Managing Stigma in the Post-COVID Dispensation

Preamble

COVID 19 continues to showcase itself as a pandemic beyond the walls of the hospital. In other words, it is more than a problem of doctors managing the victims and public health, but also a problem for business leaders since it already has political leadership folding up their shirtsleeves in the battlefront. Businesses must identify with the challenges of the returning employment and make accommodation for the management of their full recovery. Being diagnosed as COVID 19 negative is the beginning of months of nutritional, physical, and mental well-being for the victim.

Stigmas Push The Depressed

A major activity of the shipping department is to load up trailers with items for drivers to deliver. In my friend’s business, the delivery aspect is outsourced. Therefore, when it is time for the drivers to come in, the work area that houses nine people suddenly becomes home to more than thirty active individuals. That includes people loading the trailers, the drivers, supervisors, quality assurance people and so on many others. It takes only about one hour for the situation to return to normal but within that our it is a beehive of movement, talking and other forms of interactions to make sure that packages get to their owners, and in good time. The trailers commonly belong to one or two contractors who employ the drivers. Therefore, the contractors are in this crowd. In fact, they arrive earlier than the drivers to ensure that not only are their trucks loaded optimally but that they are ready mechanically for the trip ahead.
The contractor landed in the loading bay as usual. No face masks, chatty. The moment he sights my friend, he turns back, finds his face mask, wears it, and finds an alternative route to bypass my friend. So, he got himself to opposite end of the bay, and stood there glaring at my friend like security detail assigned to make that my friend does not stage any escape attempts. So intense was his unflinching gaze. That was disturbing to my friend who by time started imagining what could be going on in the contractor’s eyes. ‘What could he have been told other than that I had or may still have COVID, my friend pondered?’ He had to abandon his normal morning round of greeting his drivers individually by their trucks.

About an hour earlier, two of senior drivers who normally arrive early to check the trucks road readiness were chatting, and one of them who had his back said he was avoiding the trucks on my friend’s side of the loading bay because he was not ready to catch COVID yet. He probably did not know that my friend overhead the conversation. My friend was also trying to consider that he may be overreacting to his environment. Therefore, he dismissed the conversation, believing that they may in fact, be talking about something else completely. The following day the contractor behaved the same way he had done before. In addition, he would invite his drivers to give them instructions rather than come close into the bay. Three weeks later, someone else, a fellow employee from another department rushed out of the way when he saw my friend approaching. My friend was shocked realizing that he was stigmatized. That hurts, a lot. For how long should this go on?

Conclusion
Despite struggling with this strange public health challenge for over two years with its devastating effect on personal freedoms, it is not surprising that nerves are easily frayed when expectations are not met. Yet, stigmatization of the returning employee has been a concern from the onset of the pandemic. Smart leaders are considerate in their speech and actions. Being diagnosed as COVID 19 negative is the beginning of months of nutritional, physical, and mental recovery that must challenge his supervisor. The solution is in caring to learn, the care helps healing rather being pushed towards a terminal catastrophe.

Author:
Noah The Cultist, author of Target The Executive Suite studies the influence of workplace culture on career growth within business organizations. He reaches out to young managers for mentoring at various levels.