Corporate team-building weekends get a lot of stick. Those that aren’t opportunities for desk-bound fantasists to play at soldiers or survivalists, often degenerate into embarrassing binges.
They can also do some good, benefiting other communities and not just the bank accounts of flaky consultants. That is the case with Deutsche Bank’s plans this weekend, when 110 staff from its Asian institutional client group (ICG) debt sales force will be travelling to Bangkok to help rebuild a school badly damaged by the 2011 floods.
The school, called Wat Mongkol Pugaram, is in an extremely poor part of Bangkok and is attended by 78 children from nearby farming families. It has been unable to raise the funds to refurbish its buildings and grounds.
The three-day event will be conducted with the My School Project, a Thai charity that solicits funds to improve educational opportunities for poor students from schools remote parts of the country. Individual staff (rather than the bank) are paying for the entire project, as well as their own travel and accommodation.
The Deutsche team is led by Marzio Keiling, Asia-Pacific head of ICG, who said that “linking CSR events with team building activities plays an important role in the day-to-day activities of the bank and its staff”.
Last month, bankers also contributed to charities in Singapore by donating one day of their salaries to selected not-for-profit organisations.
“Again, this was not a bank-funded activity, but a trend of staff getting together and wanting to utilise their own time and resources to make a positive, lasting impact on their community,” said a spokesperson.
