As people spend a large part of their lives at work, the work environment has become one of the most critical factors for determining employee satisfaction these days. Many companies have already understood the importance of employee engagement and have started working towards building up a positive and motivating work environment that also spells success for the organization. One such recent effort is the in-house newsletter ‘GUPSHUP’ launched by Bangalore based Go Go International. The force behind the initiative, Lalita Goenka, Director, Go Go International shares the journey of the newsletter and how it has acted as a binding thread for the employees, management and even buyers.
When Lalita Goenka joined the family business ten years ago to help her husband in the business, setup by her father-in-law, S S Goenka in 1983, she was given the onus of handling an Italian buyer who was into heavily embroidered garments. Slowly she took charge of the Go Go’s hand embroidery department with respect to developing new design concepts, pricing, sourcing and guiding the production and technical team. Along with that Lalita also started taking interest in issues of work place aesthetics and employee engagement.
Three years ago, browsing through her kid’s school newspaper, Lalita realized the importance of having an in-house magazine that provided all the information about the ongoing activities, individual achievements, as well as giving an opportunity to staff members to explore their hidden talents, by sharing. The idea once formulated, became an instant hit and three years and various supplements later, the company is reaping the fruits of an extremely motivated workforce. “GUPSHUP has been an awesomely exciting platform for the company, as all the employees are directly involved with what goes into the supplement, the feeling of belongingness can clearly be seen in them. They have become more like a family,” shares an elated Lalita. Interestingly, Lalita also feels that the issues have worked like magic in increasing the company’s efficiencies as it has proved to be one of their major drives to build a strong team.
“The word ‘GUPSHUP’ indicates a light informal conversation between two people, or more like gossip over a cup of tea and I wanted to maintain that informal vibe and project it to be more of a light in-house reading rather than an informatory tool about our company. The entire motive was to involve the teams, and not tell them what they already knew,” says a vibrant Lalita.
The contents of the newsletter include, recognition for employees for their achievements in various fields, inspiring quotes and stories, riddles, jokes and a monthly motivating message from the Chairman S S Goenka. Apart from this, the issues also contains the latest trends in the fashion segment that comes from the design department of the company and any kind of celebration happening in and around Go Go’s premises; like their annual retreat, cricket matches with the customers, festivals or occasions like International Women’s Day, the Cricket World Cup, etc. “My ‘GUPSHUP’ team, besides me, consists of newsletter designer Shobha and of course the whole Go Go staff that gives their contributions and thoughts that appear as articles of the newsletter. To make it an interesting read, Shobha makes it a point to add a lot of images, with artistic fonts and fun elements while designing it,” informs Lalita.
To make it more accessible and huge in the coming times not only for the organization but for the industry as well, the company is in talks to introduce the GUPSHUP newsletters on their website and also send them to their buyers and suppliers so as to rope them in as well. “The future of the newsletter is definitely going to be brighter and bigger, as we will provide everyone with an insight on what’s going on at Go Go,” concludes Lalita excitingly.
