Managing Internal Communication in an Association with Talkspirit: The ARSL Story
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Growing a network without effective internal communication? Impossible! And the ARSL knows it.
What is ARSL? It stands for the Association pour la Réinsertion Sociale du Limousin (ARSL), founded in 1961 and based in Limoges. It works daily to combat exclusion in all its forms, from homeless people to victims of domestic violence. In numbers, ARSL is:
- Around 5,000 people supported every year,
- More than 120 employees,
- A large community of partners,
- 30 centres across France (mainland and overseas).
As part of its mission to coordinate nationally the 30 centres for perpetrators of domestic violence (CPCA), ARSL chose Talkspirit as its internal communication tool to facilitate coordination among its various stakeholders.
For Charlotte Besseau, project officer and platform administrator for Talkspirit, internal communication plays a central role within her network.
In this article, she explains how Talkspirit helps strengthen the ties between members and facilitates information sharing.
The challenge: facilitating collaboration
Before Talkspirit, the day-to-day reality of this national coordination mission was completely different: there was simply no tool at all.
The centres for perpetrators of domestic violence are a recent programme. The association quickly felt the need for an internal communication tool to fulfil the government-assigned mission, and ensure effective coordination between the various entities…
In 2021, they decided to establish greater coordination between the centres. Charlotte Besseau explains that “one of the objectives was to put in place a tool to work together, share best practices and collaborate”.
Choosing a tool that is easy to deploy and use
How did they solve this challenge? Here is how ARSL found the ideal solution to meet its needs.
Step one: testing. Charlotte Besseau shares: “we had a demo and the choice was quick, because the Talkspirit tool really met our expectations.”
Step two: selection and experimentation. According to Charlotte, Talkspirit offered several notable advantages:
- “The ease of sharing information is really significant.”
- “A significant reduction in the number of emails landing in everyone’s inboxes every day.”
- “A communication that also lets us be very responsive. For example, between us we use the chat and it is very fast! We don't have to be as formal as in emails. We can ask a question very quickly or just check whether the person we want to reach is available.”
- “And the file collaboration feature deserves a mention too! For us, being able to work together on the same document simultaneously is very important.”
Overall, according to Charlotte, Talkspirit is the IDEAL tool for internal communication in associations.
What is it like working with Talkspirit?
Managing an internal communication platform for an association is a team effort! On the Talkspirit platform, roles matter. There are:
- users: members of the platform.
- managers: members with settings rights over a specific feature (group, drive, newsfeed, etc.).
- administrators: members of the platform with additional administration permissions.
As administrator, Charlotte Besseau is “assigned to all groups”. But she is not the only one: the managing director, the association's president and two of her colleagues are also administrators. “We made this choice to make access easier, for example in case of absence”, she explains.
The importance of change management for user adoption
To train users on Talkspirit, Charlotte “ran one-hour training sessions with all users.”
Following these sessions, Charlotte remains the go-to person for the platform. She says: “ I am always on hand whenever there is a question or some people need more training on the tool. For example, it has happened that users confused their personal drive with a group drive. In that case, we refine everyone's knowledge and skills on the tool little by little.”
A clear objective: improving communication among all stakeholders
ARSL’s use case is (unsurprisingly) communication among all the association’s stakeholders. According to Charlotte, this translates into “a lot of information sharing, document sharing, news, group work, etc.” And to structure these exchanges, the solution is to create groups!
“Talkspirit acts as our “server”. As I said, there are 30 centres run by 30 different organisations. These are associations which, in some cases, don't necessarily have the means to run a highly developed IT department. So this tool lets us exchange information with the institutional stakeholders who have access to the platform.”
Two types of groups have been created on Talkspirit:
- “Public groups are used to pass on general information. We share the information and all users can help run these groups. For example, they can add documents, share information on the topic concerned, etc.”
- “Private groups are used for working groups or more closed bodies. They make it possible to restrict access to the documents stored on the group drives.”
A typical day with Talkspirit in an association
“I use it every day! On my computer, Talkspirit opens automatically as soon as I switch it on. I have turned on notifications for everything that happens on the platform, so I am always up to date. For example, I know when a document is uploaded to a group drive or when I receive a message via the chat.”
“I would say it is a tool that stays on watch throughout the day. The advantage is that it gives us visibility over what is happening across the 30 centres too! Since we don't actually see everything that happens on the ground, users can pass information on to us through the platform. We receive it almost instantly because we always keep the tool open on the computer. So depending on what we are doing, we can look at the information straight away or a little later.”
Their ambition: further rollouts!
The future of ARSL, according to Charlotte Besseau, involves:
- “Minimising internal emails and communicating with the network solely through the Talkspirit tool.”
- “Rolling out the platform to our centres' local “branches”! We need to open it up to around a hundred people soon.”
- “Setting up new training sessions for new users.”
Conclusion
What should we take away from this interview? To ensure good communication across the CPCA network, it pays to be well equipped! 👍 As Charlotte Besseau of ARSL has shown, choosing Talkspirit helps facilitate coordination between the centres and streamline their exchanges.
Having started with Talkspirit in 2021, ARSL now plans to grow its already dynamic community further with new rollouts on the horizon. It is a great story that continues with our platform delivering value to its users!
Want to discover more customer stories about internal communication? Find out in our practical guide how 10 of our clients energised their internal communication with Talkspirit! 🚀
Access the practical guide
In our practical guide “10 Client Initiatives to Improve Internal Communication”, you will discover best practices for improving your internal communication, examples of initiatives put in place by our clients across all sectors, and concrete tips and tools to implement to energise your internal communication.
