Impulse #22: On the Road for an Open Corporate Culture

„A strong corporate culture thrives on a strong team spirit. I was impressed to experience the ‘ONE ENGIE’ spirit at all ENGIE companies in Germany.“

What is the heart of corporate culture for you? For me, it is the dialogue between people that shapes and keeps the culture alive. It is based on shared corporate values and goals, as well as a common mindset and collectively driven approaches to a company’s strategic alignment. For a year now, I have been representing the ENGIE Group in Germany as Country Manager and CEO of ENGIE Deutschland AG. And I can say: The corporate culture of ENGIE in Germany is something special. From my perspective, it is both the backbone and a success factor for our company – and it is particularly strengthened in these challenging times.

Bringing Our Strategy to Life

At ENGIE, we also face urgent demands for sustainable change. Politics, business, and society are currently more challenged than ever to set crucial courses for the future, both to advance the energy transition and to secure the future viability of our country. This requires a fundamental transformation of energy supply – and we at ENGIE want to make an important contribution to this in Germany, Europe, and worldwide. We see it as our mission not only to accompany our customers on their path to climate neutrality but to actively accelerate this process of decarbonization. To achieve this, we have set ambitious goals and realigned ENGIE’s activities in Germany.

Free Passage for the Transformation Process

For the first time ever, the management of the German ENGIE companies developed a joint strategy for the German market at the end of 2023. Today, around 5,900 employees at 50 locations nationwide are working in the five areas of “Renewables,” “Networks,” “Flex Gen & Retail,” “Energy Solutions,” and “Global Energy Management & Sales,” as well as in Business Support for our customers – a decentralized, large team with diverse functions and different areas. Yet all with the vision of “climate neutrality” in mind and within a strong, united corporate culture. Because we are ONE ENGIE. Nevertheless, bringing our joint strategy to life in this context is a major task and a comprehensive change process within the ENGIE companies in Germany. Personally, it is very important to me to take all employees along on our transformation journey as best as possible. How can this be achieved? The management team and I have been thinking about this for many months. And we found the answer for ENGIE: The symbolic starting point for our transformation is a roadshow with a promotion truck that visits many locations in Germany, providing the opportunity for information and exchange with as many colleagues as possible. We literally drive “onto the yard,” because bottom-up communication is even more important in the transformation process than usual. We want to promote an open and engaged corporate culture and hear what employees think, what they like about ENGIE – and where there is a need for action.

On the Way to Our Employees

Said and done: 6 ½ weeks, 4,600 kilometers, 21 locations, and 2,300 personally reached employees are the result of a roadshow like never before at ENGIE. And countless encounters and intense conversations. It started in Gera, Thuringia – after touring all over Germany, we visited Munich and Deggendorf in Bavaria to conclude. I can certainly speak for my colleagues from the management of the ENGIE companies in Germany when I say how inspiring we found this dialogue. Because it is the heart of our corporate culture. Although I was unfortunately unable to attend all stops personally, all the stops I visited moved me. Therefore, it is important to me to express my thanks here: first to the truck team, which has put together an outstanding project over the past months. And secondly, to all the people who took the time to visit us in the “ONE ENGIE” truck. The interest and great openness impressed me. By the way: It was essential for us that our promotion truck was completely climate-neutral. We achieved this because the truck ran on HVO 100 biodiesel, which is 90 percent CO2-neutral. Additionally, we offset the remaining ten percent of CO2 emissions through a reforestation measure in the Eifel – in line with ENGIE’s “Real Zero” goal.

The Whole ENGIE World in a Truck

What was there for our team to discover on the Germany tour? From the beginning, there was consensus that we did not want a standard meeting or boring PowerPoint battles. Instead, we designed the 65-square-meter interior of the truck as an interactive communication space – informative, entertaining, and varied. Of course, getting to know the various operational units and our joint strategy better was the focus. But the “ONE ENGIE” truck offered so much more: from topics such as occupational safety, corporate social & environmental responsibility, and diversity to artificial intelligence and our corporate values with the “ONE ENGIE” philosophy.

We Live “ONE ENGIE”!

In addition, we set up our so-called “culture tent” next to the truck at the locations and invited employees to share their feedback on the “ONE ENGIE” strategy with us in two short workshop modules. Here, too, the commitment was overwhelming: From 110 workshops, we took away 4,400 thoughts. I was particularly impressed that 95 percent of all participants stated that they were rather willing to very willing to actively contribute to achieving the “ONE ENGIE” vision. Many of our employees associate “ONE ENGIE” with team diversity, colleagues who are like family, renewable energies, and sustainability, according to another result. Furthermore, we wanted to know which topics we need to address from the employees’ perspective to achieve the “ONE ENGIE” strategy 2030: Here, process efficiency and implementation speed were reflected in numerous responses – challenges that many companies are likely to face.

Our Transformation Journey Continues – Together!

This feedback is extremely valuable to us in the management team. The results will flow into our further transformation strategy: This summer, we will start analyzing best practice approaches in the company and, in the next step, initiate corresponding pilot projects that have a broad impact and thus further advance ENGIE in Germany as a whole. In the spirit of a transparent, collaborative corporate culture, we will continue to talk about this: Every quarter, we organize one-hour “ONE ENGIE Teams Sessions” for employees in all areas, where continuous updates on this project are also on the agenda. Because: We can only shape the “ONE ENGIE” transformation together. Our roadshow was just the first stop on this journey. I invite each and every one of you to make an active contribution and look forward to the further process with all of you!

Dear colleagues who visited us at the “ONE ENGIE” truck: How did you experience the roadshow? And perhaps this editorial also reaches readers with similar transformation processes in their own companies – what experiences would you like to share with us? I look forward to the exchange via email or on LinkedIn!

Ihr

Eric Stab
Chairman of the Board of ENGIE Deutschland AG