Small businesses. We have a reputation of being the fertilizer for the economy. Creating jobs. Growing skills. Nurturing market entrants. We train them up, perfect their skills. Grow their confidence. Introduce them to the world of work. Teach them about tax. Leave. Managing their finances. Polish them up, make their roots strong and their trunks hardy. And then they leave us. For the allure of corporate. For the shining promise of more money, and bigger growth opportunities.
And the small business counts their pennies, and puts a paid for ad on Facebook, or Career Junction, and hopes for the best. Interviews take forever as not everybody is content only to work closer to home, and have a family instead of a culture. We interview, we woo, we sharpen our pencils. And then… the bite. We’ve hooked one. A really promising shining new sapling. They come in to start, and the training starts again. The nurturing. The grooming. The building.
This is a never-ending cycle within our small business framework. One we are all too familiar with. Poor economy? Low growth? Small return? We, the tree, have become so used to our life cycle that we have grown immune to the effects of this on us, and we continue our journey despite our setbacks.
And then, 2020 hits us. We had all heard about COVID. We knew it was a terrible thing. Affecting people over there. across the ocean. We watched on TV and we sympathised. So glad it wasn’t in SA. So glad our already shaky infrastructure and numerous setbacks were not to be hit with yet another.
Until that fateful day, ‘my fellow South Africans’ our President greeted us at our very first and fearful family meeting. Well, we thought, 3 weeks off, with our loved ones, while this virus goes away, is a small price to pay for our stability, for our peace of mind. And so we downed our pens, and we turned off our PCs, and sent our staff home. Hoping we could still work remotely. Knowing we had not done sufficient to really prepare us or ensure seamless productivity in other locations. But we hoped for the best.
And then 3 weeks turned into over a year. People who knew people who knew people who knew of somebody with COVID popped up out of the woodwork. We shook our heads in disbelief. Then we heard of somebody we had met once before who had it. And the shock and disbelief is palpable. The fear is undeniable.
We still attempt to run our businesses. We try to chase our debtors, only to be told our contact person has been retrenched. And the owner is off ill, with the dreaded C-word. This time, not cancer. We scramble to get new business in, and renew retainers which are expiring soon. Only to be told that any outsourcing is simply not a viable option anymore. That what we previously had offered will have to be internalised.
We tune in to webinars we look to business leaders for inspiration and we are told to pivot. Pivot how? Pivot where? How do we change direction without our teams around us?
So many people have lost their livelihoods over the past 18 months. So many people have been retrenched. Businesses have closed. Families have lost loved ones. People have been dislodged. Evicted. We cannot see those we love. We cannot touch each other. Show affection. Emotion. Sympathy. Yes, COVID has been long! We need to be humans, and to find a way to thrive again, not just exist. We need to find a way back to our vulnerability, and to begin again. Let us focus on the business of rebuilding. And as we do so, let us forever remember just how long COVID is, and let us never forget to be grateful for right now, for right now is all we have. That’s why its called THE PRESENT.
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