Canada's Top 100 Employers (2025) Magazine - Flipbook - Page 57
57
( 2025 ) SPONSOR CONTENT
Curiosity and innovation fuel Shell’s evolution
A
fter 27 years with Shell
Canada Limited, Kirsten
Sauder can sum up in a
single word why she has
made her career there: people. “The
great people I’ve worked with and
the very empathetic leaders I’ve
worked for, who helped shape my
own leadership style,” she says, “are
the number one reason.”
“We need people who will be
curious, willing to accept that
change will happen, and lean
in on it while accepting that
they might need to change
too – to learn, grow and do
something new.”
— Susannah Pierce
President and Country Chair
The resulting workplace culture
– supportive, flexible and innovative
– has been a hallmark of Calgarybased Shell throughout her time
there, says Sauder, manager, supply
and commercial fuels. “I learned that
very early on in my career when I
lost my father. It was a rapid set of
circumstances, and I had burned
through most of my vacation by
the time it happened. But my line
manager was highly supportive, and
management helped make sure I had
the time I needed to deal with the
loss. That meant a lot to me.”
“Our core values are honesty, integrity and respect for people,” says
Shell Canada president and country
chair Susannah Pierce. “The ability
to be mentored, to get feedback and
feel like you’re learning, brought me
into the organization back in 2009.
Ever since, each role I’ve had, I’ve
been able to stretch and grow.”
Shell strives to foster a culture
where employees feel that they can
speak freely with their colleagues
and line managers, Pierce says.
“Having safe conversations and
working together to advance business outcomes while leveraging our
current skills is a key differentiator
for Shell and how we get stuff done
moving forward together.”
Safe workplace conversations
include those about health, both
mental and physical. “Mental
health is absolutely a focus of ours,
an area where we are constantly
re-evaluating how to give people the
support they need,” says Pierce. “The
work I’ve been doing with our chief
health officer and our HR lead is a
systemic look at mental health, to
better understand what are the right
conditions to maintain it, so we’re
not just supporting those suffering,
we’re dealing upfront with causes.”
When the workplace offers opportunities for career advancement
and the sort of support that buoyed
Sauder in a difficult time, Pierce
says, it has the core ingredients for
a strong two-way loyalty. “Employee
engagement and workplace culture
are key to being a top employer,” she
says, “and we will certainly not be
on any such list if we don’t get that
right.”
Part of getting it right is an acceptance of constant change, Pierce
adds. “We continue to innovate in
terms of understanding what drives
the most productivity and what
drives the best employee engagement.” Shell is something of an
outlier in its industry, as Sauder
points out, in maintaining a hybrid
Susannah Pierce, president and country chair, at Shell Canada.
office schedule. “It’s working well
for us,” says Pierce. “While it might
not work for every company, here
it’s based on employee engagement,
and I think it offers the best of both
worlds.”
A similar commitment is also what
the company seeks in its new hires.
Individual employees will need to be
as innovative as Shell strives to be,
Pierce says. “We have our values, but
we’re also looking for people who
$
1,900
wellness spending account
acknowledge that we must be constantly open to change. The context
of our business, our competitiveness,
will be challenged through the
continuing evolution of the energy
sector,” she says.
“We need people who will be
curious, willing to accept that change
will happen, and lean in on it while
accepting that they might need to
change too – to learn, grow and do
something new.” ¢
12,920
staff volunteer hours last year
You can progress as we
work on the energy
transition together.
We are unique people powerful together.
Learn more at Shell.ca/Careers
Power Your Progress
