When I joined Innate Pharma as a communication manager, I was mainly focused on external, financial and corporate communication topics. Internal communication was more the responsibility of the Human Resources and the Works Council, and I provided support upon request. With the fast-growing number of employees, and some of the teams relocated on a second site, new challenges have emerged. The internal study conducted at the end of 2017 made that obvious. We perceived that there was a real need to formalize things and structure internal communication actions.
We asked employees what they expected, what information they were interested in, what they thought they needed to work better.
Almost all of them responded to the survey and two main themes emerged: employees want to have a clear vision of the company's strategy, current developments and medium-term projects; whether they are scientists or not, they also want to acquire more scientific knowledge in Innate Pharma's fields of research: advances in immunology, new technologies, regulatory issues... they want to increase their openness.
At the same time, employees appreciate fellowship occasions, events that bring people together... it is thanks in particular to the strong commitment of the Works Council for many years. Members are very committed to their mission, and this is a widely recognized point.
We therefore used these feedbacks to set up an internal communication plan with regular meetings.
As our workforce is growing rapidly and there are many newcomers, we have favored formats that encourage meetings, such as thematic forums and business round tables, which are very successful. We have also set up an internal newsletter that allows us to deal with internal news and to talk about the life and development of the company with a focus on teams and employees. This new tool is popular and we plan to develop it. And of course, we continued to organize internal events to promote conviviality, create moments of sharing and thank our employees. Two recent events made a particular impact: in 2018, we organized an internal seminar to mark the signing of the agreement with AstraZeneca and in September 2019, we celebrated the company's 20th anniversary; an opportunity to bring all employees together for a day of teambuilding activities and friendly moments that ended with a great gala evening!
Mathilde, Communication Manager, at Innate Pharma since 2015