Teambo, a team building company, took to Facebook to thank their CEO, Beukes Van Zyl, who made sure all of his employees get paid using money out of his own pocket after his business was non-operational for 450 days and counting. 

In the post, the employees thanked Beukes for ensuring that every employee gets paid despite the business' challenges, as it can only operate under level one due to national Covid-19 regulations. Since the start of Covid-19 in early 2020, the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, enforced restrictions and measures to combat the Covid-19 pandemic but resulted in the fall of many businesses. One of these businesses, severely affected by the restrictions, is Teambo.

"You know, I literally emptied out all my savings accounts and all capital we had, I just pushed back into the staff. To give you an idea, we've not been operational for more than 450 days - give or take. I have more than 20 employees nationwide, and I paid their salaries. When you crunch the numbers it's quite horrific," Van Zyl says.

Teambo specialises in team building sessions. Van Zyl says as a result of Covid-19 regulations, no company could partake in such a service if the country is not placed on level. In essence, this had a crucial impact on Teambo, having to freeze its operations.

"It's heart warming to see the staff's message to me. We're a team, some of the guys have been working there for more than 10 years, so we're family. Being one of the biggest team building companies in the country, we do groups of about 25 000 people a day at the same time, and obviously those kind of events aren't happening," Van Zyl says.

"We can only operate on level one, so for now we're just trying to stay afloat," he adds.

OFM News/Blaine Jones