SPIE rolls out its employee advocacy programme #WeAreSPIE

Cergy, March 5, 2020 – SPIE, the independent European leader in multi-technical services in the areas of energy and communications is rolling out its new employee advocacy programme. It’s an initiative aimed at greatly increasing its employees’ engagement as ambassadors for the Group on Twitter and LinkedIn. An interview with Pascal Omnès, Group Communications Director for SPIE.

Why did you launch this employee advocacy programme?

Pascal Omnès, Group Communications Director for SPIE: For one very simple reason: our employees are the best ambassadors. These days, it's not enough to focus solely on a company’s own means of communication to build up or reinforce a brand and its reputation, all the more so in this age of social media. With this in mind, the idea of the #WeAreSPIE program natural fit with our social networking strategy. By increasing our employees' engagement as SPIE ambassadors on Twitter and Linkedin, #WeAreSPIE aims to develop the company's e-reputation, cultivate our pride in belonging and nourish the brand with authentic individual experiences in line with our business lines and social commitments. Who better than SPIE's employees to embody and bring to life its position as European leader in the energy and digital transition?

How did you set up this programme?

Pascal Omnès: We began by introducing a 6 months pilot phase, from June to November 2019, with 100 employees from 6 different countries who volunteered to take part. They came from very varied backgrounds: Executive Committee members, marketing managers and users already active on social media. All received specific training and special tools to support them (best practice guide, ambassador’s kit and an intranet page on employee advocacy). Following that stage, our ambassadors immediately went into action on their new assignment: publishing posts we suggested through the Hootsuite Amplify app and suggesting articles to us. For our part, we also reposted ambassadors’ posts and opinion pieces.

Was this “test” conclusive? What is the next step of this programme?

Pascal Omnès: The operation was a real success. Between June and November 2019, there were 1,200 posts suggested to ambassadors and written in 3 languages, generating 9,600 clicks and they were shared 3,100 times. They reached a total of 3.2 million people.

beyond these figures, which are much higher than the objectives we had set ourselves, almost all of our ambassadors told us of their satisfaction regarding two points in particular: access to posts relevant to their activities, and a greater ability to establish contacts, not just within the Group, but above all with applicants and customers.

These very positive results from the pilot naturally lead us to extend the programme in 2020 and to set new objectives: recruiting 100 additional ambassadors, suggesting content for them to share twice a week, and even involving the subsidiaries in producing content. These objectives also meet our ambassadors’ expectations as they want to have more content to share, in particular about the activities of the Group and the different subsidiaries.

Lastly, the development of a rewards programme for the best ambassadors is planned for 2020: the highest performing ambassadors have already seen their commitment recognised by a donation from SPIE, on their behalf, to the Électriciens sans frontières (Electricians Without Borders) organisation, which works to combat inequality in access to electricity and water throughout the world.