It is frequently discussed among Andersian employees that one of the main reasons they’ve decided to jump on the Anders bandwagon is our company culture. We take great pride in building and maintaining a work community with a lot of open communication, a laidback atmosphere, and aiming for frequent interaction.

The year 2020 had made us come up with various new approaches in order to keep up our Anders’ spirit with continuing events responsibly online. Thankfully, participation rates of online events have stayed high, and we’ve received a lot of great feedback from our employees.

In the end, we do feel that nothing compares to a good old-fashioned face-to-face interaction, which certainly has been needed by a lot of us. In June 2021, the improved pandemic situation in Finland gave us the opportunity to organize our team parties in person.

The Helsinki team’s summer party started at Helsinki Market Square. Anders hopped on a sightseeing cruise and the group got to admire the Helsinki sea and shoreline scenery in amazing sunshine.

The awesome Helsinki team!

Khin, Don, Kristian and Jarkko enjoying refreshing drinks. Jarkko started this spring as Senior Developer, and saw his teammates for the first time!

They continued their trip to Suomenlinna Fortress by another ferry and had an evening-long picnic with lots of laughter, discussions, games and music.

The picnic trip lasted until the dark.

The Turku team’s summer party was organized one week later, on Friday 11.6. The group was divided into two smaller teams – one team went to play exciting paintball in the woods followed by a delicious barbeque in Huvilupa, Kaarina. Although collaboration is far more powerful than competition, the paintball game surely released the inner beast of many. The game was so thrilling and fast-paced that there was no time to stop to take photos!

The other Turku team transported to Ruissalo by a fun water bus and had a divine picnic in the park with tasty food, music and yard games.

Kubb game was chosen as the most popular game in Ruissalo, and became a very addictive game after various rule clarifications. This was not as sweaty a game as paintball, but it certainly caused the same increase in blood pressure!

After all, the most important thing about a picnic is the food and beverages, which was very carefully optimized!

Tuomas, Riku and Teemu planning the Kubb strategy.

Both Turku teams joined forces in Vartiovuori park later in the evening and put up a great afterparty!

The teams met together in Vartiovuori Park after their activities – ohh, the joy of seeing each other again!

Goes without saying that after last year, everyone deserved to let their hair down and have a laugh with co-workers they haven’t seen face-to-face in months. We also have been fortunate enough to hire new talents during the pandemic, and consequently, our Anders summer parties provided a great opportunity for new hires to mingle, relax, and form stronger bonds with those they’ve only met over video calls.

THANK YOU ANDERSIANS FOR THE WONDERFUL SUMMER PARTIES THIS YEAR!