[Webinar] "Better Communication and Collaboration in Local Government"

It’s often said that local government organizations — and the public sector more broadly — are “behind” in their digital transformation. A gap that can be explained by a lack of suitable tools for communicating and collaborating in real time and sharing the right information with all staff.

To address these challenges, more and more local authorities are choosing to modernize their tools. But which ones should they prioritize? And how can they ensure a successful deployment?

That was the topic of our April 12, 2022 webinar, “Better Communication and Collaboration in Local Government”, during which three speakers shared their best practices and real-world experience:

• Philippe Pinault, CEO and Co-founder of Talkspirit
• Elise Roy, Communications Manager at the Town Hall of Mauges-sur-Loire
• Jack Noël, Deputy Municipal Councillor at the Town Hall of Josselin

Here is a summary of their contributions.

Why Replace Emails and Internal Newsletters?

“Even today, emails and the internal newsletter remain the preferred communication tools in most local authorities”, notes Philippe Pinault. As evidence: “according to a étude de Cap’ Com, 71% of local authorities use the internal print newsletter as their main internal communication channel.”

While widely used, these tools have clear limitations — they don’t allow organizations to…

• communicate and collaborate synchronously,
• collect feedback from field staff,
• bring together different departments,
• foster peer support and cross-team exchanges,
• or boost the productivity of staff.

Which Internal Communication Tools Should You Choose?

Fortunately, there are alternatives! Depending on your organization’s needs, you can opt for:

• A “best-in-class” tool — for example, specialized in video conferencing, instant messaging, document storage, or project management
• An enterprise social network (ESN) or an intranet to modernize your internal communications
• A collaborative platform that combines both communication and collaboration features

A true all-in-one solution, Talkspirit adapts to all these needs, enabling both internal communication and collaborative work for staff and elected officials, thanks to:

• a welcome portal bringing together all your organization’s news,
• a news feed for publishing and reacting to posts,
• working groups, to facilitate collaboration and exchanges between departments,
• modules for video conferencing and webinars to hold internal meetings and brainstorm together,
• a project management module, to organize your editorial calendar and give staff an overview of all their tasks,
• an online office suite for storing, sharing, and co-editing all types of documents

This all-in-one aspect is one of the reasons both Mauges-sur-Loire and Josselin chose to implement Talkspirit. Here’s a snapshot of their respective experiences.

Testimonial: The Town Hall of Mauges-sur-Loire

Located in the Maine-et-Loire department, Mauges-sur-Loire is a municipality of 18,000 residents with 65 elected officials et 350 staff members dispersed across offices and field locations, across around thirty different sites.

An information-sharing challenge

Given this geographic spread, “staff tended to feel siloed in their area, and struggled to know what was happening in other departments”, explains Elise Roy, Communications Manager.

A problem the internal newsletter — the only communication tool the town hall had used until then — was unable to solve. The reason? “The format was very top-down, it didn’t encourage interactions between staff” and didn’t allow hot news to be shared in real time.

Following an internal survey, the town hall realized it needed a tool that would allow all staff “to’access the same information at the same time […], on computer, tablet, or smartphone”, and to work collaboratively on documents.

Read also: Local Government: 6 Best Practices to Optimize Your Internal Communication

Talkspirit: a tool tailored to the town hall’s needs

The municipality turned to Talkspirit, which it now uses to:

• share information with staff,
• facilitate exchanges between departments,
• and work in project mode with elected officials in commission-based groups.

Nine months after the platform launch, the results are clear. For Elise Roy, Talkspirit has helped to:

• “create a shared culture […] and a supportive atmosphere”,
• recognize and celebrate staff contributions,
• improve the speed of exchanges,
• and streamline information flow.

Read the full story from Elise Roy, Head of Communications, Town Hall of Mauges-sur-Loire.

Testimonial: The Town Hall of Josselin

Smaller than Mauges-sur-Loire, Josselin is a municipality in the Morbihan department with 2,500 residents, around twenty staff members et 19 municipal councillors. 

A collaboration and information consolidation challenge

Following a request from the General Directorate of Services, Jack Noël, Deputy Municipal Councillor, set out to find a GDPR-compliant tool that would “digitize meeting notices sent to elected officials”. It was also important to ensure that information was properly distributed to all staff and to facilitate collaboration between staff and elected officials.

To go further: Download our practical guide “Digital Sovereignty Explained to Organizations”

A wide range of use cases

After benchmarking several tools, the municipality chose Talkspirit, which it now uses for many purposes, including:

• storing and sharing working documents,
• streamlining exchanges between staff and elected officials, wherever they are,
• managing appointments for citizens’ administrative needs (such as passport or ID card applications), and for Covid-19 vaccination,
• “consolidating the results of each polling station in real time during elections”..

Thanks to Talkspirit, the municipality can bring all staff and elected officials together on one platform, and facilitate communication and collaboration between departments.

Read the full story from Jack Noël, Deputy Municipal Councillor, and Cécile Québriac, Director General of Services, Town Hall of Josselin.

Best Practices for Deploying Such a Tool

Of course, deploying a tool like Talkspirit requires following several best practices. According to our three speakers, it’s especially important to:

• Clearly identify your needs, constraints, and intended use for the tool
• Verify that the tool is GDPR-compliant and can digitize your exchanges
• Test the tool with staff before going live
• Prepare the platform launch, including creating a dedicated communications plan
• Clarify the tool’s role relative to existing tools
• Keep the tool alive and accompagner new usage patterns on an ongoing basis (for example, through ambassadors)

Read also: 3 Key Actions to Successfully Launch Talkspirit

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As you can see, deploying a collaborative tool is essential for better communication and collaboration in local government. The choice is yours — you can get started by checking our top 13 best collaborative platforms.

Read also: [Methodological guide] 8 key steps to choosing your collaborative platform

Want to hear directly from our three speakers? Watch the replay of our webinar « Better Communication and Collaboration in Local Government »:

Watch the replay

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Author: Emmanuelle Abensur