Closing the year with goodies .....

Howdy peeps!

In the midst of drawing the curtain of 2015, we have had some activities. Just two week ago, we had our top management meeting facilitated by our Group MD, Mr Mikel Yaw, and on the same week itself, we also had our year end staff gathering. This time around, the HR Dept organized two activities in parallel; a story-telling contest and the ever-famous gift exchange to usher the yuletide and also to refresh our camaraderie amongst the staff members.

Let's start with the contest - creation of an object based on our core values 'ISTARS" and telling the story of the object created by the respective team. This is a departmental effort, where they were given about a month to plan the creation and then prepare the script of the story. ISTARS stands for Innovative, Sincerity, Teamwork, Adaptable, Respect and Simplicity. It is our belief system, and our Group MD has always reminded all of us on this abbreviation.

The teams squeezed their creative juices, and each team came out with their masterpieces. From something simple, to something extensive - we just let it flow. After the Monday's top management meeting, the Group MD was having a week of hectic schedule where in his planner, he is also required to judge the creations from the teams on Wednesday afternoon. It was held 'over two days' due to time constraint. First, he judged the object creation itself. He was looking for a representation of the core values. He gave his scoring and excused himself for the second day. On Thursday morning, we had the story-telling contest. The teams were called one at a time, for them to tell us the story behind the object which is supposedly to represent the core values.

Mikel was overwhelmed with the creativity, and the talent of our staff members, especially the junior or new staff members who stood and vowed him with their rendition of the ISTARS stories. Each teams were trying to outdo each other, to win the heart of the judge. The Group MD was very pleased with the outcome of this activity, and when the last team finished their story, he invited all of us for lunch at a restaurant in town. Yeah, it has been a stressful day for the teams and, yes, the 'makan' at the restaurant was a de-stressor, and everyone had a good time rejoicing.

So, do you want to know the winners?

It was a tough fight - the scores were very close to each other especially for the top three placing. But let's put it on hold as we have other goodies to reveal too. On the next day, Friday 18th Dec, we had our year end staff gathering which we aptly called Year End Suka-suka (YESS) at 4pm. The theme was of course, 'world peace'. So we have some food and dessert, and the birthday cake for babies in August, September, October, November and December. Yes, HR bad, we have skipped the 3rd Q gathering and combined it with this event. We also gave out presents to the birthdays' babies. So some of us practically received 3 gift items on the same afternoon - the birthday gift, the Christmas gift and the contest prize! And that's not all - we even announced that the Company will be off on 31 Dec as the replacement of the state public holiday which was on 14 Dec for winning the Malaysia football cup. Happy faces aplenty with food, gifts and one extra off day on a long weekend over the new year. Imagine, for just two week, we only work for 6 days, but off for 8 days! Now as a HR, I have to vouch, such privilege doesn't happen everywhere but it happens in Elabram - well it doesn't happen often, but it sure did this time.

Ahhh .... it has been a long write this time - good things are meant to be shared. Let's join us in this journey of closing 2015 with positive mind and work towards a better tomorrow.

Creations dressed the glass walls of the Office

Artistic creation from International Business team - 'seasons of change'

Simplicity rules - object from Finance team

HR / Deployment / IT came up with a 'starry tree' 

Talent Acquisition with Christmas landscape 

NPO on 'battlefields'

Regine Lee represented NPO telling the story about battlefield

Stella Tan of IB telling the story of seasonal change 

Muhd Iqbal of TAD talked about not conforming to the norm 

Tharshaan representing Finance with star bright starlight  

Jaslyn Loo of HR/Deply/IT begins with 'Once upon a time ..... '
 



Birthday Babies 

Gifts came in a sleigh by Secret Santas

Crowd anticipating the goodies 

And the winners are:

3rd Placing - IB Dept represented by Regine
 

2nd Place - Finance

Yes, the 1st Prize - HR, Deployment  & IT team
 

Winners received Ringgit 100 for 3rd prize, Ringgit 200 for 2nd prize and Ringgit 350 for 1st prize. TAD Senior Manager, Shirley Kok gave out the cash prizes just before the end of the event. Even the 4th and 5th placing received a token each. The HR team didn't expect to win as the contest is quite competitive. The  creation in a form of a tree with solid trunk representing the company, surrounded by leafs of staff names in between the stars with two birds nestling for the future captured the MD's heart and represented the overall ISTARS spirit.

The contest received favorable vibes as besides fostering goodwill, it also elevates team bonding, communication, innovation and 'esprit de corps'. The event ended with the gift exchange program, and International Business team even came out with a year end gift of a self-made bookmark. Now that's four gifts in the afternoon.

That's how Elabram Systems draw the curtain of 2015. Here humbly wishing all readers a peaceful and fantastic 2016!

Till we meet again in a brand new year, stay peace.

XOXO