Public services play an essential role in our societies, they are at the service of the collective well-being. But how is communication at the service of these institutions? 📣 How to make information accessible to everyone, across the country? What actions should be put in place to provide collective solutions and tailored solutions?
Who better than Estelle Denize, director of communication and general secretary of the Urssaf board of directors, to answer the questions of the We Are COM team? 🤓 In this more than inspiring interview, this public communication expert reveals the negative side to usa positive impact strategy. 🎯
Hi Estelle, to start we would like to know your definition of public communication?
Public communication is at the service of the general interest. Before any of our communication actions, we ask ourselves the question of the positive impact, of the benefit on the community.
The Urssaf is best known for its royal mission. We collect social security contributions to finance our social protection model. Also, too, the primary purpose of our communication is to make our services known. It must be accessible to all and provide the same information throughout the territory.
Today our ambition is to support self-entrepreneurs, this population that is growing at an incredible speed. The range of profiles of these self-entrepreneurs is so vast that we have to offer them tailor-made support, personalized services based on their needs.
Before any of our communication actions, we ask ourselves the question of the positive impact, of the benefit on the community.
In Urssaf you favor co-construction between users and collaborators. What co-construction mechanisms are you implementing?
We have been promoting co-construction for several years. We are convinced that only by taking into account the opinion of our users will we be able to respond in the most effective way to their expectations.
This logic led us to the launch “The great dialogue of the Urssaf”, to jointly define the main guidelines of our Cog (Objectives and Management Agreement), a roadmap signed with the State for over 5 years. It was through the make.org platform that we approached our 11 million users with this question: “ How can Urssaf’s support and services be improved for its users? »
To our great surprise and to our greatest pleasure, this operation was generated more than 1.2 million votes and gave rise more than 10,000 proposals. A real success, as users have praised the quality of the effort. Finally, the collected proposals were reworked and re-proposed, before being integrated into our Cog.
More concretely, this dialogue has allowed us to better understand our users, their needs and their expectations. For example, it has emerged that self-employed workers and self-entrepreneurs often feel helpless in their efforts after the registration stage. Based on this observation, we created the service “My first months with Urssaf”, a site dedicated to initial support. We make every effort to ensure that users no longer lose their rights due to lack of information.
Specifically, how will you communicate around this convention, with your stakeholders, until 2027?
Externally we do not communicate our agreement directly, but rather the resulting actions. Our anti-fraud plan, for example, was recently championed by Minister Gabriel Attal.
Internally, this is a real lever for transformation. Our operations are vast, we organize tours, develop materials, provide employees with turnkey kits, etc. This agreement, contributing fully to the common culture of the company, must necessarily be understood by all of our 16,000 employees. Everyone must benefit from the same level of information to collectively project themselves into this action plan.
Equality at work, professional integration, energy sobriety… Urssaf is committed. How do we talk about CSR issues? Do you have any projects to share with us?
As a public service, we need to ensure that we have a positive impact. We must be exemplary in terms of CSR.
This commitment is primarily reflected in the our missions. The contributions we collect are entirely reinvested: we have a trading room and issue on the stock exchange. Furthermore, our operations fall within the scope of responsible investment according to ESG (environmental, social and governance) criteria.
Our commitments are also reflected in our specific actions to some of our viewers. In 2023 we wanted to pay particular attention to younger female entrepreneurs.
Regard THE environmental problemsour goal is to reduce the energy consumption of all our real estate assets, spread throughout the territory, by 15%.
Finally, we are also committed internally to employee welfare. Our human resources policy promotes the reconciliation of personal life and professional life: teleworking, sick leave, etc. More recently, we instituted a “soft mobility” bonus to encourage the use of bicycles and other non-polluting modes of transport.
In a logic of transparency you have developed the site “What are contributions for?” How do you assess the usefulness of the Urssaf, an institution whose actions sometimes remain unknown to the general public?
It is more a pedagogical logic than a logic of transparency. Transparency, we already have it. We must now explain to our users, in a very concrete way, what our missions are.
The Web site “What are quotas for? », allows you to follow the path of the contributions, in real time. At the same time, this platform reminds us that we participate in the global financing of social protection. Without Urssaf, no social protection in France!
We have to explain to our users, in a very concrete way, what our missions are.
You also communicate with the young target. How to reach this particular audience, especially on social networks?
In fact, the young target is a target that is particularly close to our hearts. in the first place, Keeping them informed about the functioning of the system contributes to their initiation into citizenship and facilitates their procedures. On the other hand, making them aware of the statement prepares them to enter the world of work, especially as regards summer jobs, which too often are still paid “in the black”. Although, with the recent debates related to pensions, many of them have realized the importance of properly disclosing all their assets.
Together with the Les Déterminés association, we also support young people in their self-entrepreneurial projects. For greater visibility on our actions (mentoring, masterclasses, etc.), we have created le compte TikTok #jegeremaboite, an account that provides young people with practical advice and advice, through their codes. The goal is above all to diminish their relationship with the USSR.
Finally we communicate with the young target in recruitment perspective. For example, we were pleasantly surprised to see how successful our work-study campaign launched on Snapchat.
The goal is above all to diminish their relationship with the USSR.
This year Urssaf won the Gold Prize in the “Corporate Annual Report System” category at the TopCom Corporate Business Prize. What do you think are the essential ingredients for a successful annual report?
The annual reports serve many interests, but are never read. Also, too, our main challenge was to make it attractive, to encourage reading. For this reason, in collaboration with the CLAI agency and the Vaadigm studio, we have decided to break the codes and produce this annual report in a more original way. More graphic and more colorful, this one took over the magazine codes and worked. Personally I am very proud of it. This shows that the Urssaf can adopt playful communication. 😊
In your opinion Estelle what will be the challenges and changes in communication in the years to come?
Without great originality, it seems to me that artificial intelligence will occupy an extremely crucial place in the future of communication. How will it transform our professions? How to seize it opportunistically? Maybe we will fantasize or maybe it will help us communicate better? However we have no choice, we have to get used to it. We can’t just watch the train go by.
I add that the question of the usefulness of the communication will be fundamental, in the years to come. More than ever we will have to communicate less but better, in a more responsible way. COM should no longer be anecdotal, but truly carry messages. Also, perhaps artificial intelligence will accompany us in this transformation, allowing us to reduce our communications thanks to better targeting.
The COM should no longer be anecdotal, but convey concrete messages.
Finally, what advice would you give to communicators, readers of We Are COM, to brush up on a brand identity?
Without hesitation, work well on the brand platform! Indeed, everyone knows about the Urssaf. But does the image we have of ourselves correspond to who we really are?
We wanted to establish this common identity by creating a brand platform, again with the CLAI agency. The brand platform is an essential prerequisite for any identity work, an exercise that requires consideration by all stakeholders. Once the principles of identity have been firmly defined, all that remains is to deploy them coherently, internally and externally.
3 things to know about Estelle Denize
Are they mantras? “Always have fun in life”. Estelle is convinced that you always need to find a way to do things while having fun, both in the private and professional spheres. “When you’re having fun, it shows,” she says.
Your favorite communication campaign? The Benetton ads, produced by Toscani, that were on his T-shirts and on his bedroom walls. Estelle is also a fan of Urssaf’s latest youth campaign, with her striking graphic bias.
Do you have passions? public things. Before entering the world of communication, you worked in politics. Today and for 12 years he has been president of the Hors la Rue Association, committed to the protection of unaccompanied minors in danger.
