HR leaders impressed by Eskom’s Covid-19 resurgence plan

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CHRO Community Conversation hears how Eskom is preparing for the second wave of infections.

This week's CHRO Community Conversation, which was hosted in partnership with Workday, focused on the risk of a second wave of Covid-19 infections and how organisations planned to mitigate its impact.

Governments across the world are already bracing themselves for the second wave of Covid-19 infections. The UK, France, Netherlands and Spain have introduced a new round of curfews and are considering lockdowns as a means to contain transmission.

On Tuesday evening, HR leaders heard from Eskom chief medical officer Penny Mkalipe, who shared lessons about developing a resurgence plan and exploring workplace activities that are considered to be possible super-spreader events.

She listed three examples of how Super Spreader Events (SSE) in South Africa spread infection, thereby creating virus hotspots: A prayer breakfast in Bloemfontein led to a massive increase in cases in the Free State due to five infected international travellers: A person in East London attended a funeral and spread the virus in a correctional facility. In KwaZulu-Natal, an infected person contributed to a massive outbreak leading to the shutdown of a prominent private hospital.

To counter this, Eskom have listed the canteen, transport, training activities and awards ceremonies among potential super-spreaders events and therefore developed strict measures to protect employees.

“In exceptional circumstances, for instance, we do allow physical meetings to be held with a maximum 50 percent of venue capacity, but such activities are subject to a risk assessment and all prevention control measures in place (especially hand hygiene measures and ensuring the venue has adequate ventilation). When it comes to things like awards and conferences, only virtual events are permitted,” said Penny.

The resurgence plan Penny explained the process of active case finding, where they would use early identification of hotspots, isolation of possible close contacts and continuous medical surveillance to manage any emerging risks. So comprehensive is Eskom’s plan that they also ensured that psychosocial support is available to all their employees and immediate families via Internal EAP Advisors and an external service provider.

Covid-19 fatigue

Penny’s presentation covered a multitude of factors, from the quality of masks that organisations should be used in different circumstances to the notion of Covid-19 fatigue, which sees people becoming less vigilant about following health and safety protocols.

“Within our communities and organisations, people are no longer washing their hands and using hand sanitiser as frequently as they used to. People are not wearing masks properly, covering only their mouths and the rest hovering underneath the chin. Those are the things that we need to up our game in policing,” she said.

Linda Roos, head of human capital at ooba, said she recently had to send out one of the strongly-worded 'HR emails' reminding people to wear their masks.

“One doesn't like to reprimand people or feel like they are being over the top in the policing of rules, but it's necessary. We have to keep reminding people of their responsibility to help us maintain a safe and healthy working environment, said Linda.

Attendees were particularly impressed by the extent and methodology of Eskom’s second-wave preparations.

Capitec Executive for HR & CSI Nathan Motjuwadi said: “What Eskom has done is truly commendable. But on the subject of Covid-19 fatigue, I think there is a bigger human factor that we will all continue struggling to address, and that is, how we deal with customers that don't follow protocols. Some of our employees have been accosted and verbally abused by clients who do not wear their masks when they come into our branches. That makes it very challenging for us to instil this culture of safety among employees when our clients are disregarding the rules and being rude at the same time.”

Ultimately, Penny left the HR leaders inspired by the work they have done at Eskom. She closed the conversation by saying that, while the Covid-19 pandemic had been a huge disruptor for the organisations the world over, it had also propelled teams, and HR teams, in particular, to move action ideas they had long been contemplating before the virus came to South Africa’s shores.

“We need this virus for us to realise that it is actually possible to run a call centre remotely, for instance,” she said.

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