A clean break

Most organisations tend to get their staff together for familiar reasons – sales conferences, strategy days, product launches, that kind of thing.

But one organisation hosts regular get-togethers in which staff spend a whole day polishing up their CVs, LinkedIn and other online profiles.

Last week, the staff of Projective gathered together in central London for a day called Clean Up Your Stuff. (Projective is a Belgian business and, fittingly, the acronym CUYS can be read as the Flemish word for ‘clean’.)

No, it’s not to encourage staff turnover. (Although in some organisations, that mightn’t be the world’s worst idea.) Projective is a project management consultancy, and as such it needs to ensure that its employees’ credentials are bang up to scratch in order to optimise sales.

Projective’s Nicolas Micheli explains the thinking behind CUYS. ‘As project managers, having an up-to-date CV is an essential tool,’ he says. ‘Prospective clients will ask to see one, and making sure it is updated regularly means we are always prepared to make the right first impression.’

There’s also more to the day than typing things up, taking selfies for online profiles and arguing with colleagues about the correct way to spell ‘vitae’.

Think Pink

‘Reviewing our CVs and building project credentials gives us the chance to share what we’ve been doing, what successes we’ve had, and what we want to do in the future.’ In other words, it’s a pretty neat focal point for best practice conversations.

Projective is, by all accounts, an odd company in a number of ways. Everyone in the firm – including founder, Stefan Dierckx – has the same job title (Project Manager, natch). There’s no formal monitoring of performance, staff take it in turns to ‘do’ Marketing, HR , Finance and IT as the whim takes them.

Interestingly, everyone gets the same bonus. ‘We all have an equal stake in Projective’s progress as a company,’ insists Micheli.

Other ‘off-sites’ at the company include skiing trips and attending Pinkpop, a three day rock festival in Landgraaf, Holland.

‘It’s not the sort of event you expect to see a hundred financial project managers roll up to,’ Micheli admits. ‘But even those of us who aren’t big rock fans had a fantastic time.’

About the author

Andrew Baird

Andrew is the CEO of HRville. He is also Employer Brand Director of Blackbridge Communications, Editorial Director of Professionals in Law and an associate of The Smarty Train. Previously, he was the MD of TCS Advertising.