Optimizing Internal Communications in a Public Body: Anah's Experience with Talkspirit

Optimizing internal communications is just as important a challenge for companies as it is for public administrative bodies. That's exactly why Anah (the French National Housing Agency) decided to adopt a collaborative tool. 

Anah is a public administrative body whose mission is to improve the private housing stock. In 2023, it renovated 623,790 homes across France and distributed €3.12 billion in financial aid to local authorities and property owners.

For the past year, the agency has been using Talkspirit to facilitate information sharing and internal communication among its 250 employees. To better understand how they use it, we spoke with Elda Kesaev, Internal Communications Manager at Anah. Here is her experience.

Streamlining internal and external communications

“We previously used a basic intranet tool to share information in a top-down manner.” 

“To improve internal communications, we wanted to implement a more modern tool that would allow top-down, bottom-up, and cross-functional communication”, explains Elda Kesaev.

“The goal was to streamline exchanges between the various departments, but also with our external service providers. We needed a tool that could be used by both internal staff and external parties.

We also wanted to use it for internal engagement and to build team cohesion.”

Made in France: a key criterion for public bodies

To meet its needs, Anah set out to find a new tool.

“As a public administrative body, we are required to use French tools. This is one of the reasons we chose Talkspirit”, says the Internal Communications Manager.

An ambassador network to drive adoption

Adèle Hošek, Head of Customer Experience at Talkspirit, helped Anah deploy the platform during 2023.  She explains the different steps the agency went through.

“Once the platform selection was confirmed, Anah identified ambassadors across the various departments. We conducted 11 interviews with them to help them understand the tool's value and their role as ambassadors.

We asked about their needs, to determine which tools Talkspirit would replace or complement. Based on this audit, we helped Anah configure its platform and create its first groups. 

The platform was first tested by the communications department and IT team, then by the ambassadors. Everyone had the opportunity to share feedback and suggest improvements before the platform was officially rolled out across the entire organization,” says Adèle Hošek.

See also: [Webinar] 6 key steps to boost adoption of your collaborative tools

A platform for…

…communicating

“Today, we use Talkspirit for all our internal communications. Private and small-group communications go through the chat. The news feed, meanwhile, allows us to share communications with a larger audience. 

“Anyone can post information and news on it.” The goal is for every department to share its projects and updates—not just the communications and HR teams. On my end, I regularly post to the news feed using different formats (text, images, or video)”, says Elda Kesaev.

See also: How to involve managers in internal communications?

“Last summer, I asked employees to share their vacation photos with me. I posted one postcard a day on Talkspirit, and employees had to guess where the photo was taken. These posts were very well received!

On our welcome portal, I highlight our key news and practical information, including:

• links to tools used by everyone (leave requests, travel, meetings, etc.),
• a calendar of all our internal events,
• the cafeteria menu,
• and our latest posts.”

…organizing information

Anah created various groups to structure information and streamline internal communications on Talkspirit. For example, there are groups for: 

• sharing information with all employees,
• streamlining communication within each department,
• facilitating exchanges between management committee members and employee representatives,
• highlighting activities organized for Anah employees.

Any employee who wants to create a group must submit a request to the ambassadors. This prevents too many groups from forming and keeps information easy to find.  

…developing and tracking employee engagement

To develop engagement among employees, “we regularly run internal challenges, which we run on Talkspirit. Last year, we took part in the Cycling in May challenge, encouraging employees to cycle as much as possible. Each week, we shared the real-time employee leaderboard on Talkspirit along with motivational messages.

It worked really well, so we plan to repeat the format. We're notably planning a walking challenge and an eco-challenge across the entire agency.”

The group statistics module is particularly useful for tracking employee engagement in each group. “I use it regularly to identify the most liked posts and our top contributors. For example, it showed me that visual posts with photos and videos tend to perform best.

I then share these statistics with my team to create a little friendly competition and encourage everyone to contribute more”, says Elda Kesaev.

…collaborating on projects

Talkspirit isn't only used to optimize internal communications and develop employee engagement. It also serves as a tool for collaborating and showcasing each team's projects. 

“We use it for video conference meetings in small groups, with employees and/or external service providers. We also organize monthly internal webinars, to showcase projects from the various departments. Each session attracts around 80 participants!

Some departments also use the drive to store documents, and the projects module to manage their projects.”

…capturing knowledge

“We recently activated the library module, to bring together all our content, processes, and policies in Talkspirit. You can find our IT policy, our leave request process, and even best practices for writing correspondence”, says the Internal Communications Manager.

The goal is to migrate all content from the old intranet to the library, making it the number-one source of information for employees.

Fewer emails and better internal communications

“The big advantage of Talkspirit is that it reduces the volume of internal emails and makes it much faster to communicate.

It's easy to see who's who and put a face to every colleague. That's exactly why we ask all employees to add their photo to Talkspirit!

Using a platform like this is a great way to optimize internal communications, develop employee engagement, and boost participation in our internal events. I can't imagine how we'd manage without it!”

Conclusion

Internal communications are everyone's business, and Anah understands that! On Talkspirit, every employee can share or comment on a post, regardless of their role in the agency. Rather than simply consuming information, they can actively contribute and share their views—all through a single platform. 

With Talkspirit, the days of juggling internal emails and an intranet are over. Anah employees can now find any information in just one click!

Are you also looking to optimize internal communications for a public administrative body? Click here to request a Talkspirit demo and discover our support services. And to go further, download this practical guide to see how other clients use Talkspirit to boost their internal communications 👇

Access the Practical Guide

In our practical guide “10 initiatives from our clients to improve internal communications”, you will discover: examples of companies using Talkspirit to optimize their internal communications, plus tips and advice for better information sharing and strengthening cohesion in your organization.

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