From workplace to a great place to work

Campus Río RÍO Shopping Valladolid, Spain

Located in Arroyo de la Encomienda (Valladolid, Spain), RÍO Shopping is a rather large centre that’s home for 2,000 coworkers.

Creating a sense of cohesion and comfort among all the coworkers, is a great way to start the journey that will eventually transform our spaces from traditional shopping centres, to innovative meeting places.

With this in mind, from February to August 2018 RÍO Shopping organised a large event that consisted in monthly inspirational coaching sessions for all its co-workers, including employees at the local IKEA store, the tenants’ co-workers and, at a later stage, even the general community.

It all started with a survey called El Estirón, (“The Big Stretch” in Spanish) that reached out to everyone who calls RÍO Shopping their workplace and had the purpose of investigating about how people feel working at RÍO Shopping.

One of the highlighted results of the survey was a general wish to develop themselves and their teams to be better prepared to meet the customer. From security, to cleaners and shop assistants, all our co-workers come in contact with customers at different levels every day, so many thought that customer relations was an important point to start from. 

That’s how the initiative Campus RÍO took life. 

Our RÍO Shopping team worked with coaching experts planning and implementing six monthly sessions that took place in one of the movie theatres in RÍO Shopping. Topics spanned from how to develop talent, to how to influence others and how to optimise teamwork in collaborative environments.

After the successful first coaching session in February, the remaining sessions were opened for everyone – including customers and visitors – to support those who may find themselves looking for work or just looking to learn and develop themselves.

“I recommend these courses to everyone who wants to make important changes in their lives, step out of their comfort zones, and needs a small push to make it happen.”

 Daniel, tenant co-worker

Campus Rio_Mario-Barros

“Initiatives like El Estirón and Campus RÍO are fundamental for us to create a single culture and one vision for our meeting place. By engaging the many people, including our customers and everyone working here, together we will create a sense of belonging, and RÍO Shopping will become an even bigger and more relevant part of the community.” - Mario Barros, RÍO Shopping manager

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