EP017 - Workation and the future of team retreats with Florian Jacques of MidStay
About the episode
This episode focuses on the future of team retreats. What is a workation? How does it differ from a classic retreat? How are companies planning retreats in the future? Why are retreats super important to connect with each other? To discuss this, I have the co-founder of MidStay, Florian Jacques.
About the guest
Florian is a Belgian Product UX/UI Designer and Entrepreneur — who graduated from the College of Advertising and Design in Brussels.
He founded a music festival in Belgium that reached 20k+ festival goers at the age of 23.
He has traveled the world to work with startup founders and helped them reach their business goals with innovative user experiences. San Francisco, New York, Australia, Barcelona, SEA... are some of the places where he has worked closely with Executives to help them design their products.
He is a long-time traveler and remote worker. With a well-rounded blend of technical, design, marketing, and sales skills.
He is now co-founder & CEO of Midstay: a platform helping companies and individuals relocate easily to dreamy locations and work remotely from abroad.
About the host
My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. My mission is to help and inspire a community of remote leaders who can bring more autonomy, transparency, and leverage to their businesses, ultimately empowering their colleagues to be happier, more independent, and more self-conscious.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Want to become a guest on the show? Contact me here.
Quotes from the show
Nowadays, you can log in wherever you are, which sometimes can be tricky to mix all the time, personal and professional life. So we need to control that and bring all barriers between work and fun.
Gen Z will be 25% of the workforce in a few years. And these are the people that are looking for experience. These are the people that are valuing better intangible assets rather than tangible assets.
A workation is more like an extended vacation for those who work remotely. For example, let's say you have a week's retreat in Bali and keep working for two additional weeks from Bali. The way we work nowadays is flexible, so no wonder that our travel priorities follow that change.
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Welcome everyone. Yet another day to talk about the future of work and the future of leadership. Today's topic is workations. How a company can do workation, what is the difference between a company retreat and the workation, and how companies can approach this topic. For that to discuss, I have Florian Jacques with me, who's helming Midstay, a retreat experience company. Hey, Florian, how things?
Hey Peter, thanks to for inviting me for the show!
Appreciate it for coming here. So can you tell me a little bit about your remote journey? How did you start it, this whole working remotely, and how did you end up founding Midstay.
Yeah. Thanks. So, and then like it all started with passion that my parents actually gave to me, traveling a lot when I was young. And I always wanted to design my life around a career where I was able to basically travel and work at the same time. At the age of 15, I was actually Gamer and that game, video game, I would say a passion brought me to designing the first YouTube banner for some channels on YouTube. So that actually led me to that graphic design passion. And then From that I was actually always thinking that indeed these are actually services that are able to be made on online. And thanks to this I actually created that whole, that company at 18 years old working for a few clients and then thanks to these clients working and traveling at the same time to some clients in San Francisco, in New York, in Australia. And I quickly understood that it was clearly what I wanted to do, and then I repeated it more and more. And I decided as well to create a startup that was helping to do the same for more people. And I think that know a lot more people are able to do it since the covid. So we really wanted to facilitate that journey for these people.
Nice, nice. And what Midstay does, so what does the offer that you have for companies or even individuals?
Yeah, so Midstay is a platform for remote workers. We help people to relocate and to connect with like-minded people, so it's not only about convenient services that you need when you settle in a new place. It's really about that social bubble that you need when you come and you need to connect with professionals as well there. We truly believe that people can still grow professionally, even still by, even while traveling. So this is something we really wanted to bring is like a social marketplace where we bring all the tools you need to relocate and then you can try with likeminded people that make you grow as well. Professionally. That's on the B2C side. On the B2B side, we are helping companies to organized team retreats. And so as many more and more companies are actually hybrid or remote first, they have a need to bring the team together in some specific events. And so these are actually some of the events that are quite popular nowadays where companies are able to bring they're old team together in some dream. So we are speaking about Bali, we're speaking about Philippines, we're speaking about Bangkok for some cities where we are hosting actually a leadership summit next week. So it's really depending on the goals of the team and we are really designing every packages based on the goal of these companies.
So it's pretty much correct me if I'm wrong or addressing it improperly, but it's more like a retreat organizational company who also provides workation solutions. So what I'm trying to get there is the difference between a workation and the retreat. Because in most cases, at least for most retreat organizational companies when I talk to them, they usually Very vividly highlight that it's a retreat, meaning you don't work here, you connect here with each other. And to me that's the fundamental difference to compared to a workation where you connect, but also work as well.
