msgNews: back to the office, lots of events and a fitness challenge before the summer

Author: Zuzana Kocáková

Company

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Breakfast in the office, MDD, blood donation and teambuilding. Spring was really colourful at msg life Slovakia.

Along with the improvement of the pandemic situation, our regime is also changing. Colleagues are still able to work from home, but we are all happy to meet again in the office for lunch or breakfast. In addition to a number of gastronomic events, we have also organised adrenaline-fuelled teambuilding or a fitness challenge. There was also a charity blood donation event or a visit by Milenka Radic, a member of the German board of msg life, who brought lots of good news.

Tasty lunches and shared company breakfasts

Tasty brunch, varied breakfast, barbecue, pizza day, but also lunch with the theme of popular dishes from Bohemia, Ukraine, Austria, Poland and Hungary. That’s what our welcome weeks in msg life Slovakia looked like. The so-called “Willkommenswochen” are organised across all branches, not only the Slovak ones in Bratislava, Žilina and Košice, but also abroad, including Germany, Austria, Spain and other countries. Although the events take different forms, the goal remains the same: to welcome colleagues back to the workplace, to renew internal relationships and to help them adapt more easily to change.

“The aim of the welcome weeks is not to get workers back to the branches. The pandemic has shown us that our colleagues know work effectively from home, therefore their return is not necessary. What we would like to restore, however, are the relationships in the workplace, which undoubtedly contribute to the motivation of employees,” explains office manager Zuzka. “Colleagues continue to work from home, we currently have a regime where 60 per cent of working time can be spent in the form of a home office and forty per cent in the Office. However, this is not fixed and we continue to strive to keep our staff flexible,” adds HR manager Dominika.

Team adrenaline experiences and sports activities

The office team tries to bring colleagues together in different ways and another was the adrenaline team games. During the spring and early summer, the employees took part in several of them. In Team Up, also called Fortress Boyard, employees had to tackle different types of challenges than they are normally used to. However, teamwork remained essential. For the more adventurous, we also arranged a ride on scooters or quad bikes; on the other hand, colleagues from the office tried their hand at cooking tasty recipes in Makery World.

“We try to plan teambuilding so that everyone can enjoy themselves, and we are now fully planning the traditional summer Sommerfest with family members, which was postponed for two years due to the pandemic,” adds Zuzka, office manager. Family members were not forgotten during the International Children’s Day, when we organised various activities for them at the Leon Centre.

In addition to having fun, we also thought about the health of our colleagues before the summer. Since we have a sedentary job, we tried to motivate them to move, whether they took yoga classes with Ayka and exercises for a healthy back with Fitclinic trainers, or worked out through the monthly msgFit challenge. Employees have completed running workouts with a professional, while others have swapped their trainers for skates or a bike. Three female colleagues skated a total of 120 kilometres, six runners ran a total of more than 1,041 kilometres and the highest figure was achieved by four cyclists, 1,584 kilometres.

Some colleagues also took part in an internal competition for the highest number of steps, with nine colleagues completing more than three million steps. After a very successful running event, the ČSOB Marathon, in which 4 of our relays participated, in June our runners again entered the summer cross-country race through the paths of the Little Carpathians and despite the hot weather they ran really great results. Apart from my colleagues, two “our juniors” also took part in the race. It is nice when work is combined with fun and family, which is also the goal of many of our events.

The next big running event in Slovakia will take place in the place of our branch – in Košice and our colleagues are preparing for it, we are already keeping our fingers crossed with the preparation, as we have a notice that they will not only run relays, but also half marathon and marathon courses.

Colleagues who could not participate in the blood donation will be able to take part in the next round – we have decided to include the msgDrop of Blood event among our regular activities and to organize another one in the autumn. We hope that this will motivate not only our Slovak colleagues who may still be hesitant to donate blood, but also colleagues from other branches will join us.

Shortly before the summer, our Bratislava branch had the honour to welcome a member of the German board of directors, Milenko Radic. “The last time we held such a company-wide meeting with a foreign member was two years ago, when it was possible to meet in person. It was therefore very nice to have not only a foreign visitor, but also so many colleagues together who are interested in what is going on in the society. In addition, Milenko, as a member of the sales department, brought all good news and forecasts, despite the challenging period in which the markets and the economy are currently in. We are therefore very pleased that our goal is to continue to grow,” concludes HR manager Maria.

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msgNews: back to the office, lots of events and a fitness challenge before the summer

Zuzana Kocáková

At msg life Slovakia I take care of the company culture, events and I am part of the marketing team. I like a job where I can be creative and contribute to making my colleagues at msg feel good. I regularly prepare for you not only news and interesting things from the world of information technology and insurance, but also from behind the scenes events at msg life Slovakia.