A picnic in the park
I am a new team member at Expand a Sign and can honestly say that I already feel part of the family. As part of their “Yes We Can” team building initiative they treated staff to a family fun day at Mitchell Park Zoo on Saturday the 9th of May.
The concept was straight forward – bring your family to meet their family, and what beautiful families they are. I’ve never seen so much love, fun and laughter in one place. It was so refreshing to see everyone enjoying the simple things in life – good, old fashioned, quality time together on a perfect Durban day.
Party packs were handed out to all the children and before you knew it, there was a blur of fast moving kids, balls and hula hoops – they had such fun! There was also a face painting station where butterflies and pirates were the characters of choice.
After our picnic (and the kids had burnt off some of their sugar energy) it was time to meet the animals. Mitchell Park Zoo has such an array of exotic animals that most of the kids, and some parents had ever seen. Birds, reptiles, meerkats, monkeys and the star of the zoo … a 100 year old tortoise! Judging by everyone’s faces when they returned to the picnic site, everybody thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
As part of our “Yes We Can” initiative, May is our month of inspiration. To thank the Expand a Sign team for all their hard work and dedication management were inspired to find a way to say thank you in a way that would create a lot of excitement and offer them a truly tangible reward. The family picnic and tour of Mitchell Park Zoo was fabulous and the cherry on the top was the ‘Mystery Box’.
There were 5 ‘Mystery Boxes’ each contained an awesome prize. Prizes ranged from an iPad Mini, Mountain Bike, R2500 Pavilion Shopping Voucher, 6 uShaka Combo Tickets & R600 cash, and 6 Epic Karting Vouchers & R600 cash.
Each Expand a Sign employee was given a ticket with their name on it, which they could place into any one of the 5 boxes. Nobody knew which box contained which prize. To end off our family fun day winners were randomly drawn from each Mystery Box … the sheer joy and excitement was truly special to behold.
Yet again, I find myself in awe of the culture at Expand a Sign – such an amazing and caring group of individuals that have not only made me feel welcome but have a true sense of family that is rarely found within a working environment.
The hidden gem of this story is quite simple … invest in your staff, show them your appreciation for all that they do – they ARE your business after all!