In a context where social and environmental issues have become priorities for companies, it is essential to place the commitment of employees. at the heart of its strategy and culture. A CSR approach can only be fully successful if it mobilizes all the organization's stakeholders, starting with those who make it up!

The commitment of employees, that is to say all the actions of the teams in favor of sustainable development goals and the general interest (ecological awareness, missions in associations, etc.), is a necessity. Businesses must make this a priority and create an environment conducive to the success of this approach.

Once the framework of its engagement policy has been established, comes the animation of its a commitment process to make it live continuously, all year round. So how do you go about it?

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Create and animate a community of CSR ambassadors

Your employees are the best ambassadors of your commitment process! It is therefore essential to involve the most active and most involved employees so that they can support you in making your approach a reality: organization of actions, communication with their colleagues, etc.

81% of companies consider it essential to have networks of CSR ambassadors in order to deploy and animate their approach (Of Issues and Men, 2018).

Here are some tips to enable you to lead your engagement process through ambassadors.

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How to identify potential ambassadors?

The ambassadors of your CSR approach are employees who are motivated to get involved in this approach. But identifying them is not necessarily easy! Here are our tips for identifying your potential ambassadors:

• Organize a first action, regardless of its nature : a discussion about CSR, a mission with an association... The people who volunteer directly will probably be particularly committed employees.
• Call for volunteers directly, for example through a questionnaire. This will make it possible to identify motivated people!
• Relying on managers or HR : they probably know people on their teams who could become ambassadors!

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How do you form a diverse group of ambassadors?

It is one of the keys to the success of your ambassador approach: to have people with diverse profiles. In particular, this will allow all of your teams to identify with these ambassadors! In particular, we advise you to have people:

• Located on your various sites
• Working in various departments and trades
• With different levels of hierarchy, seniority and ages

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How do you create a community of ambassadors?

Your ambassadors will be your allies in mobilizing your teams. And to get them on board with you, what better way than to allow them to meet and exchange easily?

Some ideas for creating your ambassador community:

• Create a Slack/Teams chat Which is dedicated to them
• Organize regular appointments (monthly for example) with all the ambassadors
• Valuing the commitment of ambassadors by making them visible to the entire company

Good to know: Komeet helps you create a community of ambassadors, starting from scratch.

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What framework should be established to empower its ambassadors?

Commitment is not the main mission of your ambassadors. So to ensure their involvement, it is essential to create a motivating and empowering framework! Some ideas for actions to motivate your ambassadors:

• Dedicate time to ambassadors so they can get involved. It's up to you to define what the right dosage will be: one day per month, a few hours per quarter, ten days per year...
• Allow them to have concrete goals (for example semi-annual): number of committed colleagues, number of organized actions... Some companies even offer rewards or bonuses for ambassadors who achieve their goals.
• Validate this framework with HR and managers so that the whole company is well aligned with this policy. This will make it possible to formalize the role of ambassadors and therefore to enhance it!

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Organize CSR highlights to animate your commitment process all year round

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What is a CSR highlight?

One CSR highlight, it is a key moment in the year to create a collective momentum to mobilize its employees around an important theme for its company.

Concretely, a highlight is:

• An important internal event during which several activities are offered to its teams, in order to allow as many employees as possible to get involved
• A key engagement theme or of general interest, which can rely on the calendar and the chestnut trees
• A limited time, between a week and a month, to focus your efforts on a given period

CSR highlights can focus on: different themes, such as: disability, diversity and inclusion, gender equality, gender and sexual violence, the environment... And rely on key events on the CSR calendar, for example:

• World Education Day: January 24
• Earth Day: April 22
• Or even Pride month in June

Various concrete actions can be organized during a specific period of time:

• Awareness-raising events : solidarity races, online challenges...
• Internal activities: Film debate, fundraiser, breakfast discussion...
• Solidarity actions with associations: marauding or meal distribution, mentoring, support...
• Awareness-raising content to share with employees, in the form of articles, videos, podcasts...

