“Seizing the TREND!” is something which is synonymous with IndiaMART. Few years earlier, when ‘Selfies’ was beginning to be the talk of the town, IndiaMART initiated an employee engagement activity pivoted around the Selfie-hype. This time, the theme was centred on the ‘Dubsmash’ fever.
Titled “What the Dub!”, IndiaMART initiated an exciting and unique activity wherein the leading online marketplace invited their employees, across offices, to shoot the craziest Dubsmash videos and Whatsapp them on a pre-assigned phone number. It was announced that the winner will stand a chance to win exciting prizes.
The scale of the activity was further blown up by putting Video-shoot kiosks at key locations across the branch offices. Taking inspiration from “Gabbar”; “Babu Rao”, “Teja Bhai” and many more, an exclusive Dubsmash Dugout was set up in the office in Noida. From flashy glasses to colourful wigs and hats, the prop centre added an element of unprecedented humour to the Dubsmash Videos.
The employees of IndiaMART unleashed their feisty sides, with varying emotions while mouthing off some of cinema’s best known dialogues. This lip-syncing mobile application, swayed all the folks at IndiaMART too by a storm of excitement with its innovative contest, titled as ‘What the Dub’. The contest revolved around the idea of dubbing the lines of famous artists/actors. This Dub club encouraged a free flow of drama and creativity.
See: How to Drive Employee Engagement Levels at Work?
The response was overwhelming! Employees fervently shot their Dubsmash videos using props like IndiaMARTmugs, T-shirts, admiration cards, etc. To add a cherry on the top, a mash up video was created to capture different nuances of theatrical skills showcased by the participants. This contagious play pulled the madness from all desks of the office, with the – We work hard play harder- spirit.
According to Asian Age report, “Selfies, velfies (video selfies) and Dubsmash seem to have become more than personal boredom busters. Some companies are cashing in on the craze of these social media tools for team building purposes. Traditional pursuits such as group lunches, boot camps and weekend retreats are gradually being replaced by things such as Dubsmash and selfie competitions and employers are using these new age popular tools to connect better with their employees and break traditional workplace hierarchies. The aim is to make the work environment more engaging.”
A Dubsmash competition is a regular feature at the IndiaMART office. Vinita Koul, human resources chief, says, “We have these Friday fun activities where they are told to create Dubsmash videos under various categories and the best ones win movie tickets or food coupons. The trends we pick up are the ones, which are a rage —Dubsmash and selfies and velfies are a hit with youngsters.”
Koul further explains: “We are a very young organisation and the average age of our employees is 26. So we need to keep ourselves on our toes to think of innovative and creative ideas to keep our young staff engaged. People look forward to these activities because it’s a stress-buster for them, something away from their routine work and the kind of vibrancy that is associated with these activities encourages people to put in more efforts.”
With this new twist to team building activities can prove to be a great stress relief therapy. Since most employees are already active on social media such velfie competitions create a natural interest for the employees with a chance for campaigns to go viral.
There are other fun activities at IndiaMART to include Zumba dance, treasure hunt wherein clues are left behind for everyone, boot camps and rain dance parties are a regular feature. However, the company has still not done away with the traditional employee engagement practices, but believe that such social media employee engagement trends are in tune with work culture around the world.
Also read: Employee recognition trends to watch out for HRs in 2015
Image credit: corporateindiamart.com
