Qualitavie: wellbeing at work
Work to live but not live to work?
How often have you felt relieved that the weekend is fast approaching? Worse, how often have you frustratingly thought “I can’t wait ’til Friday” on a Monday morning? Go on, you can tell us the truth, especially as (unfortunately) you’re not the only one…
A growing problem in the corporate universe, workplace malaise raises issues not just in terms of public health but also in terms of performances at work. A female entrepreneur, educated as an agricultural engineer, has decided to tackle this problem.
Her name: Hélène Coulombeix, her startup: Qualitavie. Let’s find out more!
“Health is people’s internal safety”
A training and facilitation company that works with businesses, Qualitavie’s mission is to improve the quality of life at work by changing lifestyles.
The scene is set, but how did this ambitious and innovative entrepreneurial project (on a domestic scale) come into being? Everything (well almost everything) began with an observation that emerged in the insightful mind of Hélène Coulombeix. After 6 years with agricultural organisations as an agricultural engineer specialising in safety and the environment (where her mission was to promote health and wellbeing amongst farming industry employees), Helène Coulombeix noted that the risks encountered by employees in the farming sector mostly concerned mental health issues (stress, burnout, anxiety, etc.) and health issues (contamination spread by hands, etc.)
Why? Quite simply because “health is people’s internal safety” according to Hélène Coulombeix.
Contrary to what one might think, a deterioration in people’s mental or physical health is behind more workplace accidents than misuse of farming equipment and/or machinery.
Building on this observation, Hélène began thinking about the underlying causes of this physiological and psychological malaise. She began by organising events in the field of nutrition by launching Food and Fourche amongst individuals and then businesses. Two years on, this activity had unfortunately not taken off, which is why Hélène went back to being a wage-earner… But her entrepreneurial spirit would only come back stronger!
So after a short break, Hélène relaunched her activity this year — this time under the name Qualitavie.
A long-term and digitised solution
Having initially specialised in nutrition, Hélène expanded her activity to include health from a global perspective through visits to large corporations. With workshops to help people better manage their sleep, their performances, as well as exercises on management, stress, exhaustion but also the work environment (construction and ergonomics of nap rooms), Qualitavie’s aim is to combine health, wellbeing and performance at work!
To achieve this, the startup put two digital tools in place: an app offering tutorials on how to get your energy back in 7 minutes and a digitised health and vitality rally in the form of an integration course with virtual markers and health trials.
To summarise, Qualitavie offers a mixed solution incorporating advice, assessment, training and the supplying of the tools required to efficiently implement the programme provided by the startup for the quality of life at work.
Qualitavie’s business model is built around advice with the invoicing of services, training and activities (example: advice days). However, the problem with this model is its irregularity. To overcome this inconvenience and ensure the effectiveness of the health strategies implemented by its client companies, the entrepreneur decided to promote a long-term support approach with advice and annual events, as well as subscriptions and licences for the tools. Qualitavie could therefore be thought of as a consultancy or even a communications agency.
Quality of life at work — a bright future!
Currently with a mainly French-based activity, Qualitavie is now looking to deploy internationally, notably in Canada, based on a hard core of employees and a network of service providers. Regarding partnerships, the startup currently has ties with AFNOR (French national organisation for standardisation) and complies with Canada’s Healthy Enterprise standard. Furthermore, a number of major corporations such as McDonald’s, SNCF, Vinci and Louis Vuitton have already put their trust in the startup.
On an institutional level, no partnership has been signed as yet. Indeed, being at the intersection of various domains (technology, health, CSR), Qualitavie’s business is difficult to categorise. As well as that, the health issue is still at an embryonic stage in France: promoting a healthy lifestyle at work is a market that is just emerging, making Qualitavie a pioneer in France.
On the contrary, in Canada — an inspirational country for Hélène — health and quality of life at work enjoy a substantially greater status. Indeed it is totally democratised and there are numerous standards that illustrate this desire to improve things within companies. To overcome this purely French identification issue, Qualitavie is thinking about obtaining SSE certification, but this is a lengthy process and could possibly restrict the company’s long-term development. Avenues are currently being looked into.
Regarding product development, Qualitavie is thinking about consolidating its digital opportunities by improving the apps that are already available to companies. Lastly, on the sales development front, Hélène wants to boost the startup’s revenue by at least 40% by the end of next year! To achieve this, she is looking for bank financing in order to be able to obtain the services of a partner specialising in operational aspects. This is an ambitious objective, it is true, but, she says, “the health and quality of life at work market will become a sizeable one, so now we have to go for it!” Such energy is good for one’s health and wellbeing (at work).
The Qualitavie startup has been in residence on Le Plateau since 16 April, 2018.#LePlateau is a 1,000m² space that accommodates, under one roof and for periods of up to 6 months, Societe Generale teams and ecosystem startups. Each resident works on their own project, either disruptive or innovative, in open spaces where teams commingle. The Plateau provides an environment that enables this work to be undertaken in a single place, but also and more importantly methodological support to accelerate projects, the organising of the residents and premises to enable them to swap and share their expertise and experience.
