Right from the Christmas ‘tree’ , which has – literally – sprung up overnight on the IBS campus, to the sound of carols that rent the air throughout Technopark and gaily decorated work spaces in red and green, Christmas, it seems, has come early for techies. Most of the companies in Technopark, if not all of them, have been celebrating the festivities all throughout the week with games, by decorating their bays, contests, Christmas treats, carolling and the like, even as they eagerly await the extended Christmas-New Year break next week.
For example, IBS, which celebrated Christmas on Thursday, had other ‘surprises’ in store for its employees, besides the tree that is. Waiting for each of the employees, on their desks, was a vanilla cupcake with butter cream frosting, topped with the IBS logo in chocolate and a red cherry! They also got a Santa hat each. Says a member of the company’s team Reflections that’s organising the ‘surprises’: “Each cupcake was packed in a customised box tagged with the individual’s name. Members of team Reflections were at the office at 6 a.m. hand delivering each of the 1,200 cupcakes and hats.”
Flytxt that has some 400 employees on its rolls, will be celebrating Christmas today (December 20) with much fun and frolic. “Every year we try and bring some novelty to the event. The human resources department and Konnekt, the company’s employee club, have come together this year to present a series of motley of activities to make the day special. For instance, ‘Amazing Race’, is a hybrid form of treasure hunt and task management game, where participant will be given clues to reach a destination, collect clues, perform tasks and race to complete all of it at the fastest possible time. There will also be Christmas gift wrapping competition and Toss It – a ball tossing competition. The employees will get together for Christmas carols with Santa. We’ve also got a pot luck event that will feature yummy plum cakes, home-made chocolates and other delightful Christmas treats from culinary experts in Flytxt,” says Gargi Basu, marketing manager of the company.
QBurst too has a feast of plum cake and wine for its employees. They’ve also got a ‘Christmas friend’ gifting drive running, where employees get to give gifts to their colleagues via lucky draw. “All employees also come dressed in Christmas colours – red, green and white. The best dressed man and woman get a gift from Santa. The celebrations conclude with Santa’s Christmas message – Santa is usually a foreigner from one of our offices abroad. This time Santa is from Poland,” says Parvathy Prasad, business development manager of the company.
At Suntec, during the next few days, a bunch of employees will be going around the company’s various offices in the city, singing carols. They’ll also be having a ‘town hall meeting’, where employees will gather for cake cutting and carolling. UST Global too has a range of activities planned that include bay decoration contest, a couple of Christmas stalls, a fashion show-cum-personality contest, among others. Ernst and Young, meanwhile, is celebrating with a DJ party later next week.
Christmas is also a season for giving. At Technopark, where corporate social responsibility activities are more or less the norm, lending a helping hand to those less fortunate is, well, a given during the season. Quite a number of companies have individually been collecting clothes, food hampers, toys and the like for various orphanages, old age homes and so on in the city, over the past week or so. The biggest such drive so far, though, is that by Dev Web Services (Innure Infotech), who have come up with the initiative, ‘Be a Santa’. Says Vikesh C. Pillai, business development manager of the company: “It’s a Christmas tree decked up with wishes for gifts from 500 or so children who live in various orphanages in the city. The trees have been placed in each building on campus and techies can sign up to sponsor the gifts. The gifts will be distributed on December 22.”
