Get all the stakeholders on board! 💥 Isn't that right? the biggest challenge for all communicators ?
Cecile Michard, D
Director of Communications SPIE France – player in energy, digital and industrial transitions – and member of the Club We Are COM, delivers his best practices in employee engagement for global engagement.
An enriching interview, full of lessons, for all communicators who would like to get involved in their projects.
Hello Cécile, to begin with, what definition would you give to brand communication?
A brand lives above all through and for its employees, perhaps even more so in the sector. BtoB, like SPIE France. In a Group specializing in technical services, like ours, it is the women and men who make the company. It is therefore essential to bring the internal team on board, so that each employee can become an ambassador and wear the colours of their brand.
Also, I would say that The role of communication is to strengthen pride of belonging, to inspire and to equip the internal. We are convinced that a communication action cannot engage the external that on condition of having previously embarked the internal.
It is therefore essential to bring the internal team on board, so that each employee can become an ambassador and wear the colours of their brand.
How is the Communications Department of a group present throughout the country organized? How do you guarantee the consistency of your statements?
SPIE France, these are 6 subsidiaries focused on specific strategic markets, 19.000 employees et 12.000 customers. Our Communications Department is organized to mirror this corporate structure. We are a team of 17 communicators, distributed between the headquarters and each of our subsidiaries.
Working in a small team allows for greater agility, sharing and exchanges, but also proximity to operational teams. We are close-knit and communicate very regularly with each other; these are essential elements for the consistency of a brand message.
For you, the role of communication is therefore to bring all the stakeholders on board. Who are they anyway?
As mentioned previously, Our first stakeholder is internal. Our role is to bring employees on board, but also future employees. In a need to renew the workforce, SPIE France recruits between 3.000 and 3.500 new talents each year. Also, we must do everything possible to ensure that all of these stakeholders are able to talk about the brand and communicate its values.
We also wish to inform our customers and potential customers. We must ensure that they are aware of all the expertise of the various SPIE France subsidiaries. To do this, we communicate in the regional and specialist press, among other places.
Finally, one of our key targets is our suppliers, because the products we buy from them must be in line with our decarbonization objective.
Our role is to bring on board employees, but also future employees.
Precisely, you are committed to decarbonization. What CSR actions are you implementing and how do you communicate about them?
Indeed, SPIE France is committed to Report. We have put in place, since 2020, a very ambitious roadmap, a detailed logbook of the actions that we must carry out. Our ambition is twofold: to reduce our carbon footprint, but also to support our customers towards this decarbonization., due to our historical skills in electrical and climate engineering.
At the same time, we have rethought our CSR strategy by carrying out in-depth work in co-construction. From this reflection, six major ambitions have emerged around which we communicate via a series of videos “Proof by SPIE”. In matters of responsibility, only a discourse of proof is legitimate.
Our role as communicators is to promote this CSR strategy to all our stakeholders,provide global visibility on all the actions of our subsidiariesIt is essential to be able to reach all audiences, especially when the subjects are as complex and technical as decarbonization.
In matters of responsibility, only a discourse of proof is legitimate.
Internally, how can we get the group's employees involved in this vast decarbonization project?
To the extent that each employee must be able to talk about decarbonization with their customers, we need to provide them with educational materials and common language elements, in particular through videos, content in motion design…
What concrete actions can be implemented to reduce our impact? What is CSRD? How does SPIE reduce its customers' carbon footprint? It is important that everyone understands the phenomenon of climate change and everything that comes with it.
Training courses are offered online, with SPIE Climate Academy, a platform fun video and quiz program, which raises awareness of the major climate issues. We also invite our employees to train in person, in the field, by creating climate frescoes or by working on practical solutions to address climate change.
Finally, with this objective of awareness and education, managerial communication is essential and supports the actions we take.
And in terms of recruitment, what employer branding strategy do you deploy?
The problem with SPIE France is that the general public knows the brand, without really knowing what we do. Previously, our employer branding strategy was mainly based on internal ambassadorship. Now, We want to review our supports and plan to overhaul this strategy.
With this in mind, we have developed a number of tools and carried out some actions, notably on TikTok where we invited influencers with us to discover our professions. This campaign was a success as it generated more than 4 million views and 35.000 clicks on our recruitment site. Today, our ambition is to go even further in differentiation and generate ever more impressions.
Our ambition is to go even further in differentiation and generate ever more impressions.
In the years to come, what do you think will be the major developments in brand communication?
It seems to me that the future of communication will be focused towards CSR and Generative AIs.
On the one hand, everything related to corporate responsibility will continue to gain momentum. More and more adaptation strategies will emerge and Companies will have to communicate with the greatest transparency on their impacts and their actions. This will most certainly strengthen brand content, by leading communicators to produce content with high added value.
On the other hand, Artificial intelligence is changing and will change our jobs and our ways of working.
Speaking of artificial intelligence, how do you raise awareness and engage internally? Are you integrating AI into your communication strategies?
We are lucky in AI, since one of our subsidiaries – SPIE ICS – is specialized in digital. Also, our IT experts have developed a sovereign generative AI for internal and secure use. In addition, we have access to specialized assistants, to whom we can provide prompts so that they can optimize the results by exploiting the databases in the best possible way.
We are currently rolling out our first test, generating articles for our website, based on pre-existing content. The results are very satisfactory. However, contrary to popular belief, AI can be very time-consuming. It is essential to work upstream to identify the right use cases and obtain an effective result.
Contrary to popular belief, AI can be very time-consuming.
Finally, what advice would you give to We Are COM readers?
Always stay curious! In communication, it is essential to keep a perspective to find innovative ideas. So, try to break down barriers and think outside the box.
Things to know about Cécile Michard
His mantra? Cecile often says: we are smarter together " Indeed, she is convinced that collective intelligence is a wealth, particularly in the world of communication where the opinions of each person bring ideas together.
His favorite medium? All, as a former journalist, Cécile is passionate about the media. For more than 25 years she has been a faithful reader of Le Monde. She also listens to the radio, reads the foreign press and consults the new media of social networks.
Her passion ? Running! Cécile is a running enthusiast and even took part in the Marathon for All during the Paris Olympic Games. She found this experience incredible.
