Responding to COVID-19 with Agility and Sustainability

By Johannes Ralegoreng – The BIHL Group Service Delivery Manager – IT

It is now a tale as old as time, or at least it feels that way, for it oftentimes feels hard to remember life before COVID-19. Let’s journey back for argument’s sake, however. The COVID-19 outbreak started in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, with more than 76,000 cases but struck worldwide in March 2020. The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared it a pandemic around the same time because COVID-19 had an extraordinary impact on almost every country in the world. The world as we knew it changed and our so-called “new normal” reigns supreme today in many ways. Organisations in various sectors worldwide were badly affected and have seen their revenues drop substantially in a matter of weeks, and in some cases, dwindling to almost nothing. This remains the reality for many. Countless companies have taken and continue to take reactive steps to ward off major losses, such as establishing remote work arrangements, securing supply chains, reducing employee workload, cutting costs, and applying for Government support. The pandemic continues to drive significant increases in market volatility nonetheless, with stock markets across the globe losing considerable value. Governments and monetary authorities around the world responded swiftly with varied measures to try and combat the impact of COVID-19 on public health and its unavoidable impact on economic growth. Governments, including our own, have worked to establish relief funds, protocols and policy to help safeguard people as well as the economy. Countries started imposing measures from travel bans to lockdowns to help curb the rising infection numbers with the Government of Botswana declaring a state of emergency, instituting a lockdown and closing borders as a means to curb the spread of the virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe effect on the economy in Botswana and the Government announced a P2 billion relief package and several measures to relieve businesses impacted by the virus. Our private sector has equally been strong to step to the plate and offer relief in many forms, as well as contribution to and support of Government efforts.

There is no denying that the spread of COVID-19 is changing how we live and work in ways we would not have thought possible a year ago. Today’s new normal for businesses includes work-from-home difficulties, many simultaneously sick workers, disrupted supply chains, cash crunches, uncertain compliance obligations, and the mechanics of applying for new government programs. Today we ask ourselves in the corporation continuum what model approaches are we to incorporate in our businesses to increase revenue and will in new customers.

At the BIHL Group and indeed across our Subsidiaries – Bifm, Botswana Life and BIC - we set a clear strategy that included a lot of these aspects. The issue of business continuity and feasibility needed to balance out against the very real need for human wellbeing. We are all learning and evolving as this pandemic has forced tremendous agility and resilience and everyone moves at their own pace. We benchmark on leading partners as well as set our own course, but it would be silly not to unite as a community and appreciate shared learnings as well. Maybe the question for all of us corporates, then, is: ‘What model approaches are we to incorporate in our businesses to increase revenue and will in new customers while we adhere to COVID-19 regulations and care for our communities?’. This goes beyond simply looking at business survival and profits, but has an inherent focus in grasping a more balanced outlook at ESG matters, and creating shared value as we unite through this period, always knowing we are stronger together. When the lockdown was first announced, we established a crisis management team and immediately activated our crisis management response. The BIHL Group’s operations were declared essential services and the Group continued to operate on a limited staff basis, with only core staff on site. With our approach to COVID-19 regulations, we developed a hybrid remote working policy that prioritised those who were required to work during lockdown. We procured additional laptops for our key resources working from home who previously had desktop computers, and we acquired additional PPE for those who remained in the office.

Beyond the robust health and safety policy which is in place, we implemented policies around office work and general protocols as advised by the Government Task Force and Ministry of Health and Wellness. Psychosocial support was provided to employees and Facebook and WhatsApp platforms were put in place for employees to interact with each other. These platforms were even more important for BIHL staff who were not able to work during the lockdowns as they were kept informed of group developments. Our primary objective was to keep everyone involved, whether actively working or not, and to reduce stress especially for those employees who may have been concerned about job security. Provision of sanitisers, masks and checklist posters as reminders of core non-negotiables as well as temperature checks for those in the office; this is now standard for many businesses, though not all are capable or have the means, and where we can support them in that regard, we must. In addition to the health protocols, we developed a rapid response checklist which assisted management with the identification of risks and vulnerable points in the value chain. The checklist was instrumental in the successful mitigation of operational, financial (liquidity, solvency and expense management) and human capital risks. The rapid response checklist has been very helpful to the business whenever a major event like a lockdown is announced with our responses guided by the detailed processes in the checklist. We continue to build onto the checklist to make it more robust and adaptable for future use. COVID-19 continues to be the key risk for our business, affecting not only our employees, but the general public and business activity overall. We have maintained our protocol of decongested offices by allowing employees to continue to work from home and in shifts. The future of work is certainly a concept and an opportunity to be explored. We conducted an employee survey to gauge employee morale during this period. The results were overwhelmingly positive, with the majority of participants revealing that they felt informed and that the business took proper care of them whether at home or in the office.

To the public, which includes our customers and partners, our model approach included a premium holiday dispensation for Botswana Life clients, premium discounts for BIC clients and financial assistance to distribution partners to the value of P11,5 million; and annual Global Financial Summit replaced by a series of webinars. The BIHL Group contributed P4,5 million towards the support of the Government’s relief efforts in managing the spread of COVID-19. The funds were channelled to the Ministry of Health and Wellness, specifically for personal protective equipment (PPE) for health and emergency services workers and to aid in the fight against the pandemic. We continue our prudent reserving approach and capital management philosophy as well as appropriate risk management processes which, coupled with a well-capitalised business and the diversification strategy, has ensured the Group’s resilience thus far. We are not a business that operates in a silo, however, and we continue to discuss, learn and lean on key stakeholders on how and what to do better in. Our ability to learn and listen has been integral to our efforts in many ways.

Provision of sanitisers, masks and checklist posters as reminders of core non-negotiables as well as temperature checks for those in the office