Keep calm and work smart

Relaxing ambience

Working beyond deadlines to achieve targets, sitting in front of the computer for 12 hours, attending to clients, no sleep — modern lifestyle takes a toll on the physiological and psychological health of a person.

In order to cater to healthy competition and stimulate better interpersonal relationships among employees, many corporate organisations today are taking different routes to increase recreational activities among their employees. The idea is to offer them vistas to de-stress and help them rejuvenate.

Corporate firms like Cisco are putting an effort to involve its employees in entertaining activities to get them out of their desks. “The Cisco campus, modelled as a ‘Smart City’, is designed for thousands of Cisco employees to work, live, play and learn. The campus comprises of four buildings, a clubhouse with cafeteria, state-of-the art gym, table tennis, billiards room, wellness centre and a world class childcare centre,” says Seema Nair, the director of HR, Cisco.

They have a gaming zone, rock band room, and conduct regular camps on yoga, meditation, anti-stress camps, anti-smoking and pre-natal camps. She adds, “Apart from these facilities, all cafes have digitalised menus that show the calorie count of each food item.”

There are other organisations too which is giving plenty of room for a stress-free work atmosphere. HCL conducts mandatory sessions on stress management and work-life balance. They have certified counsellors visiting HCL and interacting with the employees through one-on-one counselling sessions. “A wellness programme called ‘Mobius’ is a combination of different initiatives. To begin with, we organise camps every month as per the WHO calendar for our entire workforce.

All employees who are part of the 40-plus club are made to undergo thorough, routine health checkup to help them analyse their health at the workplace itself,” says Srimathi Shivashankar, AVP, Diversity and Sustainability, HCL Technologies. Some of the other unique initiatives taken by HCL are ‘Life Coach @ HCL’ that helps employees deal with personal and professional problems and wellness through an elaborate counselling of the employees and their family members.

 At Virtusa, every day is fun day. Employees have various activities throughout the week, where they can participate as teams or individuals. We conduct Zumba and yoga classes, different tournaments like badminton, and other indoor games are organised on a regular basis, apart from this we have separate recreation rooms on each floor with bean bags and sofas where employees can unwind,” says Kiran Aidhi, Director of HR, Virtusa.

With unique concepts like ‘Fun Fridays’ and ‘Yammer quiz’, Virtusa targets its employees for healthy, stress-free sessions of fun and frolic. “‘Thank God It’s Friday’ is a platform where employees are allowed to invest their time in showcasing their talents through different activities. There are flash mobs, fashion shows, and dance performances where our employees participate with great enthusiasm. We also organise quiz every month on Yammer and like to call it ‘Yammer quiz’, where we invite ‘Virtusans’ to participate and win goodies. These activities not only keep the employees engaged and out of their everyday life but also allow them to make new friends. We started an initiative called ‘Smiles of Virtusa’ where everyone at the work place have to wear a smile throughout the day, decorate their cubicles with smiley emoticons and go about clicking happy pictures,”adds Kiran.

There are similar activities in other organisations too, which are a big hit. For instance, every Friday, Google organises TGIF (‘Thank God It's Friday’) after 4 pm where the employees mingle with one another.

“There are well-equipped gyms across offices in India with trainers and customised health programmes, table tennis, pool, foosball, air hockey and several sleep pods for quick naps. This is all bound together by a graphic scheme which is vibrant, lively and cohesive, without being excessive,” adds a Google spokesperson.