Uniting employees for a common cause
CASE
Challenge
Climate change is reshaping our world – both directly and indirectly – as nations, businesses and energy providers race to transition and phase out fossil fuels. With digitalization both supporting and accelerating this transformation, a major European energy producer took on its greatest challenge ever: living a life free from fossil fuels within a generation. All they needed was for their employees to unite around this common cause. The challenge Gullers’ client enunciated was to “accelerate change and engage all employees in the transformation.” It’s no easy feat for an organization with over 20,000 employees spread across different markets – especially when employee engagement was moderate.
Solution
Gullers collaborated with the client to create an activation program featuring tools for managers and their subordinates, combined with an internal campaign to simultaneously engage all 20,000 employees across Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. The goal was to bolster engagement and pride in the client’s new vision – and the challenge they had undertaken. A digital platform became the hub of the activation program, where exercises could be easily distributed to employees and relevant measurement tools integrated. The setup ensured that both managers and their subordinates had everything they needed.
Results
The collaboration began in 2016, and the activation program and internal campaign were launched the following year. Throughout 2017, we helped managers and their subordinates delve deeply into the new purpose, goals, and fundamental principles. Since 20,000 engaged employees could become 20,000 brand ambassadors, we also encouraged the teams to familiarize themselves with the client’s new external narrative so they could confidently share it and respond to questions from, for instance, customers, friends, or family. In 2018, we shifted the focus to clarifying the connection between living a life free from fossil fuels and the daily work of both teams and individuals. It turned out that the future is an engaging topic, and the program was warmly embraced by all. Between 2016 and 2020, the client’s employee engagement index rose from 57 to 72. At the same time, the vision narrative was voted by managers across the organization as the most useful internal communications initiative for promoting the company’s new purpose and goals.
