[Webinar] Better Information Sharing for Better Decision-Making

On July 9, 2020, Talkspirit and Flexjob hosted a webinar titled « Better Information Sharing for Better Decision-Making ».

Three speakers shared their experience:

• Philippe Pinault, co-founder and CEO of Talkspirit, an enterprise social network that simplifies information sharing.
• Jean de Maupeou, Partner at Flexjob, a company that helps organizations navigate cultural and organizational transformations.
• Adeline Brenne, Project Leader at Valiuz, a retail alliance (Norauto, Auchan, Boulanger…) focused on deepening customer intelligence.

Let’s look back at the best practices for information sharing, and their impact on decision-making in organizations.

Why Share Information Better?

As Jean de Maupeou reminds us: « Organizations must make decisions that are ever faster and more complex. »

In this context, sharing information more effectively is a key priority that touches on several challenges :

• Make information more accessible: « [With Talkspirit], all information is available and easy to find. » Adeline Brenne
• « Improve the ’attractiveness of the company and make recruitment easier. » Jean de Maupeou
• Pool the organization’s knowledge to « create collective intelligence. » Philippe Pinault
• « Develop cohesion and a sense of belonging. » Philippe Pinault
• Prevent the loss of key information while reducing emails and meetings: « At first, we relied heavily on emails and meetings. But we realized there was a lot of information loss. » Adeline Brenne
• Reduce the number of tools used: « The idea was to centralize everything in one tool, rather than across 10 different ones. » Adeline Brenne
• Facilitate decision-making: « To make the right decisions, you need the right information. » Jean de Maupeou

How to Optimize Information Sharing?

While information sharing is a cornerstone of any internal communication strategy, « a culture of sharing, can’t be decreed — it takes time », says Adeline Brenne. At Valiuz, deploying the enterprise social network Talkspirit enabled « a genuine peer-to-peer sharing culture that simply didn’t exist before ».

But this change didn’t happen overnight. At first, the company started sharing content. Gradually, employees followed: « Before, Valiuz was the one posting content, and the retail brands would comment on it. Today, it’s the brands putting content on the platform, asking each other questions, and making suggestions. » Adeline Brenne

Several groups were created to facilitate information sharing between brands and across functions. For example, there’s « a group for technical topics, where we come to share the changes we want to push ».

Read also: 3 Best Practices for Using Groups to Deploy Your Enterprise Social Network

Another feature proposée par : connecting and : connecter et automating the flow of external information, making it easy for everyone to access.

« When a competitor publishes a blog post or you get a Twitter mention, we know how to connect that information and share it across the entire organization — which accelerates information flow. » Philippe Pinault

At Flexjob, implementing a participatory horizontal structure enabled better information sharing. Employees have access to all the company’s financial data. As Jean de Maupeou explains: « we practice self-determined salaries ».

The Benefits of Better Information Sharing

Sharing information more effectively delivers several bénéfices for the organization and its employees:

• Streamline information flow: « We can easily share meeting notes and make certain decisions using polls. » Adeline Brenne
• Save time: « It saves us an enormous amount of time on certain questions. » Adeline Brenne
• Connect employees: « Asking questions and reacting to posts has become a reflex for most of our colleagues. » Adeline Brenne
• Surface hidden talent: « It enables people who weren’t visible before to be recognized within the organization. » Philippe Pinault

Better Decision-Making

Improving information sharing also leads to better decisions.

As Adeline Brenne highlights, « being in “masked time” allows us to make decisions that are more thoughtful, and perhaps more challenged ».

Moreover, this information transparency accelerates decision-making. « Our decisions are faster to make, faster to implement, and often richer. » Adeline Brenne.

And better decisions also mean more informed decisions.

At Valiuz, marketing sometimes shares campaign results to inform the decisions of other brands. « When a brand shares the results of a campaign, it guides the action plans of other brands. For example, when brands saw that Norauto had a 40% open rate, they changed their action plans to incorporate the best practices that had been shared. » Adeline Brenne

At Flexjob, a system of advice-seeking has been implemented to improve decision-making. « Anyone can make a decision involving between €50 and €500. But they must seek at least 2 or 3 opinions. The person seeking those opinions is the one who makes the final decision. » Jean de Maupeou

Watch the video below to see the replay of the webinar:

Conclusion

In the age of digital transformation, adopting an enterprise social network makes it easier to share and circulate information — fostering more productive teamwork and better decision-making.

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