Learn more

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CSR highlights are the assurance of mobilizing your teams massively around a key theme, since they allow:

• To avoid over-solicitation by limiting communication to a few selected times
• To be more effective by focusing your efforts on the most impacting actions
• To create a real collective and united momentum
• To event engagement and create a real dynamic of mobilization

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How to organize a CSR highlight?

Here are some best practices for organizing high-impact events:

1. Choose your highlights carefully, based on the priority themes of your CSR strategy, by conducting a survey of your employees to find out their real interests and by using the annual CSR calendar. You can find it in our CSR Highlights Guide.
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2. Plan a high time schedule that contains actions in various formats. The objective of a highlight is to involve as many employees as possible: it is therefore necessary to offer them a variety of actions, to meet the needs, desires and possibilities of each one! These can be both collective and individual actions, in person and remotely, short or longer...
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3. Rely on your ambassadors to organize your CSR highlights. In particular, you can ask them for their opinion on the proposed actions, give them exclusive information, offer them to participate in the communication around the highlight...
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4. Communicate in an impacting way on the highlights to create enthusiasm. To do this, rely on good timing (an announcement one month before for example and regular reminders), on quality content (context, program...), and on various communication formats (emails, Slack/Teams, displays, meetings...)
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5. Prevent and involve managers and management. For example, you can start your highlight with a speech from your managers: this will make it possible to show from the beginning the importance of this event for the company and to mobilize more employees.
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6. Organize a closing event of the highlight to highlight the commitments of your employees (photos, videos, speeches, etc.) and celebrate the impact generated.

Namely: Komeet helps you create CSR highlights, from A to Z.

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Communicate internally and externally on your commitment process

Animating your engagement process also requires, of course, regular and effective communication. It is also the frequency and impact of this communication (internal and external) that makes it possible to identify whether the commitment is integrated into the company culture !

Here are some ideas for communicating effectively about the process of engaging your employees.

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What messages should you communicate about your engagement policy, internally and externally?

The first question to ask yourself is indeed: what are the right messages to get across?

The answer obviously depends on the objectives and intentions of your engagement process. But here are a few tips:

• Communicate about the launch of your engagement policy
• Talk about engagement initiatives of your employees and the impact generated
• Valuing committed employees and ambassadors
• Highlight the people or organizations benefiting from your commitments

And of course, there is no question of greenwashing or socializing. We therefore recommend that you do not overdo it: it is better to focus on transparency, by being honest about the actions taken and the real impact generated.

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How to communicate internally about your engagement policy?

A commitment process without internal communication cannot really exist. It is of course necessary to communicate to all teams about your engagement policy.

For this to be effective and impacting, here are several ways:

• Ritualize the moments of communication about commitment. It's up to you to find the pace that best fits your business: every quarter, annually... This will create a regular appointment and will contribute to integrating engagement into the corporate culture.
• Integrate engagement communications into key moments in the life of the company : when onboarding new employees, during annual interviews or seminars...
• Rely on your ambassadors to communicate very widely. That's what they're especially there for!
• Involve managers in your communications. We saw it: they are key people to have by your side to get the right messages across.
• Diversifying your communication channels. Display, email, messaging, meetings...

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How to communicate externally about your engagement policy?

Are you in a process of mobilizing your teams? You can be proud of it! Talking about it externally is a great way to demonstrate your commitments and improve your brand image or your attractiveness to candidates.

• Use your preferred communication channels. CSR report, LinkedIn, Instagram, newsletter... It depends on your habits!
• Show concretely how your teams are committed. This can involve photos or videos, key figures, testimonies...
• Don't overdo it. To avoid greenwashing and sociwashing, it is essential to be transparent and honest about the actions taken.

To go further: How to maximize the commitment of your employees?

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Setting up an employee engagement policy: our support to help you step by step

Thanks to our platform, our experts and our cultural change methodology, we can help you in the implementation and success of your engagement process.

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Do you want to bring your CSR commitments to life?

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