Techies bring i-flex alive through movies

Team-based contests are ideal in teaching staff people management skills.

If Krrish could fly, techies can make movies. Sounds unbelievable? Some weeks ago employees at i-flex solutions spent a month using their creative skills to make short films, dropping more prosaic activities like writing software code. Fifty-one teams of i-flexers vied for the Best Director Award 2006.

BiScope, as the contest was named, was meant as an organisational development initiative. The contestants had to capture the essence of life at i-flex in a film of 3-10 minutes each.

The themes for the films had i-flex as the centre point ('We the i-flexers', 'My life at i-flex', and 'My first day at i-flex') and aimed to bring out how the company is perceived by its internal customers.

Mona Cheriyan, the company's general manager (employee engagement) explains that all previous employee engagement initiatives"" with such intriguing names as 'Grooving December', 'Sizzling Summer', and 'Monsoon Masti'"" involved faculty leading the way. "But we wanted the employees to take the initiative. And hence the film."

BiScope was aimed at sensing the pulse of the organisation, team building, promoting creativity and lateral thinking. The contest was open to all 'i-flexers', who were asked to form teams of up to five members.

Cheriyan says it provided an ideal setting in which employees could learn to work in teams and practice people management. It also brought out their leadership skills, provided a welcome change from the routine and created a sense of involvement.

Participation was encouraged through teasers, banners, posters and Biscope T-shirts for all participants. Prizes of Rs 15,000, Rs 10,000 and Rs 5,000 were announced for the top three films, which are being used for every induction programme for new joinees across the organisation.

Each team was allowed between one and five members, the duration of the film was 3-10 minutes, participants were required to give an appropriate title for their film, and they were asked to arrange for their own video cameras, with no reimbursement of the expenses incurred by participants. Only the expenditure on cassettes (up to Rs 200) was reimbursed.

Cheriyan says she expected 15 to 20 team registrations, "but we got 51, and 21 films were finally made. We screened the films across each of our offices, asked employees to shortlist 10, and a panel of internal and external judges chose the three winners."

I-flex's CEO Deepak Ghaisas even found himself in the unaccustomed situation of being asked by some of the teams to turn up for a 'shoot'!

Sums up Cheriyan, "The feedback to BiScope encourages us to think that we should have another such HR initiative in 2007, otherwise employees will think that nothing new is being done."