From facility management to community management

Sustainable and healthy behaviour is also about employees’ alliance to an organisation. Annemieke van der Plaat (Sodexo) works as Community Manager at Shell in The Hague. In her role, she and the Shell Real Estate department are committed to strengthening the bond between nearly 4,000 employees.

‘How do you ensure that employees stay connected to each other and the international organisation, while largely working from home in the post-COVID era? The answer to that question can be found in community management, which goes a step further than facility management. Good facility management ensures that the basics are in order. In Shell’s case, this means safe buildings with a pleasant indoor climate, a welcoming reception, healthy restaurants with a wide range of offerings, excellent hygiene, a gym, the ability to work activity-based and good communication.

In community management, we dive even deeper into the organisation to find out exactly how to connect employees and respond to that with community activities.

‘Based on that knowledge, we created an event calendar with a variety of activities that also regularly overlap with sustainability, spearheaded by both Shell and Sodexo. The activities are based on four pillars. Community management fosters creativity within teams and networking groups and turns the office into a vibrant place again. That way, you create not only vital but also proud employees. To quote Shell’s objective: 'A sustainable campus where people are happy to work and connect, where enough offer is on fun and the place to be for being together as a team.'

Pillars of community activities

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Days of celebration

Celebrating together connects us. Because Shell is an international organisation, we celebrate (inter)national holidays. For instance, we organised a spring celebration, where employees were given tulips and could participate in an Easter egg challenge.

Development & vitality

We contribute to vitality by offering employees a vitality check, for example. Or a programme that allows them to prepare for an obstacle run with a Shell team. But this could also take the shape of involving someone from the sports world.

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Network & experience

We organise bi-monthly network drinks with inspiring speakers, for example. New employees can take part in a monthly tour of the premises. The element of surprise is important in this pillar. For example, we once had trained specialists hand out personal compliments.

Social impact & sustainability

We organised a surprise campaign where employees were given a tray of compost from Shell’s composting machines. In terms of social impact, there was a spinning event as a sponsorship initiative for the Food Bank, and we initiated a food collection campaign. There were also disability and diversity and inclusion activities.

The work environment of the future

With Vital Spaces Sodexo helps organisations create future-proof work environments: in the office, at home or elsewhere. For example, using community management to strengthen the connection between employees and the company. Discover here what Vital Spaces can do for your organisation.