They did it! Congratulations are in order for our Members of Vialto Partners, who recently won the Best Employee Mobility Company Award at the 2024 edition of the HR Excellence Awards. Director Global Mobility Nico Verberckt and Senior Manager Isabelle Clerinx took their time to tell us about the hard work and Vialto team spirit that helped them earn this recognition and talk us through a lovely evening that left them with the peculiar nickname The Kissing Company.
Nico: Thank you! Employee mobility really is the core of our activities at Vialto, so it’s needless to say that we are very happy with this achievement. Also especially because we won this award in the first two years of our existence as an independent organisation.
Isabelle: Two years ago, we became a fully stand-alone corporation with the help of a private equity investor. We participated in the HR Excellence Awards before we split off from our former company, but this was the first time we joined the competition as Vialto Partners. Reason the more to be extremely proud of winning this acknowledgement!
Nico: Over the period of a couple of weeks, Isabelle and I worked on a case study in which we presented all possible procedures and activities that shape our client approach at Vialto Partners. Think of employee recruitment, optimisation of remuneration packages, employment law, payroll, emigration, declaration... Briefly put: everything in which we assist our clients as a tax and immigration service organisation focused on solving cross-border and global mobility issues. This hands-on approach, in combination with the technology we put at the disposal of our clients to use, eventually led to the decision of the judges to award us with the title of Best Employee Mobility Company.
Isabelle: You see, the Global Mobility industry is very specific and constantly changing. As most companies don’t have the right expertise in-house, they need an external partner working alongside them who guides them through the full process. It’s important that this partner understands their client and offers tailor-made solutions for each individual company.
Nico: That’s exactly why we call ourselves Vialto Partners, because we partner up with our clients to think about which solutions would support their growth. With them, not for them.
Nico: Definitely! There is a big difference with two years ago when we worked far more separately than we do now. We now have the freedom to actively bring together the various teams, and we try our best to involve everybody at Vialto in whatever is going on. To really take on our business as one team.
Isabelle: There is a lot of open communication and attention for personal wellbeing, and our company culture is not hierarchic at all. Everybody at Vialto essentially works towards the same goal, which is to offer the full package to our clients and to our colleagues.
This is naturally no obvious task, but it works given the freedom, flexibility and trust we’re granted. For instance; I have a small child myself who was ill quite often a little while ago. I never had to take up any leave to unexpectedly pick him up during the day, and I always felt like I could be very transparent about this towards clients as well. As long as you take up the responsibility to finish your work on time, nothing is out of the question.
Isabelle: For starters, we ask our team to be at the office a couple of days a week. Which is no problem for most people, though we have to remind certain colleagues from time to time [laughs]. COVID got us used to the convenience and flexibility from working from home, but at the same time you really notice how people need a physical touchpoint as well. Everybody loves to be part of a community.
Nico: It’s a challenge, no denial in that. As part of our strategy, we based our offices on a 60% capacity. For juniors this is definitely an additional challenge, since they don’t enjoy the same connection with their colleagues as the people who have been with us for a longer time already. Some people don’t see each other for months, even though they work together almost every day. That’s why we actively organise several initiatives to bring about that connectivity. To give you a couple of examples: we recently organised a spring brunch at every office, in November we organised a team meeting in Brussels with our CEO who came to visit us all the way from the USA, and there was the topic meeting in Eindhoven on 19th April with a DJ at the end of the day. We try to plan these events early enough to give everyone the chance to participate. And with result, since we notice how 95% of the team shows up.
Isabelle: Most people really look forward to those initiatives. Especially when food and drinks are involved!
Nico: Anne de Baetzelier and Virginie Claes were our hosts for the evening, and we were the first company to be invited to collect our award. When they called our name, we were so enthusiastic that we brought the whole table on stage and started to kiss everyone who was up there with us! Anne de Baetzelier called us The Kissing Company for that, and apparently we set a trend, because all of the other winners made sure to include a kissing round as well whilst collecting their award [laughs].
Nico: It definitely was! You give your clients the opportunity to broaden their professional network, but you also get to know each other in a very different way during evenings like these. You hardly talk about work related topics at all, since you connect as people who have a personal life of their own.
Isabelle: I feel like that defines the core of what we do. To always keep attention to that personal connection with your clients and your own team. To not regard the people you work with as a numbered project, but to truly see them as your partners.
Vialto Partners, what’s in a name.