Yeah, indeed. I think Workation is a bit used in different, in different ways on my side, to be honest. Like Workation is more like an employee, or an employee actually could actually come work with his job. Take vacation, let's say one week vacation in Bali and keep working for two additional weeks from Bali. And at this time he is basically extending his vacation in a dream location. He is working remotely. For me, this is more like that something I would call the workation. Retreat for us we can also call it a team off site. We can call it a corporate retreat. For me, these events are again super flexible. So again, this is something that we are all the time at the very first discussion we have with all the companies we are working with is really what's the goal of this event. Do you want. To strengthen the links of your employees. Do you want to do an annual planning? Do you want to do an employee onboarding? So there is different angle that we take, and based on that goal, we are scheduling and planning the whole retreat based on that, which is gonna thanks to that match and, and reach the objective for these companies. So it is really, it could be a mix of team bonding and work. It could be really focusing work, let's say employer onboarding. Annual planning with leaders or it could simply be a team bonding to reduce, like make sure that people are connecting with each other and that can better communicate in the future even through Zoom because they've been helping each other while doing hiking in our, for example, you know, so these are, these are things basically we've seen this is like a real example. We were speaking after a retreat in Bali to an HR and she was telling. It's crazy. These people never met because they were spread out all over the world. They were speaking to Zoom for a year and some people are not as active as others in term of sport. And we brought them in this hike to Mount Batur and some people were actually helping the one that were a bit weaker. And that creates just some very interesting link for the future because there is like, Collaboration. There is this you know, help in between each other, and I do believe that these physical links are super important. You cannot create that true.
That's, that's super great. And I think not just you as a startup who was providing these retreat and workation services for companies, but what I also see is that the, like a bigger industry also shifts towards this whole, so the lines are blurring. Even like I personally worked for AK Hotels French hotel group once and the way they designed now, or designing now their lobbies, for example, which, you know, these are usual hotels that you see everywhere. Almost like boring ones, right? So you go there, have a room, have some breakfast, and pretty much that's it. Maybe some events because they have some stuff. But the way they design now their lobby is to accommodate co-working spaces and workers. Maybe not guests of the hotels in a sense that that they actually get rooms as well, but they still use the services of the hotel in general and pay for money. And I think it's, it's super important to see that not just retreat companies, not just travel companies, but also the hospitality industry itself is changing towards ongoing traveling of people and people who are working remotely, working online, working as a solopreneur or working for a company full-time online. It doesn't really matter. Do you see the same trends?
Yeah, indeed. There is like a personal link there. My father is actually into that hotel industry in Belgium, and he told me like the new projects are made for these people that are on the move. Not only because of the facilities, the restaurant the rooms are designed with a desk. But as well because they, they are seeing a new trend in that booking era as well. On the hospitality site, there is that kind of daily booking that we're not really happening before. So people are actually taking meeting in these hotels. And so there is that new economy basically that is creating around that where people are coming through hotels because they can work from there and so they can basically get access to all these different services that hotel provide which basically kind of co-working space.
Yes.
It was super fascinating to me to see through my own personal journey as well because previously, I mean, I'm, I'm working remotely since 2014 and the first one or three or four years of working remotely, to me at least, was always like, I had a really very clear barrier between working and non-working. So I traveled a lot, but for shorter periods for like weeks one or two weeks usually but when I did any kind of travel, I rarely worked because I hated mixing the two together and doing more remote work later on, it actually made me to, to switch or refocus on that. And now the only part when I'm not working personally is when I'm driving the car or something. So when I'm actually moving from location A to location B but it's so easy to set up a workstation. It's so easy to do a meeting now. But, but it's, it's really interesting to see how my and also other personal mindset are changing when it comes to holiday retreat, workation, vacation. And I loved how you framed it. That workation is an extended vacation.
Yeah, indeed. And I think here is very interesting because a lot of people will actually be opposite to this and myself as well. And we see that Gen Z are actually having better barriers to that because they've seen, for example, their parents be having burnout and things like that. So they're really putting barriers. And I'm not sure it's actually a very good thing that people can actually just log in whenever they want and they don't really take their proper vacation and really, Not the right person to speak about that because I'm myself completely as you described. But I do feel that sometimes I will be actually glad if I was more able to actually put my barriers where switching off and taking some relaxed time. Because nowadays you can just log in wherever you are and. This sometimes can be quite tricky, I think just to mix all the time, personal and professional. So I do believe that this is tricky and that's actually come up to us to actually control that and to bring all barriers. For example, like at Midstay we are 12 full-time people working and one of the youngest , she 22 years old. She was basically an intern, a UX/UI, like exactly what I'm doing. She's taking a lot off of my plate and she's the one that she's basically the best at that as at like coordinating and switching in, like log in at 9:00 AM switch off at five and there is nothing in between. And she's able to reset completely and come back super fresh on the day after. And I do believe that you're just making much better work if you are actually proactive for this time of work. And then you completely switch off. And that might be the, the tricky part with this new era of work of working remotely where basically we are never able to actually switch off and that tend to be like just thinking about work all the time and finally never being as per as you will be if you were basically resetting during the rest time.
