now and again. It was such a bad experience.
On June 11, realising that the cough was persistent, with life threatening blocking of my airwaves; I called my primary care doctor. He did a zoom assessment on me. He prescribed a very strong antibiotic. After taking the antibiotic for 4 days, my head started clearing. The cloudy feeling was slowly clearing off. The dry cough softened up into a wet cough. My chest was still painful but the tightness was loosening up. By that time, I had lost a total of 11kgs. For a week and half, I just surrendered my life to God, and asked Him to do His will upon my life. I only started feeling better towards the end of second week since the test results came out.
After spending another week at home, I went back for post Covid 19 retesting. The results came back negative. To God be the Glory at all times.
KEY LESSONS FROM A HUMAN RESOURCES POINT OF VIEW:
- Leadership empathy is critical during these hard times of Covid-19 – a call for leaders to use more of ‘hearts’ that is, feelings, softer, warmer, kinder approaches to staff issues with a dose of flexibility, compassion and understanding, instead of depending heavily on ‘heads’, that is hard, policy, logical, reasoning and disregarding emotion and feelings;
- With ‘remote working’ taking centre stage within many organizations globally, there is need for employees to show true professionalism. All employee levels should be more conscious of ethics and governance standards. All should behave morally, truthfully and honestly to be trustworthy. Human Resources can add value by making it clear on the ‘dos and don’ts’ whilst working away from the office/remote working. It may be prudent to bring back the ‘old school’ clocking system where staff clock in at the start of work and clock out at the end, supported by a robust performance management system that is able to track performance versus target per given period for individual value addition.
- Human Resources should aim to enable the business to have clear measurable deliverables per employee per unit of time for example. Reduce everything to numbers, because numbers do not lie. Make use of artificial intelligence for example, to churn out performance data and statistics, track performance to enable you to make prompt decisions based on real time data that is accurate and reliable.
- In this contemporary environment, leaders should keep communication lines open, clear and effective. When staff know that they have a supportive leadership who are keen on their welfare and condition, it boosts morale, ensures commitment and loyalty, gives a sense of belonging, which in turn boosts productivity and enhances performance. In the end, it is through these special human experiences that businesses win as they ride on a unique competitive advantage.
- With the Covid 19 pandemic, succession planning is key as part of business continuity and risk management. The disease knows no boundaries. Anyone can succumb to it. It is therefore prudent that the business has clear staff forecasting plans as well as succession plans. My recommendation is that where possible, at least two people per one position, especially when looking at senior leadership positions or technical positions requiring a unique set of skills and competencies. Staff lined up for possible succession should receive the necessary training and exposure, coaching and mentoring as required. Due to the sensitivity of the process, The CEO or MD’s office and Human Resources Director usually work out succession plans in strict confidentiality. The Head of Human Resources guides the CEO/MD on the potential individuals within the talent pipeline, providing clear justifiable criteria for their recommendations.
- In conclusion, the environment is truly VUCA (HIGHLY volatile, uncertain, complex and agile), it can never be business as usual, and navigating through the interconnected parts to keep the business afloat requires a different way of thinking!
By Regina Tendayi (MBL/SCP-SHRM)
Author: My Boss the Bully – A Chilling Revelation into Corporate Human Resources Management
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