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April 2012 |
One of their latest ‘extra-curricular’ activities was their kite-flying competition which challenged each team to come up with creative kites (that could really fly) to take to the air over the SPeC South football field in mid-March. The kite we feature was called Project flying Squid, a project of Team Badman (which won the People’s Choice). yet, looking at the list of kite entrants—le Buccoo Reef; My first Box kite; Geometric Progression (Team Rahoop… rahoop being the opposite of poohar); Pacific Airborne; and Singing Mad Bull, Ah didn’t have time kite—this seemed quite an enthusiastic showing and the photos showed that it was well attended. It was worth a question. Daren Dhoray, the affable webmaster cheerily responded that the kites were just the year’s latest events; they’d had a day at the races, not to be confused with their 100m and 400m races, and are planning an egg drop event soon. The unit really gets involved and everyone takes part. They have badminton evenings, ‘chow’ afternoons (known as: who can survive the pepper?), an unofficial birthday club, and various other bonding devices. Remembering some of the charitable work I’d seen them undertake, it occurred that theirs was a special unit. And, they were prompt to respond to IT issues! what accounts for it? Not surprisingly, I got a team response. All said that the spirit extended beyond the workspace and was fostered by managers who appreciated that their jobs required flexibility and agility, especially in responding to trouble calls. Here’s some of what they also said. “I applaud the fact that we celebrate each other as individuals, yet as a team, we are worth far more than the sum of our individual parts,” said Noveck Gowandan. “There are places were employees are so measured by time rather than productivity, that a coffee break is considered unproductive due to time lost. …Decades ago, having a playground for a workplace would be considered craziness and the least productive environment... but Google proved otherwise,” said Vishwanath Samsundar. “Management and supervisors within CITS recognise individual and team talent and allow the freedom to innovate and encourage creativity in producing solutions for the campus,” said Kerry Bullock. “We all see the value of what these relationships brings to each of us, and this gives us the energy to sustain it. This same energy is transferred to our projects which frequently call for the cross-discipline skills from the various teams in CITS. no one is left out!” said Claire Craig. It’s all about mutual respect, said Director Nazir Alladin. So it is. (Vaneisa Baksh) |
Organisational experts will tell you that camaraderie and team spirit within a department almost always enables a productive and innovative unit. CITS (Campus Information Technology Services) is a model department in that sense, living those qualities in an environment where staff members obviously enjoy what they do, and each other’s company.