Replay of the Podcast “CSR: What role for Internal Communication?

“The key to internal communication is to listen before you communicate,” Marion Phillips.

September 26th was the opening day of the second edition of Vibration Week, organised by the media Nouvelles Voix. A week marked by 7 live podcasts dedicated to internal communication. On this occasion, Laetitia Sartoris, Associate Managing Director at LinkUp, spoke on one of these podcasts on the issue of “Corporate Social Responsibility: what role for Internal Communication?”, alongside Marion Phillips, Director of Sustainability at Evaneos, and Hélène Piverd, CSR Manager at Mapa-Spontex. Moderated by Judith Rozenblum, CSR Journalist at Nouvelles Voix.

“Engaging all employees is key to ensuring the transformation of the company in the most sustainable way possible”, Laetitia Sartoris.

To do this, there is a real need to mobilise internally and to communicate, for two reasons:

• Each person in a company will have a role to play at his or her level to make CSR active. It is important that everyone feels they are part of this project.
• To let people know and make them proud of a common project by showing them that they are all useful.

“In every company, CSR is not an ivory tower, you don’t work alone”, Hélène Piverd.

After understanding the issues and the approach, each department implements all the projects and objectives defined by the CSR unit, to varying degrees. This empowerment phase is essential before you can get your audience on board, Laetitia reminds us. There are 3 steps to this:

• I know: Getting to the point where every employee feels they know and can talk about the company’s commitment, while at the same time being able to raise awareness and train employees at different levels.
• I take action: The company must try to make the various employees actors.
• I contribute : How to bring new and innovative solutions to the business project?

“Silo management is no longer relevant”, Judith Rozenblum.

To achieve this goal, some employees may be more difficult to reach because they are reluctant to change. Hélène’s inspiration at Mapa-Spontex was to appoint ambassadors to spread the word to other colleagues. In the same participatory context, Marion at Evaneos trained employees internally for the climate mural in order to make this notion concrete and real for the other employees.

It is with evidence and a structured strategy that CSR operations are put in place and because “What happens on the inside, shows on the outside”, Internal Communication has a major role in creating a robust CSR strategy. This avoids falling into CSR washing.

But what about getting other stakeholders on board and the usefulness of labels in promoting a company? These answers are also included in the replay.

For more than 10 years, LinkUp’s mission has been to help companies and brands build and express their social utility, to make their commitments a lever for performance and to accompany the changes in behavior necessary for a more sustainable world. Would you like to be accompanied? Contact us for more information!