enSoie

Zarina and Tatiana are part of the sales team. At enSoie, their job is to make customers feel welcome and well-advised. The two have been working together for years and are also very close in their personal lives. During their lunch break, they talked about how work colleagues become friends and what that means for a team.

Tatiana: How would you describe our work, Zarina?

Zarina: That is not easy... It is definitely more than just selling products! In our role as sales assistants, we act as ambassadors for enSoie, its personality, and its brand philosophy. We put our heart and soul into our work and always try to respond to our customers with expert advice, patience, and understanding. In my mind, I always have this image of a beautiful flower. enSoie is the flower and we employees are butterflies collecting its nectar and passing it on to the customers, eventually taking it back again. The flower grows and emits joie de vivre.

Tatiana: What a great way of putting it! Shopping at enSoie should be an experience. We want our customers to leave the store feeling happy.

Zarina: That requires us sales assistants to always be present, attentive, empathetic, and patient. Physically, our job is not without challenges either! We are on our feet all day, always there for our customers, never able to rest for long.

Tatiana: Especially around Christmas. We are always on the move. But I love this time! It shows what a good team we are and how valuable that is. For example, if one of us is having an off day, the rest of the team steps up and takes over some of their work. This means the affected colleague can spend a little more time in the back office, for example. None of the others are jealous or feel as though they are being treated unfairly.

Zarina: For me, good teamwork also means not having to worry about anything at work. Another sign that our team works well together is that I always look forward to seeing the team again the next day.

Tatiana: Yes, I feel the same way. I really like the people I work with. Most of them are not just colleagues. They are friends. That is a great advantage for our work. Because we know each other this well and are used to working together, we often don't even need words to communicate.

Zarina: That is something unique. Especially because we are a very diverse team in terms of age and stage of life. Some of us are nearing retirement, while our youngest employees have not even finished high school. Some of us have just started families, while others' children have just left home, and so on.

Tatiana: Yes, we are! We also have different mother tongues and professional backgrounds. For example, you are a lawyer from Uzbekistan, while I am a trained florist who grew up in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Our team also speaks Ukrainian, Albanian, Serbian, Portuguese and Spanish. We have make-up artists, seamstresses, mothers, historians, students, and people with artistic backgrounds. The work at enSoie unites us, we are one heart!

Zarina: We feel like a team at work. And after work, we are friends who celebrate birthdays together, exchange recipes or even go on holiday together. And that is incredibly valuable.