Every six months, Comet's teams, co-founders included, swap roles for a few days: the “Vis ma Vie” programme builds empathy and a sense of service.
Looking to improve the working environment and foster a healthier professional climate, companies are seeking to roll out innovative strategies within their organisations. One of these emerging practices is the occasional swapping of roles or positions, which has been shown to have a positive impact on employee productivity and wellbeing. Comet, the innovative start-up that describes itself as a Meeting Scientist, has set up the “Vis ma Vie” programme, literally “live my life”, so that members of the company can see the business from a complementary angle. The aim is to spark empathy, recognise colleagues' work and understand how each person shapes the end result. The concept also sets out to support employees as they explore and pursue their passions and professional goals within the company, putting their personal development at the heart of the process.
Since it opened in 2017, Comet has run training sessions called “Vis ma Vie”. They take place every six months and are designed so that all employees experience on-site work alongside clients, particularly in hospitality roles. This approach allows the human resources and finance teams, for example, to live the reality of operational staff, gain a deeper understanding of the product and get closer to clients. Valuable ideas that can be applied to their own roles also emerge from the experience. Time on the ground is essential for Comet, because visitors consistently highlight the warmth and service mindset of the teams, which they see as key ingredients of its success. Employees from the Spanish operations team can also take part in the “Vis ma Vie” programme in Belgian or French venues, which broadens their perspective, encourages the exchange of ideas and supports alignment.
The initiative helps employees work out what their ideal job would be and shows that, at Comet, professional development is encouraged, which generates satisfaction among staff. Those who have worked in different fields and different countries share their experiences of moving between roles within the company, highlighting how those moves allowed them to build new skills and take on exciting challenges. That has a positive effect on how people feel about the company. Anaïs, head of the sales team at Comet France, is a case in point: after leaving the company to take on a new project, she felt the need to find again “a close-knit team, absolute trust and a shared will to move forward together”.
For Victor Carreau, co-founder and CEO of Comet, the concept is also fundamental in a sector such as his: “Given that our work in hospitality rests on experience and on key human elements, it is genuinely important, even critical, that we stay close to the ground and in contact with our visitors. Our main priorities are always to put the client first and to make sure the quality of the experience we deliver is consistent across all our venues, whatever the country. Since we are not superheroes and we have to be closer to the ground than anyone, the co-founders also take part in the Vis ma Vie programme, two days a year.”
In short, occasionally swapping professional roles, as with the “Vis ma Vie” programme developed by Comet, shows how a strong corporate culture that encourages learning and collaboration can improve the workplace climate and give employees the room and the opportunities they need to grow and develop professionally within the company, to the benefit of staff and of the business as a whole.
