Managing an HRIS User Community with Talkspirit: The Smart RH Club Story

To engage a user community, clarifying its added value is not enough. You also need to put the right tool in place to deliver that value. The Smart RH Club understood this tooling challenge very well. Like many organisations, the association first tried to keep its user community alive through email exchanges. But very quickly, the limits became clear: messages that were hard to read, saturated inboxes, information getting lost… Faced with these issues, the club decided to roll out a tool dedicated to community engagement: Talkspirit. 

The Smart RH Club is the user club of the Teams Paie HRIS solution, published by Cegedim. Any company using the software can join the club on a voluntary basis. Founded in 2012, the club has around 60 members, who work in SMEs as well as in major French companies such as Fleury Michon, Adecco, la Fnac, Célio and Crédit Agricole. 

In 2023, the association chose the Talkspirit platform to streamline exchanges between its members and engage its user community. To better understand the benefits of this approach and the key role played by the platform, we spoke with Julien Calatayud, President and Treasurer of the Smart RH Club, and HRIS Project Manager at THOM, a leading jewellery distribution company in Europe. Here is his feedback.

Centralizing Exchanges: A Prerequisite for Effective Community Engagement

"When I joined the Smart RH Club two years ago, members communicated with each other only by email," recalls Julien Calatayud. "It was quite painful, because as soon as a member asked a question, they automatically wrote to everyone, and that quickly cluttered up inboxes. This way of working also became complicated when we had to organise our annual seminar. Every time we  wanted to poll participants or share information, we received emails flying in from all directions.

This very issue came up during one of our seminars. Members raised the need to put a communication tool in place to streamline exchanges and document sharing. That is when we started looking into the tools available, and that is how we came across Talkspirit," explains the club's President.

Read also: Putting an end to internal emails with Talkspirit: the IM du Biterrois story

Security and Ease of Use: Key Criteria for the Smart RH Club

"We were immediately won over by the ease of use and the interactivity of the platform, which works a bit like a social network. The features on offer, in particular the chat, the newsfeed and the drive, matched exactly what our users had asked for. 

Another decisive criterion was security. We needed a tool that met the requirements of the large companies that make up the user community. Talkspirit, as a European platform, ticks every box when it comes to data security. That is why we chose it over American solutions such as Google Workspace or Zoom," says Julien Calatayud.

A Rollout Completed in Under a Month

"We started rolling out Talkspirit in September 2023. It all happened very quickly: less than a month after the first demo, the tool was already up and running! 

Once the budget was approved, we informed all our members by email and sent them an invitation to create their account on Talkspirit. Shortly afterwards, we held a meeting to present the platform and its various features.

The real plus of Talkspirit is that it is incredibly intuitive. That allowed members to make the tool their own very quickly, and without us needing to organise any training sessions," says Julien Calatayud.

"What is more, when we present the platform to future members, you can feel their enthusiasm straight away. Since we rolled out the tool, we have almost doubled our number of members. I am convinced that Talkspirit has a lot to do with it!"

Benefits Recognized by Everyone

"Talkspirit allows us to have smooth exchanges, centralise information on a single channel, stay connected together, and save time. Here is how we make the most of these benefits."

Information Shared in a Targeted Way 

"On a day-to-day basis, we mainly use the chat and the newsfeed to engage the user community. We have a general group that lets us communicate with all the members, and a set of topic-based groups to share more targeted information, linked to the different modules of our payroll software. 

For example, we created groups to discuss HR, payroll and time and activity management (GTA) matters. We also have groups dedicated to the board members, to club life, and to organising our annual seminar. That way, information about the seminar only goes to the members who have signed up for it, and we do not clutter up the others with news that does not concern them."

A Forum to Encourage Peer Support Between Members

"Of course, Talkspirit is not only there to push information down. The platform also helps encourage exchanges and knowledge sharing between members.

Whenever a member has a question about using the HRIS or runs into a problem, they can use Talkspirit to ask for help or for useful information, either by sending a message in the chat or by publishing a post in the newsfeed. They can also contact other users directly through the directory, which brings together the contact details of every member. Talkspirit therefore acts both as a forum and as a platform for connecting the members of the user club.  

What I really like about the tool is that you can turn published posts into a newsletter. That way we can email a summary of the information shared on Talkspirit, to make sure everyone reads it," adds the club's President and Treasurer.

A Tool That Streamlines Seminar Organisation

"On top of the chat, we make heavy use of the shared drive and the polls, in particular to organise our annual seminar. It lets us identify who will be there, track the tasks to be done, share relevant documents with participants, and run a satisfaction survey once the seminar is over," explains Julien Calatayud.

Tips for a Successful Talkspirit Deployment

"If you are thinking about deploying a platform like Talkspirit, my advice would be: 

• to identify upfront the different groups you want to create, 
• to create a usage charter that clarifies what you can and cannot do on the platform,
• and to encourage the use of the apps for mobile and desktop. 

That is what we have tried to do as far as possible, and the results are really there. Our user community is delighted to use Talkspirit, so we hope the collaboration will carry on for a long time to come!" says a delighted Julien Calatayud.

"We cannot wait to see the platform evolve and to carry on testing the new features. For my part, I am planning to look into creating a home page, so as to centralise the club's news," he adds.

To Conclude

To engage a user community, emails are not enough. You need a tool to centralise exchanges, share information with the right person, and encourage peer support. Talkspirit lets you do all that and much more! And all on a secure platform, GDPR-compliant and ISO 27001 certified. Want to find out more? Do as the Smart RH Club did: book your demo right now 👇