Presentation

Today, companies are faced with the need for flexibility in response to the new expectations of candidates and employees.

Cowoliday imagines an innovative way of experiencing work that generates a positive impact for the companies and for the well-being of the employees.

Because the relationship with work has changed, Cowoliday has created the first network of coworking spaces set up in the heart of holiday resorts, to work in optimal conditions, alone, as a team or during a family holiday. Extend your weekends, your holidays or spend a week coworking with your team, for a change of scenery. An office better than the office, open to the outdoors, to optimise both your working and free time.

Recreate purpose and connection.
Optimise your working time.
Chill out the rest of the time,

Cowoliday!

Background

3 boxes of oranges for 1 idea in 2 steps

March 2020

Seeing the virus coming from Italy, I thought that vitamin C couldn't hurt us... So I ordered 3 cases of Tarocco oranges, one for each of our 80 employees, working in digital tourism, camping, holiday villages and hotels. The Tarocco oranges come directly from the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily, they are my favourite.
Three days after delivery, a general lockdown was announced in France; everyone went into remote work, except for the three boxes of oranges that were still almost full... and me (for practical reasons).
Very quickly, carried away by an overconsumption of coffee and vitamin C, I understood that remote working, which had been almost anecdotal until then in most French companies, was going to become a standard even in the most conservative structures.
In principle, I had no problem with this new future order. However, a question arose in the face of this great emptiness around me: how can structures similar to ours, whose daily life is based on exchange, continuous informal training within and between the different teams, structures which live thanks to the energy of the relationship in short, be able to move forward as before? In other words, without this strong connection, will we still have the energy needed to share information and develop the skills of employees, especially new ones? Nothing less than our corporate culture was at stake overnight.
I told myself that we had to come up with new good reasons to be together and to cultivate this link which was becoming more meaningful.
I started by thinking, reading and exchanging ideas to see how we could develop our offices, our meeting points and the different organisations. Then I thought that we could go further by moving to our clients' sites (campsites and holiday villages) and thus intensify exchanges, create relationships in intensive mode, in an immersive version.
The idea was born: coworking in holiday locations. A few notes, a few exchanges with friends and family pushed me to dig deeper, but health news and life took care of putting it all away in a nice box.

January 2021

Between two more or less strict lockdowns, I went to a client in the Netherlands to discuss the situation. As an off topic, he explains that the project to "merge" their 3 offices has been launched: the 4,000 employees will soon be gathered in a single office with 1,000 seats, contractually impossible to be present more than one day a week, but a budget allowing families with young children to relocate their office to a holiday village in order to guarantee them good remote working conditions during the school holidays; better conditions than in a flat that has become too noisy and/or too small between 9 am and 5 pm.
I came back from the Netherlands and read my notes on the train, thinking that Northern Europe is ahead of the South on these issues. I also thought that I should open this idea to a wider network than my own in order to turn it into reality.
Three months later, we were about twenty people with very diverse expertise at Sérignan Plage campsite in the south of France for the Whitsun weekend, in a seminar, in a "Cowoliday"...
And after 3 days of fascinating exchanges, we said GO!