It's Great to be back Home!
Our contact centre in Durban, South Africa has now been back to the office for over a month, we found out from the team how it’s been:
As South Africans, culturally, we are affectionate. When we greet; we shake hands, we hug, we kiss. We stand in lines in the supermarket and we strike up conversations with the people around us. This is who we are as a nation.
On the 23rd of March, when our President, Cyril Ramaphosa, announced that we were going into a national lockdown, this meant that our lives as we knew it were going to change drastically. Not just because of the 3-week lockdown (later extended to 5 weeks) but also because of the way we interact with each other.
After week 1 of lockdown, most of us were ready to be back at work! There was some joy that came out of our lockdown and that was two babies; a beautiful baby girl, Nasisipho and a bouncing baby boy, Dreydon Lee.
We were given the green light to return to work on the 4th of May. Back to work was done the Kura Way, where we put employee wellness and wellbeing first. It was a struggle for our team; we were excited to see each other and had to resist hugging or handshakes or sitting too close to each other. For the first week we constantly called each other out on social distancing and keeping
our masks on – we still joke, exchanging stories about how wearing a mask is the new normal and is taking a while to get used to it!
This lockdown has taught us to value the little things in life. Many of us got to spend time in complete isolation, or with our families. We got to spend invaluable time with our kids, and our loved ones. Some of us were able to give up smoking and reduce our alcohol intake (the sale of cigarettes and alcohol were prohibited during lockdown – for more than 2 months), whilst others learned the art of making pineapple beer!
All in all, we kept safe and the one sentiment that all Kura South Africa shared is that we are grateful to our Management Team for placing the health, safety and wellbeing of our people first. I have received heart-warming feedback around the gratitude and appreciation felt by all.
We’re happy to be back ‘home’!!