Case study: Enhancing employee engagement and communication at Shell Real Estate
Shell’s Real Estate Function (RE), a global division focused on real estate, business operations, and corporate travel, identified a need to enhance its communication and engagement strategies. Despite receiving consistently high feedback scores (averaging above 4.5 out of 5), the function wanted to improve attendance and engagement during key gatherings. To address this, the Change and Engage team partnered with The Gathering Effect to transform its quarterly real estate gatherings and foster more meaningful interactions and alignment.
Key Challenges
The quarterly global webcasts play a crucial role in aligning employees with Shell RE's strategic goals and progress. However, key issues hindered their effectiveness:
Informative Rather Than Engaging: The gatherings were primarily focused on delivering information, resulting in passive listening rather than active engagement, leading to reduced connection and participation.
Lack of Clear Goals: Without defined success metrics, it was difficult to measure the impact of these gatherings or determine if they effectively motivated employees to collaborate toward strategic goals.
Shell RE posed a critical question: How do we maximise the impact of our engagement events?
Rethinking the Approach
Gatherings often fall on a spectrum from “push” (information delivery) to “pull” (inviting participation) and from “one-size-fits-all” to personalized experiences. Shell RE discovered that the key difference between gatherings that merely inform and those that truly engage lies in cultivating a stronger emotional connection and fostering co-creation.
The Gathering Effect Model
Diagnosing the Current State
The Gathering Effect conducted a comprehensive diagnosis using webcast recordings, survey data (both qualitative and quantitative), and a diverse focus group of 25 employees from around the world. Together, we identified the current state of the gatherings as largely informative.
Strengths:
Consistent atmosphere of warmth, genuine care, and openness throughout the global webcasts.
Use of a skilled facilitator who serves as "the voice of the employee."
Strong commitment from the Change and Engage team to actively involve employees.
Positive overall employee sentiment towards the webcasts.
Opportunities for Improvement and Defining the Ideal State
Clarify the Desired Effect: Clearly define the objective of each gathering and communicate it using language that resonates with employees, emphasizing the benefits for them (‘what’s in it for me’, ‘what can I expect’).
Enhance Information Retention: Use ‘brain-friendly’ techniques to help employees better absorb and remember key messages.
Provide Clear Takeaways: Offer concise, actionable insights and specify what is expected of employees to ensure clarity and direction.
Shift from Informing to Engaging: Move beyond information delivery by inviting active participation using various channels / methods and tailoring content to the audience’s needs.
Boost Content Relevance: Ensure the topics are directly relevant to employees, as this is a major driver of attendance and engagement. Use of storytelling and simple language.
Promote Dialogue and Co-Creation: Create opportunities for two-way communication, allowing employees to share input and influence the direction of the gathering.
Enhancing Global Webcasts: Key Adjustments
To shift the focus of their global webcasts from merely informing to actively engaging, the Real Estate communication and engagement (C&E) team implemented three strategic levers:
Pre and Post-Communication:
Leadership Messaging: Leaders personalized their invitations, clarifying the specific role employees were expected to play. Framing the agenda around key questions instead of topics it fosters a sense of ownership and engagement among participants.
Setting Clear Expectations: Messages before and after the webcast highlighted key takeaways and aligned the audience with the intended outcomes.
During the Webcast:
Clear, Focused Agendas: A “What’s in it for me?” segment increased relevance and engagement.
Streamlined Content: Concentrated on core messages to reduce information overload, the team concentrated on core messages. Each section ended with a clear call to action and a Q&A session, ensuring participants understood the desired outcomes.
Clarified Participation Channels: The C&E team provided explicit guidance to staff on how to comment and ask questions, making it easier for employees to engage effectively.
Post-Webcast Actions:
“After Show” Materials: Employees received conversation starters to help translate key points into actionable insights within smaller group discussions.
Summarized Takeaways helped reinforce the main points with a concise summary at the end of each webcast.
Outcome-Focused Surveys: the C&E team revamped their feedback surveys to focus on results rather than reactions. Instead of gauging satisfaction, we asked questions like: What is your key takeaway? How motivated are you to support Real Estate’s broader initiatives as a result of this webcast? How well do you understand Real Estate’s objectives?
Results and Impact
Before working with The Gathering Effect, Shell RE’s gatherings varied widely in business value, with agendas primarily focused on sharing information and building awareness. Now, our quarterly webcast agendas are purposefully crafted around desired outcomes, transforming the focus from presenting content to achieving tangible results and engagement
This shift has significantly enhanced the value of global webcasts. Because the sessions are tailored to employees' needs and expectations, employees are now more engaged and aligned with desired changes.
One notable impact: 98% of respondents in a recent webcast reported a clearer understanding of the department expectations, reflecting a marked improvement in communication effectiveness.
“We are like Gathering Effect disciples now – constantly asking each other, ‘what does personal engagement truly mean?.’ That’s the game changer – gearing everything to the effect you need”
We gather for connection, not information.
Shell’s Real Estate team boosted connection by shifting their Global Webcasts from predominantly one-size-fits-all to personalized. Employees seek personal engagement over mere information, which in turn helps bridge the gap between leadership and employees, fostering a sense of relevance and inclusion.
Employees crave recognition and relevance in the content shared during these gatherings, seeking to understand how it impacts them and what is expected of them.
Lindsey Caplan is a screenwriter turned organizational psychologist who helps HR and business leaders design group moments that drive engagement and move people to act