IA few days ago, the company KRE Concept, specializing in architecture and office design, posted photos on LinkedIn of its latest “team building” session, described as a “unforgettable moment of conviviality between colleagues”.
A commando course? An escape game? Bungee jumping? None of that. What unites the teams so effectively is a blond and odorous material made from raw milk: raclette cheese. To sound the trumpets of virality, the hashtags summoned for the occasion do not go by half measures, against a backdrop of photos where the guests with happy faces stand next to the slices of charcuterie: #EspritDequipe, #AmbianceChaleureuse. All that’s missing is Santa Claus doing a dab and the snow in the background to make you think you’re in Deux-Alpes.
We must face the facts: the suspicion that has weighed on table football since its exploitation by the world of start-ups has led to the emergence of new strategies to make office life friendly. As sociologists Edgar Cabanas and Eva Illouz suggested in the work Happycracy. How the happiness industry has taken over our lives (Premier Parallèle, 2018), working together is no longer enough. We must now be happy together. It’s this snapshot of happiness on command that corporate raclette represents. “Comfort food” par excellence, this dish from the Swiss Valais first established itself in the French mountains, before trickling down to the plains, thanks to the laws of gravity and marketing strategies aimed at extending it temporally and consumption geographically.
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Symbolizing today the pinnacle of cool for the urban mountaineer, to the point that it is fashionable to announce on the networks the “season launch” wrapped in its Patagonia fleece, the raclette comes with a second-degree gratin layer: in certain companies, it does not go without its ugly sweater competition, its distribution of lame gifts and a tasting of mulled wine.
But behind the fun and sharing, office raclette could fall within the framework of what Le Cheese Geek, a company which offers “team building” workshops around cheese tasting, calls « cheese building ».
Unconscious of the hunter-gatherer
An emerging HR discipline, “cheese building” consists of spreading certain slogans hidden under the lactic ferments, while passing you the plate of Graubünden meat. The first of these is a feeling of well-being associated with the face-to-face situation, such as “are we not comfortable here? “. If there are now “raclette bowls”, which allow you to participate solo and by video in the cheese orgy, group raclette generates an office-cocoon atmosphere which is a timely reminder that… outside, it is cold.
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