Frederic Joye of software development outsourcing company Arcanys has personally experienced the transformative—and healing—power of sports in his life and work
When I was an eight-year-old growing up in Switzerland, I experienced a deep trauma that changed me forever. As a victim of a crime, I shut down mentally: where I was once an outgoing child, I became withdrawn. My mind suppressed the memory of it, but my body couldn’t, and my weight piled on from constant overeating.
Things only reached crisis point years later when I almost crashed my car after becoming overwhelmed by a wave of negative emotions. Desperate for help, I called a friend whose mother was a psychiatrist, and that’s when my slow journey toward health and healing started. It was a complicated process—I had to end my relationship with my longtime girlfriend whom I loved but felt conflicted about, as I’d long struggled with what society expected of me—that I’d find a wife and have children in a “perfect” house with a white picket fence.
Ultimately, it was through the internet that I discovered a community of people facing similar struggles, giving me for the first time the feeling of how powerful and freeing it was to feel supported and accepted.
Soon after, I felt motivated enough to start cultivating healthier habits, like eating mindfully and exercising regularly at the gym. I weighed close to 100kg when I started my health journey, and over time, lost 35 kg. This personal win in turn empowered me to become an entrepreneur and move to Asia when I turned 30, where I eventually co-founded Arcanys, a software development outsourcing company in the Philippines.
While my business partner and I spent the first five years working very hard to build our company, our priority from the outset was always to create an inclusive work culture that helped its people thrive long-term.
We have introduced “Wellness Wednesdays”, weekly talks which covered key topics such as good nutrition, LGBTQ issues and sexual health—a sensitive but necessary matter in the Philippines, where many remain unaware of how sexually transmitted diseases spread. We’re currently working on expanding the scope of these talks to boost diversity and inclusion efforts. We've only just scratched the surface in these talks, and now are working on it for the month of June and will be implementing better diversity and inclusion initiatives within the company this year.
One of the longest-running efforts in the company, however, is something that is close to my heart. Having personally experienced how sports can build confidence and resilience, I wanted to make sure that everyone could have access to these benefits. Our company started partially sponsoring employees to compete in Spartan’s first races in Cebu in 2018, then experimented with setting up a Spartan training ground there. Since then, we have taken employees to different places in the Philippines and Malaysia to race, and started offering free gym memberships to our team as well.
In a world that often emphasises our differences, sports have the unique ability to bring people together. Embracing sports not only brings physical and mental benefits, it also creates bonds and bridges gaps between people from diverse backgrounds. This is especially relevant in the workplace, where promoting inclusivity is crucial for fostering a positive and productive environment.