Sure, sure. I think self-management is key for everyone. But I'm wondering how they feel when they are coming to you, for example. So they are usually working somewhere, right? In their original home country or location where they had this like self-disciplined work hours or, you know, just like a routine of work. And then they are suddenly in a tropical paradise island, and everything just, you know, flies out the window. Or that's how I imagine it sometimes. Not sure how it works in real life. How do you facilitate that, that switch when they are there?
Yeah, so our customers, like basically Midstay is really a marketplace. So people are coming as a self-serve on the platform and they're really shopping whatever services they need from a coworking space to a fitness gym, to a visa to an escape with other like-minded people because we match people together to go to hike to. So we are really acting as a marketplace. We don't accept, except as by the live chat on the B2C side, we don't have contact with these people. They're really like living through the platform as a marketplace, as a SaaS solution. It's more on the B2B side where we have a direct contact with the companies where we are really facilitating hand by hand based on the goal of these companies to facilitate that. But otherwise, on the B2C side, people are just coming through our destination. They're using our services to our platform, and this is just all automated basical.
So it's pretty much a booking.com for remote companies or remote workers.
Exactly by digitalizing all the different services they need. So you don't need to chase a visa agent, you don't need to chase your insurance, you don't need to chase everything centralized in one place.
That's a really nice idea, by the way. I'm again, personal example. It is so hard. Airbnb, if you're listening, it is so hard to find great filters through Airbnb apartments when you're traveling alone. And you also want to make sure that you are working. Maybe it's a thing in the US not sure but in Europe, especially in Italy even finding a proper desk to your workplace, it's really a challenge. So I get the idea why it's super important. And how do you work with companies then? So obviously a company to me, it means that a company, it's a group of people, right? A group of individuals who trying to mingle together and work together and travel together for a certain period of time, and they probably have the same requirements and because I guess also because you're a marketplace, they also don't want to be sitting in separate locations everywhere but inside one single place where they can all spend time together, right.
Exactly. So really on that B2B side, it's not as a self-serve. We are serving companies in between 10 to 200 employees to bring them for a few from three days to 14 days together. And this is requiring much more organization to bring all these people together from flies to accommodation. To all activities to business workshops. We have certified concerns that are basically making sure that all the planning is running smoothly. So this is not as a marketplace where they just pick and play during the experience. We are really there behind them to help them. Guide them through the process, et cetera. And that's really what makes the experience valuable. I do believe, like, just to make sure that they don't need to worry about anything and everything is managed with our team of specialists. But. Yeah, I guess like what makes it quite interesting for companies is that we are able, with our local knowledge in different cities we're operating to make some buyout of full hotel of full villa complex. And so basically we are sure that all these people are all together for the accommodation because it measure team size, but as well for the mobility as well for the team activities and all these things. So yeah, I guess this is more tailor made approach for the companies. Whereas on the B2C side, we are actually more on that self-serve platform where anyone can actually plug user services, a la cart services, where they can really pick what they need. We have that quite interesting feature called Home Pulling. We are not adding us as an Airbnb to provide accommodation. But what we do is that we are matching people together that are looking for a villa together, and we basically help them to book this villa together that are outside Midstay. So could be Airbnb, could be booking, but what's our role is really matching like-minded people together, like-minded professionals.
Perfect. Perfect. And I would really love to know I'm all into performance by the way. So tracking how people are feeling from point A to point B through a journey. And what are the results? So I guess when we are talking, especially about companies, I guess the companies are coming with different goals, right? Usually these are culture related goals, so they want to connect better, engage better or discuss something that's crucial for the company for the long term, like a strategic or annual meeting or something like that. We can talk about the goals as well, because those are important. But also do you track anyhow or do you have any feedback on how they met these goals after they went home to their own location? Because that's also super important, I think.
Yeah, indeed. So I think this is all the time at the first step we are asking, really the first question is like, what's the goal above the team size, above the location they want. This is really the first thing. What's your goal? And then all, everything will be managed and will be, everything will be put in place to reach that. Once the retreat is actually over, there is a survey that is sent to all the participants where we actually turning the questions in a way that we are actually checking if the goals were reached. And all that data, all these insights are actually brought to the HR or the CE O because we are speaking to both of them, HR or CEO. And so this is really something they love actually, that is something a lot of HR, even if the objectives were not reached, are not fully reached because it's rarely rare that they're not at all reach. These HR are just taking, you know, all the feedback to make sure that the next one will be the good one and even better. And also during the next month because you know, like some companies are even doing, team retreats every quarter now. So even if it's every year, cuz we are speaking still with some that are do us every year, but mostly they're doing every six months or every quarter, they are using that data to make sure that within the workspace, the virtual workspace, they're actually bringing some solution, virtual solution to actually fill the gap where the objectives were at reach.
