How do you streamline communication between a hundred or so employees spread over several sites—all constantly on the move—and who don’t all have a professional email address? To meet these challenges, IM du Bitterois, a major medical imaging operation, decided to replace its internal emails with a modern solution: Talkspirit, the enterprise social network 100% made in France.
IM du Biterrois is an operation specializing in traditional imaging (X-rays, ultrasound, and mammography), heavy imaging (scanners and MRI), and hospice and emergency management.
A few key figures:
- 6 sites in the Biterrois region on the southern coast of France
- 17 associate radiologists and 96 employees total
- 95% weekly active users on Talkspirit
Administrative Director Jean-Baptiste Esclafit oversaw the deployment of Talkspirit across the various sites IM du Biterrois operates. In this interview, he talks about why he chose the platform and how employees use it today.
The goal: better communication with employees without all the internal emails
“When I took up my post in June 2020, communication was mainly by email,” says Jean-Baptiste Esclafit. “However, many employees didn’t have a work email address, and that meant we had to communicate via personal email.”
As a result, there were a number of communication failures, both in terms of day-to-day information (such as schedule changes) and more occasional information (for example, to organize professional interviews or alert them about onsite issues).
To make exchanges among employees more fluid, IM du Biterrois wanted to introduce a more modern tool, replacing internal emails and allowing all employees without a work email to be included.
“Even if I had to implement a new tool, I preferred to use something other than business email, which I found a bit antiquated,” the director adds.
The enterprise social network met all these criteria, and it offered even further possibilities in terms of interaction and information sharing.
Proximity and made in France: two key criteria
At first glance, “two tools seemed to meet our needs: Talkspirit and Slack.” But when it came time to make the final choice, we didn’t flinch.
“What really convinced us to choose Talkspirit was its French DNA and the fact that we could easily get in touch with the team. What’s more, the solution is constantly evolving, which will be a better fit for our future.”
In September 2020, IM du Biterrois adopted its first enterprise social network: Talkspirit.
An easy-to-deploy tool
“We started by testing Talkspirit with the management team. And as soon as we were convinced, we implemented it directly for all radiologists and all employees. We also invited a number of partners and external service providers—including our outsourced IT department—so that we could communicate more easily with them.”
“The tool is very easy to set up. All we had to do was create logins with the staff list. And then we asked our IT department to install the software on the computers at the various sites.” Staff and radiologists can thus use Talkspirit on PC when on site, and on their mobile when remote.
Unrivaled features to streamline exchanges
Publications: for schedule changes
“On a day-to-day basis, Talkspirit is mainly used to share schedule changes.”
“Before, reaching all employees when there were schedule changes was really tricky. Now, all we have to do is publish the change on Talkspirit and push a notification out to the people the schedule change will affect. We can even check whether they’ve seen the post or not. It’s much quicker and more convenient.“
Groups: for daily exchanges and project management
Several groups have been set up to facilitate cross-functional exchanges among all the professions present across the operation’s six sites. “There’s a group for each professional category (like radiology manipulators, stretcher-bearers, medical secretaries, and executives). What’s more, we’ve created a dedicated group for radiologists and another for the social committee.”
“We’ve also set up project groups, for example for the implementation of the reception kiosks. This allows people working on the project to exchange information and documents in one place, without everyone receiving notifications.”
The cloud or “drive”: for storing and sharing documents
“We also use our drive to store and share documents. For example, when a new procedure is introduced, the quality manager copies it to the drive and then announces it in the dedicated group.”
I use the drive to store all executive meeting minutes and agendas, as well as documents related to ongoing projects.”
Events, surveys, and home page: for internal communication
Talkspirit also simplifies the organization of meetings. “I use it to create an event for every management meeting, and for every meeting with external partners. Sometimes I also survey radiologists to get their opinion on certain strategic choices, or simply to choose a meeting time.”
“Important events [such as the arrival of new employees] are announced on the home page. It’s much more practical than before, when we had to print out 15,000 memos, which then had to be posted at each site. Now, our memo wall is just Talkspirit.“
Truly tangible benefits
“Talkspirit allows us to communicate more easily with staff, facilitate project management with radiologists, and just overall streamline the way we work every day.”
“In the past, some employees would come to work when they weren’t supposed to, or vice versa. We’d end up with one employee too many or one employee too few, and we’d just have to deal with that. Now that employees are aware of schedule changes, there are far fewer errors than before. This has enabled us to reduce absences and unjustified overstaffing at the various sites.”
“Since implementing Talkspirit, absenteeism has fallen by 30-35%, and we have reduced scheduling errors by 40-50%,” reveals Jean-Baptiste Esclafit.”
For IM du Biterrois, the results are very positive, both for management and employees.
“Users find the tool intuitive, efficient, and modern. It’s a real revolution they’re delighted about. The proof: 95% of them log on to Talkspirit every week.”
Talkspirit’s take on IM du Biterrois
Fluid exchanges and information sharing are key issues when a team is dispersed over several sites.
Thanks to Talkspirit, staff at IM du Biterrois can communicate much more quickly than before—without excluding colleagues who don’t have professional email addresses.
Accessible via mobile and PC, the tool enables employees and associates to stay informed of schedule changes and important group events wherever they are. They can also play a more active role in the life of the company, reporting problems from the field, and giving their opinion on subjects that concern them directly in the communities dedicated to these exchanges.
In short: Talkspirit is far more practical and inclusive than internal emails!
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