All netizens know very well that large IT companies have many wonderful, colorful and sometimes weird ways of keeping the camaraderie among its employees. It could wary from company to company but all of them have such programs, organized by the diligent HR department. Tours to exotic locations, cubicle decoration contents, weekly games, Network gaming (mostly RPG, FPS games) and such.
This concept really excites me, makes me feel it acts like a very good catalyst for the introverted uber geek developer to the bubbly ever-chatting marketing executive to get to know each other. Problem is, these events stay restricted to very large companies only. Events keep on shrinking based on your company's annual revenue. A big company will give gifts to all its employees on their birthdays, a small company will arrange a monthly cake cutting ceremony celebrating the birthdays of all the employees in that particular month, a smaller company will only celebrate the illustrious employees.
What I want to discuss here is: How does it work?
Does a company doing such exciting stuff with its employees become a major company? or
Does only a major company do such exciting stuff? or
It could be neither.
Even smallest of the small companies celebrate birthdays due to the scale of their operations. What pains me most is that the run of the mill middle level companies that are running on budget don't seem to be able to direct time, money and effort in this direction.
How important is boosting employee morale through such gatherings? Is it worth the investment?
If yes, what could be the ways a really reluctant company spend the least amount of money and time to get the benefits of these events?