And this is quite interesting. And these companies who are, for example, doing any kind of retreat or workation every quarter or so are those companies mostly remote first companies because you can do this only if you don't have the office itself, anything that you would have as an expense under the office, it's reinvested into something else. And this solution can be a reinvestment for those.
Exactly. And I like that you're actually mentioning the word investment, like companies are really seeing that as an investment in their team. It's not a cost as an office will be. It's really an investment to bring the team together. But indeed, just to come back to your question regarding the type of clients we are actually working with, mainly they are hybrid. We have a few remote first, but we also saw that basically a lot of companies did not embrace fully the remote type of work. So a lot of them actually allowed a lot of employees to work from home two, three days a week and come to their office one, two days a week. And what's happening is that brings a lot of challenge, right? Because you never have the full team together. You also most probably have been reducing your real estate to just, you know, like jingle with a number of people that are out the office. That are in the office. Just like that you. Save some money and that extra money that you save is actually reinvested in this kind of events. Where some companies are using that as a reward. Part of the reward program for employees, or as an employee onboarding or as an annual planning or as a sales kickoff. There's really different kind of events and goals that we are seeing, and that's actually quite interesting because we are really seeing the new type of ideas and events and goals that are coming to us every week.
Nice. Nice. How do you see the future? So we are recording this well, late January, but still the early of the year and I asked the same questions from all the guests during these times that if you would have a crystal ball on the future of work and the future of workation or retreat travel hospitality stuff, how would you describe what would be the future?
I think, you know, it's a market that is constantly changing, because it's really just maturing and not even maturing is really just starting. So that's clearly something that we needed to know as a startup to be very agile and flexible to the market. I was thinking that all of the companies, and that will have been my dream that all of the companies were going to go remote. It did not happen. And we see some companies bringing back employees to the office. What I do believe is that all the tools have been proven to be working from home, from the pandemic. And the pandemic just teach us that it's possible. And employees were much more happier as well so these are facts that are now there and people have been educated that, and they've been shown that it's possible to do, and they've seen all the benefits. So what I know is that, and what I strongly believe, is that all the employees, even though are coming back to the office as a hybrid model, there will be a space for the retreat business. More and more employees will be pushing the employers to actually bring more and more remote or bring in more and more type of retreat to make sure that this new future of work is basically that new norm, I would say. And we won't be coming back at the office full-time. No one wants that. And the world is just changing, so the employers have to do the same. And as you know, most probably in a few years, Gen Z will be 25% of the workforce. And these are the people that are looking for experience. These are the people that are valuing better intangible assets rather than tangible assets, which is salaries basically. So they're willing to reduce the salary to have more flexibility. And so this is just like the new generation and the new generation will be here to push these new initiatives for companies and I think they will need to be ready if they still want to be competitive and attractive on the HR market. Attracting the best talents will be based on what you're offering as a company.
Nice. This is quite inspiring and I agree that younger generations usually drive this whole remote work approach, which is really interesting by the way, because previously, or at least five years ago or so the ones who were the driving force of this whole remote revolution were usually 30 to 35 people in. Why? Because they had kids. And the more time they could be able to spend time with their kids and family the more happier they become and more productive they become, by the way. But now, actually I see the same, that it's usually driven by the new generation where don't even have like a job or career thinking about their work. It's more like, I wouldn't say gig, but more like a project. And it has to be flexible and it has to be yeah, non-material in a way that it's not driven by salaries more driven by experiences. And how do you see your, your role in this personally, where you will be in next year or the end of this year, if we will record this podcast again next year.
Next year, I hope we will be expanding to more and more countries currently covering all the APAC region and a few countries in Europe. Hopefully at the end of the year we'll be serving more the market in US, so offering more destination in South America. Speaking about Mexico, Brazil Argentina. So all these places are also quite inspiring and interesting, culturally speaking. But as well with the different venues we can find there. So it's really about like the best experience to provide to these companies. And making sure as well that we have enough destination to make sure that different people being spread out all over the place are able to meet at a certain place that he's matching the best iterary for everyone. So this is where I would love to see myself at the end of the year and ourself, because I'm not alone. It's a team of 12 people that's driving the business. So yeah, hopefully we'll be there.
Appreciate and good luck of course where people can find you where people can connect you.
So myself on LinkedIn and my name is Florian Jacques and you can find a company at www.midstay.com. So it's m id s t a y.com. You can also find on LinkedIn, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, I'm very open and happy to discuss and on Twitter as well. Bit less active out there. But you can also find me there.
Nice. Thank you. Thank you for coming here and providing all the insights on workations retreat, and many more. I hope this business will be booming this year and next year because everyone not just looking for experiences, but also we are over with the pandemic and I think people are super eager to actually see the world and travel again after like years of lockdowns and restrictions. So I'm sure you're in a good place.
Thank you so much Peter was really great to be part of the show.
