eBusiness Weekly
Chipo Sabeta
Cbz are this year’s winners of the Interbank Games Gala held at RBZ Sports Club last weekend.The 48th edition of the annual games was held amid pomp and fanfare with over 18 banks participating.
Held to enable staff from different member banks to mix, mingle, and develop the required community spirit and national integration, the sports fiesta had over 15 sporting disciplines including football, volleyball, athletics, squash, chess and basketball.
CBZ dominated in most disciplines, with the athletics club becoming the cash cow of the brand.
The bank emerged tops after amassing 21 medals to place them on pole position on the medals log standings.
Second and third placed teams, Metbank and ZB Bank, had eight medals with their “colours”, the only determinant on rankings.
POSB and Agribank came out 4th and 5th respectively.
CBZ had nine gold medals, seven (silver) and five (bronze).
The group’s marketing and corporate affairs executive, Laura Gwatiringa, said CBZ believes in promoting the physical and mental health of employees and their families.
Gwatiringa said healthy employees are generally productive.
“The group prioritises the well-being of its employees and devotes time and financial resources in developing programmes and interventions that promote good employee safety and health in order to ensure the organisation’s success,” said Gwatiringa.
“A good wellness programme is therefore a key factor that lubricates the organisational engine to achieve higher productivity.
“The group’s wellness programme combines various interventions which range from providing awareness, education, training, counselling, information, and support and employee participation in wellness activities. The programme also includes the identification and elimination of hazards which can harm or injure employees within the work environment.”
CBZ’s athletics club, which has rubbed shoulders with some of the country’s top professionals, landed six gold medals.
Samuel Vutete, an Olympiad, led from the front winning the 21km race in 1 hour 20 minutes.
The ladies’ team won another gold.
Edith “Iron Lady” Dzvairo, struck gold after winning the 1 500m race. Sprint queen, Tendai Zavazava, left opponents admiring her clean pair of heels after winning gold in the 100m race.
She then teamed up with Joyce Marufu, Fortunate and Pamela to pip other teams to the gold medal in the 4x100m relay race.
The squash team was invincible, winning all six games in emphatic 5-0 score lines.
Moreblessing Mabika and the burly Anzoti Mugwanyo, got a clean sweep of the round-robin and won the gold medal effortlessly and without conceding a point.
CBZ also had its men’s team scooping gold in the Table Tennis battle, led by Morgan Charamba.
The ladies’ team also excelled in the tug of war contest.
Gwatiringa praised the Interbank Games saying they help employees to develop a spirit of fair play, mutual respect and Olympism.
“A healthy, productive and resilient workforce is important to any industry, and supporting the well-being of workers is a key factor in achieving this.
“The treatment of employees as valuable assets to be appreciated, protected, nurtured and developed has to be demonstrable. The aims of the games are to encourage bank staff sports enthusiasts to develop healthy lifestyles and also towards stages where they can represent Zimbabwe and the region in the future,” she said.
Statistics demonstrate that employees who exercise regularly and lead healthy lifestyles incur 31 percent lower health care costs than employees who live sedentary, unhealthy lifestyles.
The statistics show the importance of setting up corporate wellness programs.
Wellness programmes demonstrate to employees that their health is important and that their employers know and care about them.
