Last week, about 700 Mastekers and their families travelled together in the second-class compartment of Konkan Express to Goa, for a five-day blast. Nearly 300 rooms were booked at two five-star hotels--Fort Aguada and Taj Village, Goa. For each room, the company spent about Rs 1,700 per day on just boarding--food, travel and sight-seeing expenses were extra. The total cost for Runtime this year has been estimated at Rs 40 lakh.

The company claims that Runtime is a business-cum-pleasure trip because apart from having fun at the beach, swimming pool or tennis court, there are regular training sessions on Mastek values, and how each employee needs to incorporate them.

Awards are also given to employees and their families at theseevents, which are not just performance-related, but also in pure fun. For instance, there is a Mastek award for the person who smiles the most at work. Says Mastek chairman and managing director Ashank Desai: ``We have been doing this for the last seven years or so. And now it is such that the pressure to have Runtime is more from the employee's family than the employee himself.'' Even before a person joins Mastek, he already knows about Mastek's Runtime, says Desai with a laugh. A fun place to work at--that's not a bad reputation for an employer to have.