How to create and animate an internal corporate community?
In private life, we are all (or almost) part of one or more real or virtual communities: the community of parents of students, fans of pizzas or burgers, motorhome owners, members of an association or sports club, etc.
According to Larousse.fr, a community is a “group of people united by ties of interests, common habits, opinions or common characters”. Communities are essential because they allow us to maintain the social connection that we have so lacked during the successive lockdowns. It is also nice to be part of a group of people with whom we share a vision and common points.
At work too, communities are important. Discover why and how to create and manage a community of employees within your company.
Why create an internal community?
Today, more and more organizations are seeing the development of groups of employees who come together around common goals and projects. While, generally, the aim of these groups is to bring together employees with common interests, they also contribute to transforming the company, offering new services and retaining employees who want to give meaning to their work.
Businesses have every interest in encouraging the development of internal communities because the benefits are numerous.
- They reinforce the feeling of belonging to the company.
- They make it possible to retain talent.
- They contribute to improving the employee experience and the quality of life at work.
- They promote the motivation and commitment of employees.
- They encourage them to be more involved in the life and projects of the organization.
- They push them to be creative and innovative, to help each other and to share their knowledge.
- They allow the company to evolve, to solve certain dysfunctions and, more generally, to improve its brand image.
As you will have understood, internal communities (or employee groups) are a significant asset for companies. Now discover how to create and animate one or more communities within your organization.
5 tips for creating and managing a community of employees
Follow these 5 tips to build your internal community.
1. Bringing together interested people
To start, you need to find people who are interested in your project or goal. Don't waste your time trying to convince the recalcitrants. Focus only on bringing together employees who, like you, want to make a difference.
To do this, you can organize events on a specific theme in order to promote meetings and exchanges between employees from different departments. In addition to sharing a friendly moment, it is a great way to develop your network.
You can also use the corporate social network (CSR) to spread a message that explains why you want to create a community and that encourages people who share your vision to come forward.
Then, do not hesitate to contact each person individually in order to discuss your project, their interest and their possible involvement with them. This will allow you to get to know each other and start building relationships.
2. Define the rules
Once you've built up a small core of loyal and motivated people, it's time to bring them together to determine what the main purpose, mission, and purpose of this community is.
This meeting will also make it possible to establish the community manifesto, i.e. all the rules to be respected, the norms and the attitudes to be adopted within the community.
Remember to define how members can communicate with each other (CSR, intranet, creation of a group on the company's instant messaging, etc.) as well as the frequency of each meeting.
3. Organize activities on a regular basis
Physical meetings are very important for developing trust and building strong relationships between members of a community. In order to create a cohesive community, it is essential that members participate together and regularly in various events and activities. These activities should make it possible to strengthen relationships, but above all to achieve the goals of the community as well as the professional (and personal) goals of its members.
In addition, the organization of actions allows the community to be dynamic and to obtain results. As for its members, they share, exchange, develop their creativity and learn new skills. They are therefore active, fulfilled and they feel involved in the community.
Finally, remember to organize events as often as possible to celebrate every small victory or satisfying result, but also the good news and birthdays of your members. These are all opportunities to come together, strengthen relationships and develop a sense of belonging to your community.
4. Launch challenges
To animate your community, you can stimulate competition between its members by launching friendly challenges. For example, if the goal of your community is to make your business greener, propose the challenge “who will manage to halve the consumption of paper in their department? ”.
The aim is to encourage members to participate, get involved and make efforts to achieve the goal set. It is also an excellent way to increase the sense of belonging, motivation and to develop relationships between members of the community, and more generally within the company, since all departments can be affected by these actions.
5. Think about recognition
We keep saying that recognition at work is essential for happy, involved and productive employees. This also applies within a community.
Indeed, to ensure that members remain motivated and invested, it is essential that their efforts and commitment be recognized. Regularly, you should value and highlight the achievements of your members in order to set an example and encourage other members to follow in their footsteps.
To conclude, an internal community is a very good tool to unite your employees and improve certain aspects of your business. But that's not all: it is an enriching experience that allows employees to give meaning to their work, and therefore to be more motivated, involved and productive in their daily tasks.
