Global Citizenship

The past few weeks have been emotionally challenging for a number of reasons. Firstly, the continuing devastating impact that the novel coronavirus has had globally, and especially closer to home. This includes a severe impact on our economy and the nightmare of job losses that also continues to haunt us. The recent announcement of BP that they will be potentially shedding about 10 000 jobs worldwide is a testament to this. Secondly, while in the midst of coming to terms with the impact of the coronavirus and the various new “normal behaviours” that we are all adjusting to, the whole world was horrified by the gruesome death of Mr #GeorgeFloyd in Minneapolis. His death struck a chord, stirred the whole world into a massive wave of protest actions, and reminded us that racism and discrimination continue to live among us. It brought us all back to a reality that we had set aside at least for a moment as we united in our fight against an invisible enemy. It was encouraging to see the citizens of the world unite and take to the streets from all corners of the globe and say, “enough is enough.” We can no longer stay quiet because as in the words of Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” In our time, it is all our responsibility to take a stand in our little corners and say, ‘enough is enough.” Closer to home, we were also reminded of the tragic death of Collins Khosa in Alexandra who also succumbed to his death as a result of brutal and excessive force in the hands of law enforcement. When will it all end? One of the reasons that I became a Human Resources professional stemmed from an incident that took place when I first entered the workplace as a high school graduate. It was in witnessing racist, discriminatory and derogatory behaviour in the workplace by a manager towards an employee that I felt something stir within me and a fire was ignited to make a difference. We need to take a stand against racism and all forms of discrimination everywhere. This includes our work environments. Leaders and managers in organizations have a responsibility of not only ensuring that all employees are treated equitably, fairly, and with dignity and respect but also demonstrating the exemplary behaviour. They have to promote a work environment that has zero-tolerance for any discriminatory behaviour.