Standard Chartered SL staff walk to London HQ and back in virtual ‘Home Olympics 2021’

Colombo, Sri Lanka – Standard Chartered Sri Lanka hosted the first ever virtual ‘Home Olympics’ for its staff to promote employee engagement and camaraderie as the country continues to recover from continuous lockdowns. Keeping their competitive spirits up was the main event, where a total of 120 employees walked an accumulated distance of 14,935km – the approximate distance from the Standard Chartered Sri Lanka Head Office to the London Head Office and back – across a period of 20 days.

Broadcasted live from a makeshift studio at the Head Office in Colombo, the virtual Home Olympics saw Standard Chartered Sri Lanka employees and their families participating in a number of events from the comfort of their homes to keep the competitive spirit alive. Held on a Saturday evening, the Olympics created a very high level of engagement, while also promoting fitness and good health practices. Employees who had been homebound due to lockdowns and in need of a boost to their mental and physical well-being were motivated by healthy competition among the five ‘houses’ vying for the maximum amount of points in the competition, which also featured separate events for the families of the employees to participate in, including e-gaming for the children.

The President of the Sports Club, and Head of Transaction Banking at Standard Chartered Sri Lanka, Roger Norton was elated at the outcome of the virtual Home Olympics. “Standard Chartered Sri Lanka has a close-knit family of employees, and we feed off the energy and motivation from each other. The lockdown put a dampener on our moods and the Home Olympics were the perfect response. We had more staff engagement in these few weeks than we have in the recent past. On top of that, we were able to spotlight fitness, and motivate each other during challenging times. The teamwork, commitment, and competitive spirit the Standard Chartered Home Olympics fostered in our teams will stand us in good stead as we take the business forward past these tough times into a rejuvenated future,” he said.

Houses Godwin, Stuart, Tudor, Wessex and York participated in the Olympics, with Godwin taking away the final trophy. Events at the Standard Chartered Home Olympics 2021 ranged across 14 diverse games such as ‘Biggest Loser’ crowning the employee who lost the most weight during the competition period, to ‘Gymnastic Fam Skip’ an event based on the skipping skills of employees and their kids. ‘Marathon’, ‘Push-up Challenge’ and ‘Longest Plank’ were events for the serious athletes, while casual sports enthusiasts could try their hands at ‘Basketball Bins’ and ‘Football Juggle’. The team set up exclusive children’s events such as an e-gaming arena, ‘Fat Boy Slim’ and ‘Kids & Art’ to ensure the employees’ children were in on the fun too.

The one-of-a-kind virtual Home Olympics event was organised by a voluntary committee comprising of Roger Norton and Country Technology Manager, Ajanthan Sivathas as the co-chairs and Selwyn Jamion, Manager – Retail Banking Payments and Financial Transactions processing as the Project Lead, amongst others.