CASE STUDY
How Shopify increased Employee Resource Group participants from 120 to 600+ with PlusPlus to create a sense of belonging virtually
400%
800%
5-Star
increase in employees joining such resource groups and communities
increase in events registrations & engagements
feedback on 100% of events
400%
increase in employees joining such resource groups and communities
800%
increase in events registrations & engagements
5-Star
feedback on 100% of events
What were the key challenges?
How do you create an exciting and engaging, month-long community celebration remotely for globally distributed teams?
Diversity is imperative at Shopify and they believe it is essential to make commerce better for everyone. They thrive for a company culture where everyone feels included, valued, and heard. One of their Diversity & Belonging initiatives is the Latinx Employee Resource Group (ERG).
Prior to the pandemic, they were able to offer in-person events to celebrate different cultures, including activities during the Latinx Heritage Month. All of the gatherings throughout the month were a success, especially with the ability for employees to find out what’s going on at the office the day of. It was easy to offer a welcoming and engaging experience in person and employees felt connected. The Latinx ERG group leaders were excited to figure out how to offer even better experiences in the coming years. And then in 2020, everything had to switch to remote quickly.
The challenge was figuring out how to create an exciting, engaging, month-long community celebration, and how to make everyone feel welcomed and connected globally, virtually. It was essential to figure it out quickly so the company’s strong culture of inclusivity stayed prominent during the time of uncertainty for many.
What approach worked?
Facilitators rolled up their sleeves and dove right in by experimenting in creating engagement opportunities, including utilizing popular social media challenges and offering casual virtual hangouts, but found out quickly it was difficult to get active engagements through computer screens when events were happening randomly. Throughout failed and successful experiments, they decided to open up opportunities for anyone to raise their hand and host an event. Empower the employees to create, grow, and engage with their own communities the way they want to.
To make it easy for anyone to stand up their own initiatives and activities, and creating a way to showcase all of what’s happening in one single place, Shopify relied on PlusPlus. The ease of finding what’s happening when helped with the increase of participants and also helped increase the number of employee volunteers with event ideas of their own. Just within the week leading up to the official kick off of Latinx Heritage Month, the Latinx ERG saw an increase in members by 200+.
By the time their first virtual Latinx History Month ended, they had 1,257 total registrants, compared to 113 the year prior (800% increase!) They saw a significant increase in Slack engagements also; another indication that more and more employees were connecting with others and saw a stronger sense of community virtually.
Shopify continues to successfully offer virtual events to employees with PlusPlus. With the ability to receive anonymous feedback, they are able to improve offerings while helping create stronger employee connections and a sense of belonging.
Key takeaways
Giving employees the tools and resources to run their own events virtually allows for more inclusion and diversity in events being offered
Employees love to share their own knowledge and participate in community building
Ease in finding all of upcoming events and activities in one place helps increase participation and engagements
Similar challenges? Let us help you!
Similar challenges when it comes to creating virtual communities and engagements? Let us help you!
